Since a long time, Turkey is making negative headlines by prosecuting people who think differently or who are seen as terrorists in Turkey. Especially Germans with Turkish backgrounds are under the victims.

The most popular case would be Deniz Yücel, who is a critic of president Erdogan. He was arrested in June 2015 for asking critical questions at a press conference. The police said they just wanted to check his identity and he was released after an hour. In December 2016 he was arrested again for hacking into Erdogans email account to support the Kurdish terror organisation PKK. He was imprisoned for over one year and came free in summer 2018.

Now the German broadcaster ZDF has reported about another case Gönül Örs. Gönül Örs was born in Turkey but raised in Cologne (Germany). According to ZDF, in 2012 she and 52 others protested on a ship for more freedom and equal rights for Kurds. The police finished the protest and classifield him as harmless but there was a report on trespassing.

Although the investigation in Germany was terminated, in Turkey they were not. In one official document they addressed her as a Kurdish terrorist and arrested her in May 2019, when she was visiting her family in Turkey.

Irene Mihalic (spokesperson for domestic policy) speaks out clearly how dangerous it would be to pass on information if it were to be misused by Turkish politics to its advantage. The Turkish minister for interior announced that people who take part in “terroristic rallies” in Europe will be stopped and arrested when entering Turkey.

After over half a year imprisoned, Örs was send to her cousin in Istanbul, where she is now grounded. She is not allowed to leave the flat and has to wear an electronic anklet. Visitors are also not permitted.

In an interview  Örs admitted that she has depression and is not able to sleep without her pills. Her income and some friends are already gone. In an interview with ZDF, she describes her situation as followed: “Very slowly my dreams are moving away from me. My life in moving away from me and I can only sit and watch and can´t do anything about it”.

The German ministry for interior is silent about how the Turkish police got the information. “It is not acceptable that an unjust state, as Turkey is in my eyes at the moment, receive information from our security authorities, in order to be able to arrest Kurds or left- wing Turks, who might enter the country”, outraged the politician Ulla Jelpke (FDP).