European Politics

bearfan said:
http://www.politico.eu/article/german-comedian-jan-bohmermanunder-investigation-for-mocking-erdogan/

It's a poem!

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BERLIN – A comedian who recited a defamatory poem about Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on German television is under criminal investigation along with his program directors, a German prosecutor said Thursday.

Jan Böhmermann called the Turkish president a “pervert,” “zoophile,” and a “goat-f—-er” in a poem read during the March 31 edition of his weekly late-night show “Neo Magazin Royale,” broadcast by German public broadcaster ZDF.

The ZDF program comes two weeks after another German public television network, NDR, aired a satirical song mocking the Turkish president’s authoritarian style, which triggered a diplomatic spat between Ankara and Berlin. Turkish authorities protested with the Germans and demanded they delete the video posted on NDR’s website.

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According to legal experts, it’s possible that only once this is done, and after the investigation is completed, could authorities charge Böhmermann and other ZDF staff with “defaming a representative of a foreign state.”

If convicted, they could face up to five years in jail.

Merkel told Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu in a phone call Sunday that the poem was “intentionally offensive,” her spokesperson confirmed on Wednesday.

That same day, an internal review at the German foreign ministry concluded that a judicial investigation of the recent program is likely. However, Sawsan Chebli, a spokesperson for the foreign ministry, insisted that investigating the events does not imply that Böhmermann and the program directors had committed a crime.
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So this is starting to become a serious issue now:

World stunned by revelation that Germany has a comedian

Angela Merkel allowing the prosecution of a comedian has alerted the world to Germany claiming to have a comedian.


They're onto us... :S
 
I'm afraid I don't know who they are. But among the many, many ironies in this whole case, one of them is that Böhmermann mocked a fairly prominent lawyer in his skit who has in the past taken stances against satire, and now he's being represented by that very same lawyer.
 
Perun said:
I'm afraid I don't know who they are. But among the many, many ironies in this whole case, one of them is that Böhmermann mocked a fairly prominent lawyer in his skit who has in the past taken stances against satire, and now he's being represented by that very same lawyer.
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You never saw Hogans Heroes .. though I wonder if that ever aired in Germany? Comedy about a POW camp, ironically one of the main cast was in a concentration camp during the war and another was the son of Otto Klemperer.

Anyway, funny show
 
I'm against the lawsuit for the comedian but that issue aside, the "joke" really wasn't funny and it's not an issue of bad taste (Because I like offensive humour). It just doesn't make any sense. There are thousands of things about Erdoğan that you can make fun of. Being a "goatfucker" or a "zoophile" is not one of them. It comes out of nowhere and that's why I initally thought the joke had a racial connotation. (As in, "Turks are goatfuckers")
 
bearfan said:
You never saw Hogans Heroes .. though I wonder if that ever aired in Germany? Comedy about a POW camp, ironically one of the main cast was in a concentration camp during the war and another was the son of Otto Klemperer.

Anyway, funny show
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I don't know whether it aired or not, but since I hardly watch TV, my not knowing it is not an indication for anything. :P

The Flash said:
I'm against the lawsuit for the comedian but that issue aside, the "joke" really wasn't funny and it's not an issue of bad taste (Because I like offensive humour). It just doesn't make any sense. There are thousands of things about Erdoğan that you can make fun of. Being a "goatfucker" or a "zoophile" is not one of them. It comes out of nowhere and that's why I initally thought the joke had a racial connotation. (As in, "Turks are goatfuckers")
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The thing is, the poem, which according to my knowledge was the only part actually translated to Turkish, was part of a larger piece of satire, the topic of which was things that would be illegal to say. So they deliberately said things that are insulting, without any deliberation whether they are particularly topical or funny. The satirical intention can only be understood in its context.
 
Awesome .. if I knew this was happening I would have donated a few minutes of paint drying.

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The subversive British filmmaker Charlie Lyne was looking for a way to express his displeasure with the U.K.'s film censorship bureaucracy. So he decided to use the website Kickstarter to crowdsource funding for the dullest movie imaginable.
Like the Motion Picture Association of America, the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) rates and classifies movies. But unlike in the U.S., in the U.K. it's actually illegal to screen unrated movies or sell them on DVD. The BBFC can also ban a movie altogether unless the filmmaker cuts the parts the Board finds offensive.
What's more, the BBFC requires filmmakers to pay for this mandatory exercise in classification. There's an initial fee of 101 pounds ($147) with another 7.09 pounds ($10.35) per minute of footage. Movie trailers cost extra, as does a DVD classification—even if the BBFC already classified the movie for theatrical release.
Because the price is based on a film's run time, the more money Lyne raised, the longer his protest film could be. In the end, 686 backers offered up 5,936 pounds ($8,666.56) and the final film, Paint Drying, is 607 minutes long.
 

It's sad for us that it took Erdoğan to annoy the West for the West to see how evil he is, but it's a good thing nonetheless. One problem is that his support within the country is actually increasing. Which makes it really difficult to be hopeful of a better future for Turkey, you know.
 
That's only scratching the surface, really. But a good informative piece for people who don't really know about him.
 
bearfan said:
You never saw Hogans Heroes .. though I wonder if that ever aired in Germany? Comedy about a POW camp, ironically one of the main cast was in a concentration camp during the war and another was the son of Otto Klemperer.

Anyway, funny show
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From my personal experience, Germans do not overly like or are interested in shows mocking Nazis. I've personally met a great deal of them and they don't have clue about Allo Allo. YMMV.
 
Okay, now I Googled it and it turns out that Hogan's Heroes is the show Germans know as Ein Käfig voller Helden. It was an extremely popular show in Germany and I now recall seeing an episode or two. But that was literally decades ago.
 
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