BERLIN (AP) – A lawyer for Turkey’s president says he is seeking a court injunction against the head of one of Germany’s biggest publishing houses.
Mathias Doepfner, the chief executive of Axel Springer, has expressed solidary with a TV comedian who wrote a crude poem about Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Erdogan’s German lawyer Ralf Hoecker said Monday that he has petitioned the Cologne regional court because Doepfner had repeated an accusation of bestiality contained in the poem.
Hoecker said the court has already gagged a filmmaker who made a video inspired by the poem.
TV comedian Jan Boehmermann, who authored the poem, is being investigated on suspicion of insulting a foreign head of state. Under German law, the probe required government permission to go ahead, which was granted.