Sunday June 13th 2021
MPs prevented from departing
Left party outraged by federal police
A left-wing politician from Hamburg is prevented by the federal police from leaving for Erbil in northern Iraq. The President of the Hamburg Parliament considers the Federal Police’s action to be unlawful.
The top left has sharply criticized the behavior of the Federal Police, which prevented a delegation from the party at Düsseldorf Airport from traveling to the Kurdish areas in northern Iraq. Federal Managing Director Jörg Schindler asked the federal government to clarify.
Some German journalists took the flight, but according to the journalists’ union dju they were temporarily detained after arriving in Erbil, northern Iraq, and then flew back to Germany.
According to Schindler, Cansu Özdemir, the party leader of the Hamburg Left, wanted to fly to the capital of the autonomous Kurdish region with a group of around 20 fellow travelers. Özdemir himself told the WDR that they were detained for several hours on the grounds of Düsseldorf Airport on Saturday, regardless of their parliamentary status. Their passports were taken away and they were questioned for hours.
On Twitter, she published an exit ban addressed to her by the federal police. It states, among other things, that participation in actions by the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) or support for such actions in the crisis area against Turkish security forces affects “significant concerns of the Federal Republic of Germany”. The participation of German citizens in the conflict would “continue to negatively impact” relations with Turkey.
15 people were banned from leaving the country
In addition to Özdemir, the tour group also included Martin Dolzer, who, according to Schindler, had been delegated for the Bundestag member Andrej Hunko to participate, as well as activists from the anti-coal power alliance at the end of the terrain, as well as some journalists. The aim of the trip was, according to the party executive, “to find out about the military campaigns of Turkey in northern Iraq that have been going on for weeks in Erbil and to draw attention to the attacks that are contrary to international law”.
According to Ende Ende, the Kurdish freedom movement invited “to travel to southern Kurdistan in a peace delegation”. End of the terrain accepted this invitation, several of them are already on site in Erbil, it said in a message. The activist Vera Figner was part of the delegation that was banned from leaving on Saturday. Figner accused the German state of backing Turkish attacks.
The federal police said on Saturday evening that after the inspection, they had banned 15 people from leaving Iraq for a month and allowed four people to leave. The legal basis for the measures was the Passport Act, the Residence Act and the Freedom of Movement Act. The state parliament member from Hamburg did not initially identify herself as a mandate holder, it said.
Several media workers who were able to travel on to Iraq were temporarily detained by the local security forces after their arrival in Erbil, the journalists’ union dju said. In the meantime, as far as she knows, they are on their way back to Germany, said dju country manager Tina Fritsche on Sunday when asked.
According to Schindler, a travel group had already been expelled from Erbil before the departure was prevented, including the left-wing politician in the Berlin House of Representatives, Hakan Tas. Tas told the “Tagesspiegel” that he was held there for 15 hours at the airport. The security staff had taken his passport from him. Police officers also looked through his photos and Instagram account and asked who he wanted to meet.
Hamburg citizens want to investigate the incident
With a view to the detention of the delegation around Özdemir, Schindler stated that the party executive expected “immediate and comprehensive clarification of the process from the federal government and the Foreign Office”. It could “not be that politicians who exercise their rights are hindered in their work in this way”.
The co-leader of the Left in Hamburg, Sabine Boeddinghaus, told the NDR: “We are stunned that German security authorities are treating a political delegation with elected MPs like serious criminals and preventing them from leaving – without a comprehensible legal basis.”
The President of the Hamburg Parliament, Carola Veit, announced an investigation into the incident. According to the information so far, the measures taken by the federal police are likely to have been illegal or unconstitutional, said the SPD politician.
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