The arrest of Istanbul's popular mayor, Ekrem Imamoglu, an politican rival of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has sparked huge protests in Turkey. In Germany, home to millions of people with Turkish roots, it's a hot topic as well. DW reports from the western City of Cologne.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00Korpstraße in Cologne, home to tens of thousands of the city's residents with Turkish roots.
00:06Last week's arrest of Istanbul's mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu is a big topic here.
00:13Little by little Turkey is turning into a dictatorship.
00:16Terrible things are happening.
00:18Society is polarised.
00:19You're either with us or you're the enemy.
00:22I compare what's happening in Turkey right now with German history and it scares me.
00:29It's the month of Ramadan and many shops, restaurants and cafes only open in the afternoon.
00:35But this shop is open.
00:42The opposition in Turkey must organise itself better.
00:46The opposition leaders shouldn't stay in their jobs for so long.
00:51They should realise that they will have to step down after a while.
00:55The opposition should be more self-critical.
01:03The Turkish market next door is full of people.
01:06It looks like the usual hustle and bustle.
01:09But here too, there are discussions about the events in Turkey.
01:13I don't like what's being done to İmamoğlu.
01:23His rights are clearly being violated.
01:25That's how I see it.
01:28Other merchants support Turkey's president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and criticise the protests.
01:34I've seen pictures of demonstrators in the cemetery next to a mosque.
01:40They were destroying gravestones and drinking alcohol.
01:43That's not proper.
01:44A normal person doesn't do that.
01:50No matter what their politics, Germans with Turkish roots aren't happy about the news
01:55coming out of Turkey.
02:01I would like to see good things happen in Turkey and not what we're currently seeing.
02:10Problems should be solved peacefully.
02:14When we look at Turkey from Germany now, it makes us sad.
02:20Korpstraße's restaurants and cafes will open again in the evening.
02:24Time for residents to talk Turkish politics once again.