Journalist Adil Yigit faces deportation from Germany
October 28, 2018
Journalist Adil Yigit, who protested during a press conference with Turkey's president and the German chancellor last month, has been told he will have to leave Germany.
The 60-year-old Yigit told German news agency DPA he had received notice on Friday that his residence permit had not been extended and he must leave Germany by January 22 or face deportation. According to his own account, he has been in Germany for 36 years.
Read more: Free-press conflict overshadows Merkel meeting Turkey's Erdogan
Yigit, who writes for the German newspaper TAZ and runs the Turkish website Avrupa Postasi, is a vocal critic of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
During a press conference with Erdogan and Chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin last month, he wore a t-shirt inscribed with the slogan "Freedom for journalists in Turkey" before he was taken out of the room by security. Erdogan laughed as he was escorted out.
"The two things have to be related, there's no other possible explanation," Yigit told German news agency dpa.
The reason for the deportation provided by migration authorities in the northern city of Hamburg was that Yigit is unemployed and is no longer living with his children, according to documents seen by dpa.
Yigit said he would meet with his lawyer.
Turkey is "the world's worst jailer" of journalists with dozens of writers languishing in jail, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Erdogan repeatedly demands Germany extradite dissidents, something that Berlin has so far refrained from doing.
It is unclear whether Hamburg would actually carry out a deportation to a country where tens of thousands of people have been arrested on flimsy charges in the wake the failed 2016 coup attempt. Germany has taken in and supported dozens of Turkish journalists who are under threat in Turkey.
Frank Schwabe, an SPD lawmaker and the party's spokesman for human rights, said on Twitter that there was no way Yigit would be deported.
"'Expulsion' or whatever. Of course Adil Yigit will not be deported to a land where he could be threatened with torture or arbitrary arrest. It would be good if that is clarified quickly," Schwabe wrote.