A lawmaker from German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s party stunned his colleagues on Thursday when he took to the floor of the German Parliament to repeat a vulgar accusation that the Turkish president has a venereal disease, perhaps contracted while having sex with goats.
“Unbelievable,” murmured one surprised lawmaker in the chamber when Detlef Seif, a member of the Christian Democratic Union, (CDU) read a satirical poem about Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The poem created a diplomatic firestorm when its author, German comedian Jan Boehmermann, recited it on his national television show in March.
It so enraged Erdogan, who has sought to silence his critics at home and challenge them abroad, that he demanded Boehmermann be prosecuted under an obscure German law that makes it a crime to insult a foreign leader.
Raising the Turkish president’s ire was Boehmermann’s intent, but Seif, 53, meant no offense when he recited the poem on Thursday on the floor of the German Bundestag, inadvertently entering the profane text into Germany’s permanent public record.
Seif said he was so disgusted by the content of the poem — which, among other insults, accuses Erdogan of pedophilia and bestiality — that he wanted to remind his colleagues just how offensive it was.
“I really didn’t want to do this, but I read this out to you so that one knows what actually was said here,” Seif said, adding: “A person’s honor is clearly under attack here, and justice must decide if this kind of language is still covered by freedom of expression and press, but put yourselves in the shoes of Erdogan and think about it: How would you feel about it yourself?”
Unlike Boehmermann, Seif is legally protected from prosecution should Erdogan again feel aggrieved by another recitation of the satirical poem.
However, Boehmermann insisted, sarcastically, that Seif be held to the same standards.
“I ask that the parliamentary immunity of CDU MP Detlef Seif be lifted for prosecution under paragraph 103 of the penal code,” Boehmermann wrote on Twitter.
German Green Party lawmaker Renate Kuenast told Seif that she “felt very embarrassed for this house that you read out the text.”
German Social Democrat lawmaker Christian Flisek said that Seif’s recitation was unnecessary.
Last month, Merkel said she would allow the prosecution against Boehmermann, but added that her government would seek to repeal the 1871 law that she said was inconsistent with modern Germany’s commitment to free speech.
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