A Turkish-origin lecturer at a police academy in Germany was fired for saying she's personally intimidated by racism among the country's police officers.
The decision to dismiss Bahar Aslan from her position at the police academy in the western city of Gelsenkirchen prompted outrage from leaders in the Turkish-German community.
Aslan was expelled from her position as a lecturer on Monday after tweeting that she and other friends worry about racist mistreatment by police.
"My heart starts racing when I or my friends get caught in a police check because all the brown filth inside the security authorities scares us," she tweeted. "This is not just my reality, but that of many people in this country."
The phrase "brown filth" is a reference to far-right extremist groups. Revelations in recent years that members of such groups held positions in the German police and security services have caused repeated scandals in the country.
The police academy declared on Monday that Aslan was unsuitable for conveying an unprejudiced or well-founded view of democracy, tolerance and neutrality due to her statements.
Aslan, a writer, had taught intercultural skills to aspiring police officers before being fired over the tweet. She conceded she may have made "an unfortunate choice of words" but called her firing "a dark day for freedom of opinion" and " a clear case of Cancel Culture."
"I'm sorry if police officers who do their job in an exemplary manner feel implicated. I was concerned with those civil servants who take part in right-wing extremist chats, who poison entire departments with their racist attitude," Aslan told the Zeit newspaper after her dismissal. "They have deeply shaken the trust in this institution, especially in the migrant community."
Christos Katzidis, a center-right politician who serves as interior minister of North Rhine Westphalia, where the academy is located, called Aslan's remarks "intolerable and unacceptable."
Gökay Sofuoğlu, the national chairman of the Turkish Community in Germany (TGD) advocacy group, defended Aslan and sharply criticized her firing in a statement on Wednesday.
"Anyone who dismisses a committed lecturer, because she points to racist structures within the police, is part of the racism problem in Germany," Sofuoğlu. "Ms. Aslan only expressed what countless people in Germany feel, what they experience and what they are afraid of."
Serhat Ulusoy, state chairman of the Turkish Federation in the state of North Rhine Westphalia, called for the decision to be withdrawn and reconsidered by the responsible authorities.
Sofuoğlu said it was clear that Aslan was not referring to all police officers as such but was referencing a very real problem within the country's security services. He pointed to racial profiling, where police target individuals over their ethnicity, as well as revelations of racist and extremist views expressed by police officers in private group chats.
Sofuoğlu also referred to the police's disastrous handling of a years-long murderous terror campaign carried out by the neo-Nazi group National Socialist Underground (NSU), which targeted the Turkish community.
The German police have most recently been shaken by an investigation into more police officers in the western state of Hesse over far-right extremist leanings.
In the past years, the German Police Federation (GdP) acknowledged the presence of right-wing radical elements among its officers following the suspension of five officers in Frankfurt. The move came after an investigation into five officers who formed a far-right cell that shared pictures of Hitler and swastikas and sent death threats to a Turkish lawyer's 2-year-old daughter. According to German Daily Frankfurter Neue Presse, a group called "NSU 2.0" sent threatening letters containing racist statements to Seda Başay Yıldız, one of the lawyers for the victims of the neo-Nazi terrorist group, the National Socialist Underground (NSU).
For instance, in 2020, 29 German police officers were arrested over far-right propaganda in chat groups.
The material that was shared included "the foulest and most repugnant neo-Nazi, racist and anti-refugee agitation," said Herbert Reul, the interior minister of North Rhine-Westphalia state.
The offending images included pictures of Adolf Hitler and swastikas, a fictional depiction of a refugee in the gas chamber of a concentration camp and another mocking the shooting of black-skinned people, Reul added.
The material was exchanged in at least five WhatsApp groups used entirely or largely by police officers, Reul said. One of those groups apparently was set up in 2012, and the one that contained the most images, in 2015. The most recent message was sent on Aug. 27.