Berlin Academy Urges Merkel to Act on Turkish Cultural Repression

The Akademie der Künste in Berlin has published an open letter to Chancellor Angela Merkel, demanding greater German government efforts to secure the release of artists, journalists, and cultural figures imprisoned in Turkey after the failed July coup. The letter highlights the case of Zehra Doğan, a painter and journalist accused of militant links based on her art. Since the coup, three news agencies, sixteen TV channels, forty-five newspapers, and fifteen magazines have been shut down, and forty-seven journalists arrested. The letter, co-signed by institutions including the Berlin Artist Program, Berlin Festival, Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels, Deutsches Theater, Frankfurt Book Fair, HAU Hebbel am Ufer, Hauptstadtkulturfonds, House of World Cultures, Internationale Literaturfestival Berlin, Kulturforum Türkei Deutschland, and Maxim Gorki Theater, calls for all diplomatic means to free imprisoned cultural workers. An online petition on change.org, organized by German Publishers and Booksellers Association, PEN Centre Germany, and Reporters Without Borders, has gathered over 109,000 signatures urging Merkel to fight for free expression in Turkey, a country with deep ties to Germany due to its large Turkish community.