The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has lashed out at Germany for blocking several rallies on its soil in the run-up to a referendum in Turkey, likening its stance to Nazi practices. “Your practices are not different from the Nazi practices of the past,” he said of Germany at a women’s rally in Istanbul before the referendum on changes to the constitution that would bolster his powers as president. “I thought it’s been a long time since Germany left [Nazi practices]. Last week federal authorities in two German states withdrew permission for political rallies targeted at Turkish residents in Germany amid growing public outrage over Ankara’s arrest of a Turkish-German journalist. “Germany, which has never escaped its Nazi past, has let slip its mask,” the Takvim newspaper wrote at the time.

Source: The Guardian March 05, 2017 14:05 UTC