Germany Outlaws Turkish Boxing Gang

Excerpt:

German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer has banned a Turkish boxing gang called “Osmanen Germania BC” (“Germania Ottomans”) on the grounds that it poses a serious threat to public order.

The gang, most of whose members are Turkish Germans, is said to be involved in organized criminal activity in all of Germany’s 16 federal states. It is also believed to have close ties to the government of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The German ban comes less than a day after Buzzfeed, an American internet media company, falsely accused Gatestone Institute of fabricating the existence of such gangs in Germany.

Seehofer said the gang “poses a serious threat to individual legal interests and for the general public.” He added:

“Once again, the federal government and the federal states have shown that they are resolutely fighting all manifestations of organized crime in Germany, including rocker-like groups such as Osmanen Germania BC, whose members commit serious crimes. Those who reject the rule of law cannot expect any kind of leniency from us.”

Soeren Kern is a Spain-based analyst of European politics and transatlantic defense and security-related issues, particularly the rise of Islam in the West. He is a regular commentator about European affairs for newspapers and radio programs on both sides of the Atlantic. Kern, who has worked for think tanks in Madrid, New York City and Washington, D.C., served in the U.S. Air Force (stationed in Germany) during the last decade of the Cold War. He has visited more than one hundred countries, including most of those in Europe and the Middle East. A dual citizen of the United States and Germany, Kern graduated with a degree in diplomacy and international security from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, and also studied Middle Eastern history and geopolitics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
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