Germany to deport journalist who protested Erdogan

Germany plans to deport a Turkish journalist who wore a shirt calling for press freedom at a joint appearance by Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, media reported Sunday.

Adil Yigit, 60, told news agency DPA he was notified Friday that he must leave the country by January or be deported.

"The two things have to be related, there's no other possible explanation," Yigit said.

The journalist, who says he has lived in Germany for 36 years, wore a T-shirt emblazoned with the words "freedom for journalists in Turkey" at a Berlin press conference by the two leaders in September.

He was escorted from the chancellor's office by security guards while Erdogan looked on.

"At chancellery press conferences, we do things the same way as in the Bundestag (parliament): no demonstrations or declarations of political causes," Merkel's spokesman Steffen Seibert later tweeted after widespread public criticism.

Yigit writes a column for left-wing German newspaper Taz and publishes a Turkish-language online newspaper critical of Erdogan's government.

"Of course I'm afraid for my safety if I am expelled," he said, adding: "In Turkey, journalists are being silenced." Since a 2016 coup attempt, the Turkish government has locked up thousands of supposed enemies of the state including journalists, academics and human rights activists.