Germany expects new Turkish influx after Erdogan crackdown

German politicians and asylum experts are expecting a new influx of refugees from Turkey following the ongoing repression of the opposition by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Even those on the conservative side of Germany's political spectrum have suggested that those fleeing the regime should be granted asylum.

"We expect that people will come who are being pursued by the rule of Erdogan and his party," Andreas Scheuer, general secretary of the Christian Social Union, told TV network ZDF on Thursday evening. "That must then be assessed according to the legal principles in Germany and Europe."

The human rights organization Pro Asyl has also said that a real increase in asylum requests from Turkey is likely. "The sackings and persecution practically mean a destruction of their living," Pro Asyl deputy chairman Bernd Mesovic told the "Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung" (WAZ) newspaper.

Freedom of movement

But political activists in Germany, where there are 2.8 million people with Turkish heritage, are less convinced that there will now be a sudden mass stream of political refugees.

Erkin Erdogan, spokesman for the "Berlin Freedom and Democracy Block," an alliance of Turkish opposition groups in the German capital, pointed out that, for one thing, it's not that easy to leave Turkey at the moment - because of the newly-declared state of emergency.

"Civil servants for example cannot leave Turkey anymore," he told DW. "There are some additional intelligence-based checklists in the airports, people cannot freely move out."

"All the leave for public sector workers has been cancelled," he added. "A friend of mine from the university in Ankara was in Berlin for summer school, and she had to go back because officially you cannot be abroad anymore."

Despite the tense new atmosphere, Erkin didn't believe the recent developments were having an immediate effect. "From my personal and political circles, I don't have a feeling that people are trying to run away," he said. "But I know that some people from the LGBT community are very scared at the moment and some of them are trying to move out of Turkey. But I don't have the feeling that this is in big numbers."

The Berlin Freedom and Democracy Block is holding a demonstration against both Erdogan's "dictatorship/sultanate" and the military coup on Friday evening, which its press release describes as a choice between "cholera and the plague."

Despite the turmoil in Turkey, Erkin does not expect the political conflict to spill over to the streets of Berlin, where there are also plenty of President Erdogan supporters - largely because the political opposition always opposed the coup.

"In Turkey and in Kurdish cities, we didn't see the democratic opposition on the streets yet, but I think that's because people are very scared," said Erkin. "The democratic opposition had a lot attacks - partly from IS (Islamic State)." For this reason, he says, the Turkish opposition has found it easier to mobilize in Germany.

Brain drain

Meanwhile, representatives of Germany's universities have lined up to condemn Erdogan's new policies targeting academics and warned of a "brain drain" from the country. Halil Uslucan, director of Turkish studies at the University of Duisburg-Essen, told the WAZ that Turkey was risking an "educational recession of an entire generation."

The financial weekly "Wirtschaftswoche" reported on Thursday that the number of Turks enquiring about study opportunities abroad on the website "Study Portal" had tripled in the last few days.

The German Rectors' Conference (HRK), an umbrella organization for German universities, was equally scathing: "The deep, apparently unscrupulous cuts into academic freedoms by the Turkish government have left us all shocked," said HRK President Horst Hippler. "We protest against these measures in the strongest possible terms."

But Erkin Erdogan pointed out that this is not the first time that academics have suppressed in Turkey. "Many of them lost their jobs - this was already the case in the last six months or so," he said. "Probably this will get widened, because many academics lost their jobs in the last few days. I know many academics in Turkey who are looking for positions in Europe, in Germany, and the US. If they can find something they always leave, but that's not the case for the majority."