The march took place in the German capital, where the Euro quarter-final between Turkey and the Netherlands is taking place on Saturday evening.
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A march under high surveillance. The Berlin police assured on Saturday July 6 that they had stopped the march of Turkish fans before the quarter-final of Euro-2024 Netherlands-Turkey. This match is taking place at the Olympia Stadion in Berlin, which Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is due to attend, and comes in the midst of a diplomatic dispute between Berlin and Ankara. The reason? The supporters made “the salvation of the ‘gray wolves'”explained the Berlin police on the social network X. “The police therefore stopped the march and urged the fans to stop making this sign.she addeda fan march is not a platform for political messages.”
The rallying gesture of the “Grey Wolves”, three fingers joined with the index and little fingers raised in the air, to draw the profile of a wolf, has been at the center of all the controversy since Tuesday: defender Merih Demiral had done it to celebrate the goals he scored in the eighth during Turkey’s victory against Austria (2-1). This earned him a two-match suspension imposed by UEFA, in particular for “having used sporting events for non-sporting events”. This sanction had been described as“unfair” by coach Vincenzo Montella.
German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser also condemned Demiral’s actions on the X network: “The symbol of Turkish right-wing extremists has no place in our stadiumsshe had written, Using the Euro football championship as a platform for racism is totally unacceptable.” In response, Turkey summoned the German ambassador to Ankara on Wednesday, before Berlin did the same with the Turkish ambassador on Thursday.
In Germany, which is home to Europe’s largest Turkish community, authorities are grappling with support from some citizens for the “Grey Wolves,” a group that the country’s authorities consider racist and anti-Semitic. The “Grey Wolves” emerged in the 1960s in the orbit of the Nationalist Action Party (MHP), a member of the coalition led by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP). This ultranationalist faction has been linked in the past to numerous political assassinations targeting Kurdish and left-wing activists.
