Turkish Soccer Player Assaulted For Criticizing ISIS

A member of a Turkish soccer team is quitting after he was assaulted in the street in an attack that was said to have been in response to his using twitter to criticize ISIS. Added motivation for the attack may also involve an issue of racism. The man recently held up a sign in a twitter photo that read, #SaveOurGirlsFromISIS.

Turkish_Soccer

Hurriyet recently reported:

German-Turkish footballer Deniz Naki, who plays for Spor Toto Super League club Gençlerbirliği, has decided to leave his club and Turkey following a suspected racist attack over the weekend.

Naki, who in the past was victim of abuses and insults for being an Alevi and carrying a tattoo that reads “Dersim 62,” the traditional name for the eastern province of Tunceli and its traffic code, was attacked by unknown assailants in Ankara on Nov. 2 and suffered minor injuries below one of his eyes and one of his hands.

“It was on Sunday. I wanted to get something for dinner when I was accosted by three people on a side Street,” Naki told German daily Bild. “They threatened me that this was the first warning, the club did not need anyone like me and I should go away.”

Naki, who recently criticized the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and expressed support for the Kurds in Kobane on social media, said he now feared to go out alone in Ankara and had therefore decided to leave Turkey for Germany.

The Nazi-esque climate in Turkey should be easy for westerners to understand. It’s being fomented by that country’s leadership, to include President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, himself a student of Hitler.

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