By Philipp Requat
BERLIN, July 18 (Xinhua) -- German Social Democrat (SPD) and Left party (Linke) politicians criticized the Turkish government on Tuesday following the arrest of German human rights activist Peter Steudtner.
"What we are experiencing in Turkey at the moment breaks all boundaries," SPD leader Martin Schulz told German news magazine Spiegel.
A Turkish court placed Steudtner, along with six other activists, under custody on Tuesday. The 45-year-old from Berlin is the tenth German citizen to have been arrested in Turkey since the failed military coup on July 15, 2016, according to German media reports.
According to Schulz, "President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is on course to eliminate democracy and rule of law in Turkey. He is moving his country further and further away from Europe."
Speaking on the anniversary of the failed coup on Saturday, Erdogan vowed to aggressively pursue those who he saw as sympathizers of the attempt to overthrow his government.
The head of the SPD parliamentary faction, Thomas Opperman, said that Erdogan had inaugurated "new stage of escalation in German-Turkish relations".
Opperman added that "Merkel's strategy" to appease Erdogan had failed and said the time had come to tell the Turkish president that "things cannot go on as they are".
The Left party parliamentarian Sevim Dagdelen also joined in the SPD's sharp criticism of the Turkish government.
She warned that Germans were at risk of being taken hostage in Turkey and called on the German Foreign Office to issue a travel warning.
Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) and Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel (SPD) were partially responsible for the fate of Steudtner and other Germans in Turkish custody, Dagdelen said.
Turkish-German relations have been severely strained since the failed military coup last year.
Ankara has rejected Berlin's criticisms that it engaged in an excessive crackdown on political opponents in response to the coup and is resentful towards its German NATO partner for allegedly granting asylum to Turkish revolutionaries.
Figures released on Friday by German Federal Office for Migration and Refugees suggest that the number of Turkish asylum seekers in Germany has risen dramatically since July 2016.
There is also a long-growing spat between Berlin and Ankara over attempts to prevent Turkish politicians from holding campaign rallies in Europe.
Hoping to win support amongst Turkish migrant communities for a controversial constitutional referendum which ultimately passed in April 2017, Erdogan and members of his AKP party ran up against heavy opposition in several European capitals.
Turkey retaliated by banning German lawmakers from visiting their country's armed forces stationed at the air-force base of Incirlik and most recently at the NATO base in Konya on July 16. In June, German lawmakers voted to transfer the troops in Incirlik to a new base in Jordan after several attempts to defuse the diplomatic crisis failed.
