Good Riddance

The German government finally develops a backbone in dealing with preachers of religious lunacy.

German police have deported an Islamic militant wanted by Turkey, hours after a court approved his extradition.
Officials say Metin Kaplan, known as the Caliph of Cologne, was flown out of the country shortly after his arrest.
Turkey wants to try him on charges including treason, alleging a plot to crash a plane into the mausoleum of the founder of the modern Turkish state.
Kaplan has already served a four-year jail term in Germany for calling for the murder of a rival Islamic leader.
He heads a group called the Caliphate State, which wants to overthrow Turkey's secular government.

What a loathsome character! Now, if only the British government would get around to doing something about "Sheikh" Abu Hamza al-Masri sometime before the dawn of the 22nd century. Freedom of speech is a great thing, but it cannot mean the open advocacy of murder and violent struggle against the mass of the citizens of the very state in which one resides.

Comments

[Mrs Tilton]

Good riddance indeed. It's not just the Turkish secular state, BTW, that Kaplan dreams of overthrowing. And the BBC's description of Kaplan's crime in Germany is correct but incomplete. He did not merely call for the murder of a rival; the rival was in fact duly murdered. ('Will no one rid me of this meddlesome mullah?')

But Kaplan's expulsion does not represent a Damascene falling of the scales from the eyes of the German government. They have been trying to get rid of him for a long time. It is an unquestionably good thing that they have finally succeeded. But (as I wrote a while back), it is also a good thing that their success didn't come easy.