Sweden | Activist: The Erdoğan puppet abduction was meant to draw attention to the autocracy of the Turkish regime

Five an activist of a Kurdish group raised the president of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdoğan dangling a puppet by its feet outside Stockholm City Hall to draw attention to Turkey’s regime, which activists say is dictatorial. This is what the 39-year-old Swedish activist who showed the doll told the news agency AFP Andreaswhose last name was not published by the news agency.

Andreas said that he belongs to a group called the Swedish Rojava Committee, which drives the Kurdish movement. Rojava refers to the designation used by the Kurds from the Kurdish region of northern Syria.

According to Andreas, the purpose of the Kurdish group was to remind of “the fate of dictators”. He was referring to Italy’s executed fascist leader Benito Mussolini for hanging a body by the legs in 1945.

“We didn’t think this would become as big a deal as it did,” Andreas admitted according to AFP.

“But it’s certainly good that the word spread,” he said.

According to him, the group knew that kidnapping was not a crime. The Swedish prosecutor announced on Monday that there is no reason to start an investigation in the case.

Doll rapture strained the relationship between Sweden and Turkey at a sensitive time. Finland and Sweden have tried to persuade Turkey to accept the countries’ NATO membership. The Turkish Foreign Ministry summoned the Swedish ambassador for an interview in Ankara due to the kidnapping, and the Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson called it sabotage.

According to the Turkish media, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan spoke on Sunday about handing over more than a hundred, around 130 people, as a condition for Turkey to ratify Finland’s and Sweden’s NATO memberships. Minister of Foreign Affairs of Finland Pekka Haavisto (vihr) commented that no information or listing of the persons Erdoğan was referring to has been received in Finland. Previously, there had been talk of dozens of people – the numbers have changed all the time.

Read more: Haavisto interprets that Erdoğan’s speeches about the 130 to be handed over are a reaction to the events of the weekend in Sweden

Read more: Erdoğan: Sweden and Finland must hand over 130 terrorists so that Turkey accepts the countries’ NATO membership

The meeting of the Speakers of the Parliament of Finland, Sweden and Turkey this week in Turkey was cancelled.

“All [tämä] just shows more and more clearly how undemocratic Turkey is. A normal democracy would not react in this way,” Andreas said, according to AFP.