Alevi German-Turkish footballer decides to leave Turkey after attack

ANKARA

Deniz Naki moved from Paderborn to Gençlerbirliği for 200,000 euros in 2012. His contract was set to expire in 2016.

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 player, who was part of the famously left-wing club St. Pauli for three years after 2009, moved from Paderborn to Gençlerbirliği for 200,000 euros in 2012. His contract was set to expire in 2016.