A scandal is brewing in Germany over the refusal of a Munich court to provide the Turkish media with reserved seats at an upcoming neo-Nazi murder trial.

The Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu has appealed to his German counterpart to allow Turkish media into the trial of the last surviving member of a neo-Nazi terror cell accused of killing ten people, eight of whom were of Turkish origin.

The request was made during a telephone call and comes after the Munich Higher Regional court rejected a petition by the German government to reserve two seats in the courtroom for the Turkish ambassador, as well as the Human Rights ombudsman of the Turkish parliament.

The court has awarded just fifty permanent courtroom seats to journalists. But Turkish media failed to secure a single one. The court claims it processed applications for accreditation as and when they came in, but politicians and the media have called the process bureaucratic and insensitive.

German foreign minister Guido Westerwelle was keen to stress his commitment to transparency: “Given the unhappy back story to this case, assuring complete clarity and openness in the criminal process involving the awful crimes carried out by the NSU should be a matter of utmost concern.”

Kemal Yurtnac, president of the Overseas Turks and Relative Societies (YTB) said he hoped those responsible would “soon acknowledge their mistakes.”

The NSU terror cell is accused of ten murders. As well as the eight victims of Turkish origin, a Greek man and a German policewoman were also killed. The trial of the last surviving leader of the terrorist cell, Beate Zschäpe, begins on 17 April.

That is shame for German democracy and Human Rights

What may be perceived by some as old-fashioned German bureaucracy is threatening this week to grow into a full-scale international scandal. On Monday, Munich’s Higher Regional Court released a list of media organizations that would be given reserved seats in the upcoming trial of an alleged neo-Nazi believed to have been involved in the murder of 10 people, mostly of Turkish origin.

The list doesn’t include a single Turkish media outlet. The court is claiming it provided accreditation on a first-come-first-served basis, but international outrage is growing. Turks in Germany and in Turkey are feeling left in the cold over a series of murders of which their community was the primary target.

The trial of Beate Zschäpe, a suspected member of the National Socialist Underground (NSU) neo-Nazi terror cell, is expected to be the biggest in the country since the Red Army Faction trial of the mid-1970s. International attention is expected to be considerable, particularly given the xenophobic nature of the crimes and the involvement of right-wing extremists. This week, Turkish journalists and politicians have been demanding a guaranteed presence at the trial.

Many are asking why such a small courtroom has been chosen and why an overflow room with live video isn’t being set up for journalists.

The chairman of the German parliament’s Legal Committee, Siegfried Kauder of the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), defended the court’s procedures in an interview published on Thursday. “A video transmission into another room would come across like a show trial and a public viewing, and it would violate the human dignity of the accused,” he told the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger newspaper. “The judiciary doesn’t differentiate between Turkish or non-Turkish. Besides, half the seats have already been reserved for journalists. The court’s decision is within the scope of what is permitted and possible.”

But others have called for reserved seats to be opened up for Turkish media. And even the German government has expressed its understanding for the deep Turkish interest in the case. “The hope must be that this media interest is also dealt with sensibly,” said government spokesman Steffen Seibert.

On Thursday, there were some signs that a compromise might be in the works. “The Higher Regional Court has promised me it will involve the Turkish media — whatever that means,” Barbara John, the German government’s ombudswoman for the NSU victims, told the Passauer Neue Presse newspaper. “I hope the problem can be solved.” Turkish journalists have not been excluded from the proceedings, but many consider it an affront that not a single one of the 50 reserved seats for the media has been assigned to a representative of the country.

Many had criticized justice officials for not choosing a larger courtroom for the trial, but judge and chief press spokeswoman Margarete Nötzel had dismissed such concerns, saying the hall chosen had been specially remodelled and modernized for the trial, and that it was the biggest courtroom in Bavaria that conformed to the security measures required for such a trial.

On the editorial pages, German newspapers are highly critical of the court’s decision not to provide seats to the Turkish media, with several fearing significant damage to Germany’s reputation abroad.

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