Turkey's demand over insulting poem under review: Merkel

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Tuesday that German prosecutors were reviewing Turkey's request to charge a German TV satirist over an insulting poem.

The German government, according to Merkel, is "examining very carefully" Turkey's formal demand and further action in connection with the issue -- a process which would take a few days.

The chancellor, however, also stressed that Germany would continue to protect artistic freedom.

She said that the basic values of the German constitution, the freedom of press, opinion and science, were valid and completely decoupled from "all political problems we are discussing with each other," which include the refugee crisis.

During a TV show in which Jan Boehmermann, a moderator working at German state broadcaster ZDF, explained what was legal and illegal under German defamation laws, he read a "Defamation Poem" against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, which was criticized as being a grave insult by the Turkish side.

Erdogan himself officially filed a criminal complaint against the satirist because of the poem, taking advantage of a German law that criminalizes insulting foreign leaders.

Boehmermann's poem was a response to another controversy over a satirical song about Erdogan aired earlier by public broadcaster NDR. The German government defended freedom of expression after the Turkish government summoned the German ambassador over the song. Endit