German city bans teachers from using ‘silent fox’ gesture to quieten pupils over links to Turkish far right

A German city has banned a hand gesture used by teachers in classrooms because it supposedly resembles a far-right Turkish salute.

The “silent fox” gesture, used by educators and teachers in kindergarten to encourage their students to stop talking and maintain decorum in class, has been banned in the port city of Bremen.

The hand is posed mimicking the shape of a fox's head with upright ears and a closed mouth.

Authorities said the symbol was in "danger of being mistaken" for the right-wing extremist "wolf salute", the Guardian reported.

The "wolf's salute" is linked to “Grey Wolves”, the ultra-nationalist youth wing of Turkey‘s Nationalist Movement Party, which is in alliance with president Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s AK Party.

The Grey Wolves were allegedly involved in political violence that killed some 5,000 people around a 1980 coup in Turkey.

A spokesperson for Bremen’s education authority said there was an ongoing discussion about the gesture but the city felt it had no choice.

“The political meaning of the hand gesture is absolutely incompatible with the values of the city of Bremen,” Patricia Brandt was quoted as saying by the newspaper.

She said teachers had long considered the gesture to be “pedagogically outdated” and its “regulatory style” condescending.

The ban was announced barely days after Turkish player Merih Demiral sparked a diplomatic row by using the "wolf salute" to celebrate scoring a goal in a match at the Euro championship, which just concluded in Germany.

The defender made the gesture with his fingers after scoring his team’s second goal in their last-16 victory over Austria.

“The symbols of Turkish right-wing extremists have no place in our stadiums,” Germany’s home minister Nancy Faeser said in a post on X. “Using the European football championship as a platform for racism is completely unacceptable."

Ms Faeser also said the Grey Wolves group was under surveillance by Germany’s domestic intelligence service.

A diplomatic row began when Turkey summoned Germany’s ambassador in Ankara to protest Ms Faeser’s condemnation.

Uefa, European football’s governing body, handed a two-match ban to Demiral following an investigation.

Demiral said he had planned the gesture and was proud of it. “I had a certain specific celebration in my mind. That’s what I did. It has to do with Turkish identity because I’m very proud to be a Turk,” he said.

President Erdogan joined Turkish football fans in criticising the ban, calling it politically motivated.

“To put it bluntly, UEFA's two-match ban for Merih has cast a serious shadow over the championship," he told reporters on a plane from Berlin. "This cannot be explained, it is a purely political decision."

The German Israeli Society said the Grey Wolves were a threat to Jews as well as Armenians, Greeks and Kurds, and called on authorities to ban the group.

“The ideological superiority of these fascist nationalists jeopardises public safety,” the society’s chief Volker Beck said in a statement.