A Hamburg court issued a preliminary injunction on Tuesday banning re-publication of sections of a satirical poem by a German comedian mocking the Turkish president, saying they amounted to abuse and libel.

Comedian Jan Boehmermann recited a poem on television in March suggesting Recep Tayyip Erdogan engaged in bestiality and watched child pornography, prompting the Turkish leader to file a complaint with prosecutors that he had been insulted.

In a separate complaint, lawyers for Mr Erdogan also asked a court in Hamburg to ban re-publication of the poem.

In its injunction, which applies to the whole of Germany, the Hamburg court marked in red 18 of the poem's 24 verses, which it said were "abusive and defaming."