The scandal is growing, the German Minister of the Interior has also been reported.
The editor-in-chief of the right-wing Compact magazine, which was banned in Germany on Tuesday, filed a criminal complaint against the Federal Minister of the Interior and several officials because, according to him, the government violated official secrecy by inciting the media to carry out the raid.
The scandal is growing in Germany, where the federal government decided to take a drastic step a few days ago:
a right-wing magazine with a circulation of 40,000 nationally and the activities of its publisher were banned due to unconstitutional activity, which was announced with a raid-like police action.
According to Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser, the company that publishes Compact magazine spreads hate speech against migrants and pro-Russian propaganda, as well as endangers parliamentary democracy in Germany.
Therefore, in an unprecedented way, the government decided to ban the press product.
At the same time as the announcement on Tuesday morning, the specialized services raided in four federal states: armed uniformed officers searched the properties of the media company, as well as the homes of the managers and shareholders.
Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser/Source: Twitter
The case caused a great reaction, dividing politicians and society, many criticizing the government's action against freedom of expression. However, the matter did not stop there, as the publisher of Compact magazine also intervened:
initiated criminal proceedings against the Minister of the Interior and several officials.
The police raided the bedroom, the photo went around
On Friday, the editor-in-chief of Compact, Jürgen Elsässer, filed a criminal complaint against an "unknown" perpetrator for violating official secrecy , the Berliner Zeitung wrote on Sunday.
The Apollo News news portal cites the complaint, according to which the suspects, specifically Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser, as well as Thomas Haldenwang, the President of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution and his immediate entourage, may have committed a violation of the law because they notified several pro-government media in advance of the Tuesday morning announcement and the police raids .
For example, the house search took place at Elsässer's home in the early hours of the morning, after which, a few minutes later, several newspapers and their social media pages appeared to have prepared long reports, as well as photos showing the editor-in-chief dragged naked from his bed in a bathrobe.
Bottom of the form
At 6:30 in the morning, my bedroom was brightly lit, armed police were standing around me, I couldn't get up, I was naked, Stefanie Elsässer, the wife of the editor-in-chief of Compact magazine, said in an interview with Deutschland-Kurier.
He added that the procedure is considered a violation of their privacy.
Constitutional lawyers question the government
In the meantime, the decision to ban the Compact magazine continues to divide Germans, and the Ministry of the Interior receives sharp criticism from several places, and it seems that it will not be able to enforce its will smoothly.
Some of the criticisms are loudest from the opposition: according to René Springer, the state president of the AfD party in Brandenburg, which won far more votes than expected in the European Parliament elections, for example, with the ban, the government arbitrarily trampled on freedom of speech and freedom of the press.
Many people share the opinion that the reason behind this is that the Scholz cabinet is afraid of legitimate criticism and the loss of power, which is why it promotes it, but in fact it hates democracy.
In addition, constitutional lawyers also have doubts about the legality of the move.
The ministry bases the ban on unconstitutional activity based on the violation of the German association law, for which Nancy Faeser published a nearly 90-page justification.
However, the association that publishes the magazine is classically not an association, but consists of profit-oriented companies. Therefore, according to the experts, it is doubtful whether the ban was legal based on the cited restrictions.
The leaders of the Compact are determined and will go to the Constitutional Court with an appeal against the decision, they indicated.
The internal affairs are based on the outburst of a caretaker
According to German law, the government must also prove that the right-wing magazine serves anti-democratic, hateful messages in an aggressive, inciting style that encourages its readers to take action against the government and the current political order.
According to press reports, the Ministry of the Interior would base this on the statement of a ministerial caretaker who told editor-in-chief Jürgen Elsässer last spring:
he was already thinking about using his gun to shoot out the eye of Robert Habeck, the currently reigning Minister of Economy.
Faeserek must prove, among other things, that the janitor's outburst was really serious and that he did it under the influence of reading Compact magazine.
Featured image:
Photo: DPA / Picture Alliance / Karl-Josef Hildenbrand - A copy of Compact magazine
