Raid fuels fears German leaders are trying to muzzle press

[ECH1969]

The German parliament's home affairs committee will launch an investigation on Thursday into allegations that the government is using national security as a pretext for increasingly heavy-handed attempts to muzzle the press.

The dispute began last month, with a dawn raid ordered by the Potsdam prosecutor on the apartment of the investigative journalist Bruno Schirra and the offices of Cicero, a political magazine.

It has since spiralled into a nationwide controversy, with media and politicians of all hues accusing the government and in particular Otto Schily, the Social Democratic interior minister, of overstepping the mark in their attempts to silence investigative reporters.

The trigger was an article, published by Cicero in April, about a link between Iran and the network of the Iraq-based terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, which quoted from a confidential Federal Criminal Office document.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9621319/

[truebrit71]

1. Well, the Germans from time to time have demonstrated a certain..

...*ahem* "efficiency" with this sort of behaviour....normally about once every other generation...








;-)

[bobbieinok]

2. recalls the Spiegel Affair with Strauss

one of many online sources

http://www.theezine.net/s/spiegel-scandal.html

....

The quarrel then escalated when Der Spiegel, in its October 8, 1962 issue, published an article called "Bedingt abwehrbereit" ("Conditionally prepared for defense") about a NATO manoeuver called "Fallex 62", which uncovered the sorry state of the Bundeswehr (Germany's army) facing the communist threat from the east at the time.
The magazine was accused of treason. At 9 p.m. on October 26, 1962, the magazine's offices in Hamburg were seized and (together with the houses of several journalists) searched by 36 policemen, and thousands of documents were confiscated. The offices would remain shut down for weeks. Augstein and the then-editors-in-chief Claus Jacobi and Johannes Engel were arrested. The author of the article, Conrad Ahlers, who was vacationing in Spain, was seized in his hotel during the night. Augstein would be jailed for 103 days.

....

However, Strauß was finally forced to admit that he had himself phoned the German military attaché in Madrid and urged him to arrest Ahlers. This was clearly illegal – as Minister of the Interior Hermann Höcherl famously paraphrased, "etwas außerhalb der Legalität" ("slightly beyond legality"). Since Strauß had thus lied to the parliament, on November 19, the five FDP ministers of the cabinet resigned, demanding that Strauß and Höcherl be fired. This put Adenauer himself at risk, who found himself publicly accused of backing the put-down of a critical press with the resources of the state.

On November 26, the police ended its occupation of the Spiegel offices, while the Augstein, Ahlers and three others remained under arrest – Augstein until February 7, 1963. In December 1962 Adenauer formed a new cabinet without Strauß.

On May 13, 1965 the Bundesgerichtshof (highest German court of appeals) refused to open trial against Augstein and Ahlers, ruling that during the affair Strauß had violated the boundaries and committed Freiheitsberaubung (deprivation of personal freedom); however, because of his belief of acting lawfully (Verbotsirrtum), he was exempt from punishment. The case also came before the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany, which issued a groundbreaking ruling that laid down the basics of the freedom of the press for decades to come.

more....

[Kellanved]

3. no, that was another league entirely

Schirra is still a free man and won't end up behind bars. This is a huge mess, but intelligence services tend to be touchy about their material. Also, the Ciecero did much to escalate the affair: it is a new magazine trying to establish itself.

Augstein was thrown into jail for over a year, with far less reason to do so.

[tom_paine]

4. If Germany goes BushPutinist, we are all in a great deal of trouble

Plus, let us not forget that Germany is now one of the leading Free World Nations since Imperial Amerika stopped being Free World.

Ironic, isn't it?