The Minister of the Interior speaks of a “hard blow” to the extreme right and says that it is an action against “intellectual arsonists who stir up a climate of hatred”
16 Jul. () – )
The German government on Tuesday banned Compact magazine, arguing that the publication acts as a “central mouthpiece for the far-right scene,” as announced by German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser.
“This magazine incites indescribable hatred against Jews, against people with migrant backgrounds and against our parliamentary democracy,” Faser said, adding that this decision “is a serious blow to the far-right scene.”
“The decision shows that we are also taking action against intellectual arsonists who are stirring up a climate of hatred and violence against refugees and migrants and who want to overthrow our democratic state,” he said, according to a statement published by the German Interior Ministry on its website.
Faeser stressed that “the message is very clear.” “We will not allow ethnic definitions of who belongs to Germany and who does not.” “Our constitutional state protects all those who are attacked because of their faith, their origin, their color or their democratic stance,” he said.
The Interior Ministry also said that police had carried out several searches in the early hours of the day at the newspaper’s premises and the homes of its members in the regions of Brandenburg, Hessen, Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt to seize property and evidence against the publication.
The crackdown on Compact, which is headed by editor-in-chief Jurgen Elsasser and has around 40,000 copies in circulation, also affects the production company Conspect Film, which also publishes books, audiobooks and DVDs, as well as various merchandising products.
The Interior Ministry has stressed that the magazine “propagates anti-Semitic, racist, anti-minority, revisionist and conspiracy theory content” through which it “instigates against a pluralistic society that respects human dignity and individuals.”
The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution ruled in 2022 that the magazine “brings to society, as a multimedia company, positions that are anti-democratic and contrary to human dignity.” However, the fact that an organization holds unconstitutional opinions is not considered legally sufficient for it to be banned, according to the German news agency DPA.
Another requirement is that the content be distributed in an aggressive and combative manner, although the German Ministry of the Interior has stressed in its statement that, in the case of ‘Compact’, it is feared that its audience will be incited and encouraged “to act against the constitutional order”, because it “openly advocates the overthrow of the political order” and “encourages the adoption of actions against the constitutional order”.
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