We also represent those affected by this procedure and are therefore documenting a press release from the Society for Civil Rights (GFF):
Berlin/Karlsruhe, March 13, 2023 – The Society for Civil Rights (GFF) and the independent radio station Radio Dreyeckland (RDL) are today filing their appeal with the Karlsruhe Regional Court against the searches and seizure of laptops carried out in January. RDL had linked to the archive page of the internet platform linksunten.indymedia, which was banned in 2017, in an article. The State Security Division of the Karlsruhe Public Prosecutor's Office considers this to be criminal support of a banned organization.
The GFF supports RDL's complaint to clarify whether including a link in a press report can constitute a criminal act of support and to what extent freedom of broadcasting precludes the search of editorial offices and employees' residences. Should the regional court uphold the search warrants, the GFF intends to file a constitutional complaint.
“The search warrants were completely unlawful. The press must be allowed to report critically on media bans – this includes linking to relevant websites. Only in this way can readers inform themselves and form their own opinions,” criticizes David Werdermann, lawyer and proceedings coordinator at the GFF (Society for Civil Rights). “The unlawful searches and seizures seamlessly follow the disproportionate ban on linksunten.indymedia. First, association law was abused to ban an online medium. Now, critical reporting on this action is also being criminalized.”
Very vague and far-reaching criminal provisions, such as those concerning the support of banned organizations, must be interpreted in a way that protects fundamental rights like freedom of the press. If the alleged act of support consists merely of linking to such organizations as part of constitutionally protected reporting, this does not justify a search of editorial offices.
The Federal Ministry of the Interior (BMI) banned the internet platform linksunten.indymedia in August 2017 under the Associations Act. The Federal Administrative Court dismissed the legal challenges to the ban on formal grounds; a substantive review of the ban never took place. The GFF (Society for Civil Rights) submitted a statement (amicus curiae letter) regarding the linksunten.indymedia proceedings.
The GFF (Society for Civil Rights) aims to obtain a precedent-setting ruling establishing that journalists are not committing a crime if they link to archive websites while reporting on bans of associations. Radio Dreyeckland and the accused journalists will be represented in court by defense attorneys Angela Furmaniak, Dr. Lukas Theune, and Sven Adam.
Further information on the proceedings involving Radio Dreyeckland can be found here:
https://freiheitsrechte.org/themen/demokratie/radio_dreyeckland
Further information on the proceedings following the ban of linkunten.indymedia, as well as the amicus curiae letter, can be found here:
https://freiheitsrechte.org/themen/demokratie/linksunten-indymedia
Further information about the procedure from RDL's perspective can be found here:
https://rdl.de/Hausdurchsuchungen
For further information, please contact:
Dr. Maria Scharlau, presse@freiheitsrechte.org
Tel. 030/549 08 10 55 – 01579/2493108
