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| Europe | ||
| Raid fuels fears German leaders are trying to muzzle press | ||
| 2005-10-08 | ||
| 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. "We have seen an increase in the number of such raids over the past few years. People now wonder whether there is an intimidation campaign going on," says Monika Griefahn, an MP and media expert from the Social Democratic party of Gerhard Schröder, the chancellor. "It is our duty to keep reminding our rulers that freedom of the press remains a fundamental right, even in the post-September 11 world." The raid and seizure of 15 boxes of documents from Mr Schirra's personal archive were ordered when he came under suspicion by the interior ministry of acting as "accessory to the divulgence of state secrets". 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.
Wolfram Weimer, Cicero's editor, who has filed a complaint with the Potsdam administrative court, says the government was reluctant to see Iran portrayed as a sponsor of terrorism just as Berlin was involved in delicate negotiations aimed at curbing the country's nuclear ambitions. The timing of the raid, six months after the article's publication, he told the FT, also coincided with Mr Schröder's vocal opposition to "the military option" in the nuclear dispute with Iran as he sought to draw foreign policy into his electoral campaign.
"The main motivation, though, was to sniff out Schirra's sources in the Federal Criminal Office and close the leaks," Mr Weimer says. "More broadly, it was an attempt, through intimidation, to limit the scope of investigative reporting, a form of journalism which, in the era of global terrorism, is seen as counter-productive." The German Association of Journalists (DJV) says suspicion that the government may be engaged in a vast intimidation exercise - aimed at both reporters and their sources - is supported by the sharp increase in the number of raids on journalists' offices and homes in recent years. Hendrik Zörner, spokesman for the DJV, says that between 1997 and 2000, 150 such raids took place, and the frequency has risen since September 11 2001. "None of these ever led to a conviction," he told the FT. One concern among publishers is that the justifications invoked for such searches - suspicions of "prohibited publication" or "accessory to the divulgence of state secrets" - are being increasingly used to cover the intimidation of journalists whose work has little to do with national security. Last month the prosecutor's office in Chemnitz obtained permission to monitor the phones of reporters investigating the Saxony government's anti-corruption activities. Few of the government's critics think the tension between Mr Schröder, who blamed partisan reporting for his failure to win the election last month, and the Berlin press corps played a role in recent raids. Yet Mr Schily drew such a link at a media conference last week. After defending his ministry's role in the Cicero raid, saying that "journalists enjoy no exemption from the law", he slammed the electoral reporting as "malicious and mockingly deprecating". Mr Schily's appearance next week before the house's home affairs committee could add momentum to the controversy. Dieter WiefelspÌtz, the SPD's MP responsible for home affairs, has accused the minister of diverting attention from his own "leak-prone bureaucracy". Mr Zörner wants changes to the German criminal code, which protects medical doctors and priests against surveillance measures such as telephone taps. An attempt by the DJV to have the privilege extended to reporters failed last year but it will try once more when the code comes under review again. | ||
| Posted by:lotp |
| #2 Remember the fuss Schroeder made before the last election when it was suggested that he colored his hair? And this time he's already losing his hold on the government. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2005-10-08 21:39 |
| #1 This has more to do with the appeasement policies of teh Democratic Republic than it does "national security" The SPD runs the press and brooks no dissent. |
| Posted by: Sock Puppet O´ Doom 2005-10-08 19:42 |