
German Interior Ministry shuts down Linksunten.indymedia.org - mdekkers
http://www.dw.com/en/interior-ministry-shuts-down-raids-left-wing-german-indymedia-site/a-40232965
======
o-
Chronology of scoops published on that site at [1]. Some headlines translated:

* Leak of AfD (right-wing populist German party) internal chat, which reveals Nazi quotes.

* Article showing collaboration between a neonazi and police in Leipzig.

* Outing right-wing arsonist who was also a police informant.

* Research on the Identitarian Movement, revealing organizational structure.

* Leak of customer data of a Nazi online shop outing parliament member as customer.

No wonder they made some good enemies.

[1]
[https://twitter.com/Chronik_ge_Re/status/901033270133096452](https://twitter.com/Chronik_ge_Re/status/901033270133096452)

~~~
DanielleMolloy
Every single one of these "scoops" carries the narrative "the authorities /
the police / people who don't share our opinion collaborate with or are
nazis"; laying the mental foundation for further G20 type riots and their
self-justification. This narrative is getting quite old for most people these
days, even though most support non-violent anti-neonazi and anti-extremist
organizations.

Outlets like indymedia and the notorious local establishments appear to be
more interested in searching in their local neighbourhood politics for
justification to riot than in novel kinds of extremist or outright fascist
movements developing on a global scale. This makes it a bit difficult to
believe their self-proclaimed goals.

~~~
dtornabene
any evidence for that first charge there? There have been some well documented
collusion between elements of the police and far right wing types in Germany.
AfD is also winning local elections there.

------
jacquesm
Particularly worrisome here is the potential for a raid on a pretext,
ostensibly the main reason for the raid was the presence of an anonymous
threat against the police.

The only way to deal with anonymous general threats against authorities is to
ignore them. The potential for abuse of such threats as a fabricated pretext
is simply too high, as is the number of idiots.

~~~
mikejb
Anonymous threads that have become reality in the past. They're hard to
ignore.

The page in question also introduced a "Randale Bundesliga", a rioting
competition in which they crowned the city with the most riots. Anything from
throwing paint at buildings to setting cars on fire to beating up people from
the opposite political spectrum counts.

------
DanielleMolloy
linksunten.indymedia is a widely known platform of the German Antifa. During
the most recent weeks many texts glorifying or whitewashing the Hamburg G20
riots were published there. Texts can be submitted by any anonymous person,
however the website owners decide whether they leave it online or not – so
there is reason to see responsibility under law.

I wouldn't be surprised either if it becomes accessible again just after the
German federal elections in 4 weeks.

~~~
hedgedoops2
I remember that during G20, some grandstanders set fire to some cables in the
Berlin S-Bahn system, disrupting train service for a day. They then claimed
responsibility with a letter on linksunten. [1]

Thing is, the comments on linksunten were uniformly condemning of the letter
and the act. Yet still by sympathizers, not outsiders coming to the site. I'd
link to the web archive version but the only thing the crawler was able to
retrieve was a 'DDOS protection for civil society' banner [2].

"Antifa" is a bogeyman currently, imo.

[1]
[https://linksunten.indymedia.org/de/node/215853](https://linksunten.indymedia.org/de/node/215853)
(offline) [2]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20170620143720/https://linksunte...](https://web.archive.org/web/20170620143720/https://linksunten.indymedia.org/de/node/215853)

------
hyperfekt
This is probably done just for the election, and it's not clear whether the
ban will hold in front of courts.

linksunten.indymedia is not actually a club, as which it was forbidden, nor
did they publish the contents themselves. As such, they should be subject to
the 'Telemediengesetz' just like e.g. Facebook and sued on this basis.

------
yAnonymous
What happened on that site was straight down illegal and was tolerated for far
too long. They shared instructions for making weapons and explosives, publicly
shared personal information and called for attacks against the state and
individuals.

Right wing organizations have been shut down for far less and extremism on
both sides should be treated the same way.

~~~
discordianfish
Care to name a single example where "right wing organizations have been shut
down for far less"?

~~~
mikejb
Deutschlandecho would be an example where the state shut down a right-wing
page.

Also, there's the continuous effort to ban the right-wing party (NPD).

~~~
cockofthewalk
You mean the NPD which was ruled unconstitutional but too small to be of
importance, therefore not outlawed?
[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/17/world/europe/german-
court...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/17/world/europe/german-court-far-
right.html?mcubz=1)

Horrible.

~~~
mikejb
I'm not fully following on what your point is; My post was primarily intended
to be informative of political actions on the other side of extremism.

Also, banning a political party is quite a big hammer, regardless of how
important the party itself is.

~~~
dtornabene
Do you have any awareness about the laws governing the history of violent
extremism in Germany? Theres a reason right wing and far right wing parties
face legal scrutiny.

~~~
mikejb
Technically speaking, there's no law governing any history; There's laws
governing behavior in the present that arose from events in history. I live in
Germany for 12 years by now; I can't claim a lawyer-level knowledge of e.g.
§130 StGB, but I have a basic understanding.

What I'm having trouble following is the logic of "the violent extremism on
the other side is less bad, because it hasn't led to similarly horrible
effects yet".

------
odiroot
Good. It's really high time German authorities take care of this situation.

This is really scary how laissez faire they were before. Bored bands of
anarchists destroying public and private property (e.g. burning down cars) on
daily basis accompanied by cheers of "useful idiots".

I really hope this is a first step in direction of solving this dangerous
precedent.

------
Grue3
>portal popular with leftist readers and activists

The world's smallest violin is weeping. I guess "big government" isn't such a
good thing now, is it?

~~~
br_smartass
Damn _anarchists_ and their """""""""big governement love""""""""". Damn!

(Explaining: Your post only exposes the size of your ignorance)

------
mdekkers
_...authorities were treating linksunten.indymedia.org as an "association"
rather than a news outlet, which would help officials get around
constitutional protections on freedom of expression._ [...] _The anonymous
threat to police - called "bulls" in Germany - led officials to determine that
the site had become a "lawless realm," and, for now at least, the authorities
have ended it._

Which I find pretty concerning. "Don't say anything nasty about the state or
the police, or we will shut you down" Isn't a message I was expecting to hear
from a European Government.

~~~
aedron
Apparently the fact that the site had administrators (i.e. more than one) made
it an association. By that definition a newspaper, TV network and anything
else are associations too I guess?

~~~
wongarsu
The association part is a red herring. Of course a group of administrators is
an association, just like CNN also happens to be (part of) a company. The
important thing he is saying is that they treat them as if they weren't also a
news outlet. I find that decision questionable, and I expect an interesting
court case centered around the question which kinds of websites qualify as
news outlets and which don't.

~~~
zuzun
They had the legal form of a registered association [0] and the ministry
claims it went against the German constitution:

 _Associations whose aims or activities contravene the criminal laws, or that
are directed against the constitutional order or the concept of international
understanding, shall be prohibited._ [1]

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Registered_association_(German...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Registered_association_\(Germany\))

[1] [https://www.gesetze-im-
internet.de/englisch_gg/englisch_gg.h...](https://www.gesetze-im-
internet.de/englisch_gg/englisch_gg.html#p0056)

------
eatonphil
Could we change the title so it doesn't read like the German Interior Ministry
itself was shut down?

~~~
wongarsu
The title was a great example of misuse of the oxford comma. I might borrow
that.

(for reference, original title was "Germain Interior Ministry shuts down, and
raids Linksunten.indymedia.org")

~~~
tallanvor
I wouldn't recommend borrowing this, because there's only two items in the
list which would never include a comma before the conjunction. The Oxford
comma is used in lists of 3 or more items.

Also, it seems the person who posted this modified the title for some reason.
The actual article title is "German Interior Ministry shuts down, raids left-
wing German Indymedia site". We can probably agree that this title isn't great
either, but it's far better than the hatchet job the poster did.

~~~
wongarsu
That's why I said misuse :)

If you extend the list to three items, an oxford comma actually helps with
understanding the sentence: "German Interior Ministry shuts down, brings
charges against and raids Linksunten.indymedia.org" vs "German Interior
Ministry shuts down, brings charges against, and raids
Linksunten.indymedia.org". But in general it's just a really bad sentence no
matter how many commas there are.

------
DarkKomunalec
_The site was closed for "sowing hate against different opinions and
representatives of the country,"_

I am shocked - _shocked_ \- that anti-hate animus would be used this way!

~~~
mdekkers
The mechanism for closing the site is what interests me. There are certain
laws in place to prevent exactly this kind of thing from happening.
Authorities worked around this by classifying the site as a "club" instead of
a publication platform / news portal. The move is widely seen as a response to
violent G20 protests. The way to deal with that should be to find and
prosecute the violent offenders, not shutting down lawful websites.

~~~
yAnonymous
Ironically, broad bans of anything right wing are exactly what the left have
been asking for all these years.

I told people it's going to be used against them one day. Shortsighted idiots.

~~~
mercurysmessage
People don't have a problem with 'anything' right wing, people have a problem
with far right wing, and the views that come along with it. You know,
nationalism, supremacy, xenophobia.

~~~
DarkKomunalec
Holding the interests of your own country above those of others is by
definition nationalism, and almost any opposition to immigration is labelled
xenophobia.

They are, and have historically been, the policy for the vast majority of
countries, and are advantageous positions for a population to have - is that
all it takes to be _far_ right?

~~~
mercurysmessage
The problem is that we don't live in the 1800s, we live in a global market,
and consumers want the best products available. Additionally, these are
people, why would we limit the movements of people?

Immigrants help Countries they move to, they build the economy and workforce,
and are the only reason why the US does not have an aging population as bad as
Canada, Japan, and many other nations. Opposition to immigration _is_
xenophobia.

Historically, many things have been bad, and/or wrong. Mental Health
treatment, treatment of the aboriginal people, food safety, environmental
policy and protection. How is history any sort of an argument?

~~~
DarkKomunalec
History was not the argument - it was to illustrate that what you consider
_far_ right has been and is _common_.

> we live in a global market,

Treating local businesses preferentially does not mean abolishing
international trade. Just look at China, or US agricultural subsidies, or
tariffs, or countless other examples.

> Immigrants help Countries they move to

 _Countries_ , perhaps, but what about the local _people_? Don't they compete
for the same jobs, driving down wages? Vote and take advantage of common
resources (drinking water, arable land, existing infrastructure, etc.),
reducing the political and economic capital of the locals? Encourage policies
for more immigration, instead of policies that would encourage parenthood?
Won't immigrants look out for their own interests more than for those of the
local population?

Let me rephrase that last question - is racism real?

> Immigrants [...] are the only reason why the US does not have an aging
> population

It's a sick society indeed that can't even sustain its own population. And
instead of improving itself, it makes up the shortfall with immigration. Do
you really believe immigration is the only way to sustain population levels?
Why can other countries manage without?

~~~
mercurysmessage
Common, but not as common anymore since it doesn't make as much sense.

> Treating local businesses preferentially does not mean abolishing
> international trade. Just look at China, or US agricultural subsidies, or
> tariffs, or countless other examples.

Yes, this is true, they can both exist together.

> Don't they compete for the same jobs, driving down wages? Vote and take
> advantage of common resources (drinking water, arable land, existing
> infrastructure, etc.), reducing the political and economic capital of the
> locals? Encourage policies for more immigration, instead of policies that
> would encourage parenthood? Won't immigrants look out for their own
> interests more than for those of the local population?

Why are you making this about us vs them? What is your purpose? Once they
immigrate, they _are_ the local population. Everyone takes advantage of those
resources, tough. Parenthood doesn't need to be encouraged through policies.

> is racism real?

Yes, it's absolutely insane to me that you are even asking that. You must have
lived a sheltered life to think it doesn't exist.

> And instead of improving itself, it makes up the shortfall with immigration

It won't sustain it's own population, this is on us, as a society, and due to
changes in the job and technology markets, populations are shrinking
dramatically. We aren't and can't force people to have 10 children anymore,
that just won't happen.

Other countries don't manage without, what are you saying? They allow
immigration, and the population is still shrinking.

What do you have against immigrants, against immigration?

