Germany’s interior ministry has banned Compact – a nationalist German media outlet – on Tuesday after accusing it of being a “mouthpiece of the right-wing extremist scene.”
- Interior Minister Nancy Faeser issued bans on Compact magazine, its publisher Compact-Magazin GmbH, and Conspect Film, a film production company as police conducted raids on associated properties and residences across Germany.
- Faeser claimed that “this magazine agitates in an unspeakable way against Jews, against people with a history of migration and against our parliamentary democracy.”
- She also said that the ban shows “that we are also taking action against the intellectual arsonists who are stirring up a climate of hatred and violence against refugees and migrants and want to overcome our democratic state”
Background: Founded in 2010 by Jürgen Elsässer, Compact magazine’s close ties to the nationalist wing of Alternative for Germany (AfD) has led to scrutiny from the German government and corporations.
- In 2020, Meta’s Facebook and Instagram social media platforms removed Compact’s accounts over claims of hate speech.
- Compact was officially classified as extremist, nationalist and anti-minority by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution in 2021.
Response: Co-leaders Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla attacked the ban as “a serious blow to press freedom.”
- AfD’s Brandenburg parliamentary leader, Hans-Christoph Berndt, linked the timing of the ban to the September elections in the East German states of Brandenburg, Thuringia, and Saxony.
- The party is aiming to target 40% of the vote in the regional elections in their stronghold of Saxony which would potentially enable them to govern alone.
Why it matters: As AfD’s popularity has grown in recent years, driven by their stance against mass immigration and the war in Ukraine, they have faced escalating persecution from the German political establishment, which has launched a campaign to ban the party.
- Ahead of the EU’s parliamentary elections Maximilian Krah, AfD’s leading candidate, was forced to stop campaigning after saying that the SS, the Nazis’ main paramilitary force, were “not all criminals”.
- Björn Höcke, another high-profile AfD party member, was fined for ‘banned Nazi slogan’ earlier this year.
- Back in March a German court ruled that AfD is a “suspected threat to democracy.”