Dispute over “secret plan”: Legal skilled calls “Correctiv” ruling “denial of reality” – reporter responds in open letter | EUROtoday

Almost two years after the publication of the “Correctiv” report on the so-called Potsdam assembly, there are nonetheless authorized disputes in regards to the analysis. Most just lately, the Hamburg regional courtroom dismissed two lawsuits in opposition to the portal and 5 staff. The judgments should not but ultimate.

In January 2024, the investigative portal reported on a gathering of CDU and AfD politicians, entrepreneurs and the Austrian right-wing extremist Martin Sellner in a resort in Potsdam. The members had deliberate “nothing less than the expulsion of millions of people from Germany,” the journalists summarized their findings on the time. The publication was adopted by a big wave of protests all through Germany.

Participants on the assembly, particularly the lawyer Ulrich Vosgerau and the initiator Gernot Mörig, needed to have sure statements from the “Correctiv” textual content banned. Among different issues, it was about classifying that the idea of “remigration” offered on the assembly was a few “master plan for the expulsion of German citizens”.

The courtroom now dominated: Readers of the article might have acknowledged which passages had been an in depth copy of statements made on the assembly or an evaluative abstract or commentary of what occurred.

Therefore, readers wouldn’t come to the understanding “that Sellner or another participant literally spoke about ‘expulsion’ or ‘expulsion’ of German citizens, or that it was literally said that German citizens should also be ‘expelled’ from Germany,” the courtroom mentioned.

The lawyer and editor-in-chief of the specialist journal “Legal Tribune Online”, Felix W. Zimmermann, known as the choice in an opinion piece a “judgment from the parallel universe” – and the rationale for it was “intentional denial of reality”. He listed quite a few media shops from ARD to “Spiegel” to his personal portal that “apparently understood the statement about the expulsion plan in the Correctiv report as a ‘fact’.” Since this was not the case, a number of media shops suffered defeats in courtroom for his or her reporting on the unique analysis.

Zimmermann’s conclusion was: “The LG Hamburg should therefore have asked itself a simple, but apparently uncomfortable question: How could this mass understanding come about?” And complained: “The court refuses to engage in any serious discussion about it.” The authorized skilled additionally criticized that the “ignorance” of the Hamburg judges was an “encouragement to mislead” for right-wing populist media equivalent to “Nius” and Co. and thus “not only a defeat for the plaintiff, but also for accuracy in journalism and the public opinion-forming process as a whole.”

“Correctiv” reporter Bensmann responds in an open letter

On Sunday, “Correctiv” reporter Marcus Bensmann responded in an open letter that he shared on the LinkedIn platform. Bensmann was additionally concerned within the “secret plan” analysis. He accused lawyer Zimmermann of serving to to “further downplay the concept of ‘remigration’, which is contrary to human dignity, deep into the middle class.”

Bensmann argued that “Correctiv” had defined in detailed paragraphs in oblique speech and with quotations how the right-wing extremist Martin Sellner in Potsdam offered “non-assimilated citizens” via “pressure to conform” and “tailor-made laws” as a “decade project” to defend in opposition to “ethnic choice”. These traces are the “connecting facts” for the classification on the finish of the analysis. Sellner intentionally used “camouflage terms” “to cover up the hostility to humanity and to give the impression that such a concept of ‘remigration’ for citizens, too, would be in accordance with the Basic Law.” “Correctiv” ripped off this “mask” with its analysis and its analysis.

Meanwhile, the talk continued within the feedback column on the LinkedIn put up. The managing director of the German Journalists Association, Timo Conraths, emphasised that authorized skilled and writer of the opinion article Zimmermann used to work for the legislation agency “Schertz Bergmann”, which usually takes motion in opposition to journalists. Zimmermann replied cynically: “It’s a great feeling to know that a managing director at the DJV – German Association of Journalists, who defames his opinions (if they don’t suit him) as activism because of a journalist’s professional activity over 11 years ago.”