Yes, we have the editor-in-chief of Compact magazine here.
They were rudely dragged out of bed today by masked policemen.
You almost get the feeling that criminal clans are being attacked here.
How do you feel when you see something like that?
It is the most serious attack on the freedom of the press, at least since the Spiegel affair in 1962.
At that time, however, Der Spiegel was not banned.
Now we have a prohibition order from Nancy Faeser against COMPACT-Magazin GmbH.
All magazines, all TV formats, all social media formats, i.e. this is an attempt at destruction.
Article 5 of the Basic Law - freedom of the press and freedom of opinion has been suspended, not by the Federal
Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe, but by a lone decision by the government or by Ms. Faeser.
A legal trick was used to achieve this.
They simply said: COMPACT-Magazin GmbH is not a publishing house, it is an association, but we are not an association!
We are a publishing house. The most successful press medium of the opposition in Germany.
We sell 40,000 copies a month.
Our YouTube channels have a reach of one million a day.
And of course this became dangerous for the regime, which is why they have now struck in a dictatorial manner in
a cloak-and-dagger operation, illegally against the law, against Article 5 of the Basic Law.
It is a unique process and now you can really say that we have always warned against it: it is heading towards dictatorship.
But today the manifesto has become.
A publication was once banned in the GDR, but not in the FRG, that's true.
In the GDR it was, Sputnik, that was in 1988 shortly before the fall of communism, by the way, do you have a view on that?
A regime in decline always lashes out wildly.
And they think that was the case with Hornecker and Mielke back then and now it is the case with Baerbock and Faeser.
They think that if they impose bans, they can save their regime.
But the opposite will be the case.
People realize this, are even more outraged, and as a result the opposition becomes stronger and stronger,
and eventually the fall of the regime is inevitable.
We need a peaceful revolution like the one in the GDR in 1989.
You mentioned that they used a trick.
They have tried to ban COMPACT via the law on associations, or they want to push through the ban.
You are probably taking legal action against this and how, have you already consulted with the lawyer about the chances?
We will issue an emergency injunction, because they have now occupied all the publishing premises with the police.
Everything will be taken away, all our computers and all our accounts will be confiscated, i.e. the
money we have earned as COMPACT will now be stolen by the state and become state property.
There is no legal basis for such a ban on a press organ, which is legal.
We have never had a single conviction for any content.
Not incitement to hatred, not racism, not anti-Semitism, not incitement to violence.
We are a completely irreproachable institution, and yet now this measure - this ban. They won't get away with it,
We will apply for an emergency injunction and hope that we will be able to get it through in the next few days.
Mr. Elsässer, thank you very much for the interview!