"Today I banned the right-wing extremist Compact magazine," said Nancy Faeser on
17.07.2024, causing a major international media stir.
This ban was overturned by the Federal Administrative Court on Wednesday, 14.08.2024, in a completely surprising
decision, which ruled in summary proceedings that the compact ban does not apply for the time being.
Kla.TV was at the press conference in Berlin for you and was also able to speak to Jürgen Elsässer there.
"Mr. Elsässer, how do you feel now after this press conference and the exciting events of the last few days?"
"OK, we feel like winners.
It is the biggest political victory in my life.
With this success in the summary proceedings, we have dealt a serious blow to Ms. Faeser's ban fantasies, because
it means that all media can now also be relieved, because she will not try to ban a medium again so quickly.
This of course provides fresh air for democratic controversy and for pluralism of opinion among the people, and we will
also use this fresh air as a tailwind to decisively increase our influence, our reach and our circulation.
[Yes, the solidarity was tremendous.
Some of the solidarity was not directed at Compact magazine in particular, but some of our critics, who actually said: "I find
Compact magazine completely unacceptable, but I still defend freedom of the press" - which is also
a form of solidarity - was actually overwhelming."
"We are receiving huge support, far beyond the patriotic camp.
So you can almost be grateful to Faeser for what she has done.
Because the interest in our work is greater than ever and, of course, the support for our work is greater than ever."
"Yes, yesterday was the most important day in defense of press freedom since the Spiegel affair in 1962.
At that time, the Hamburg news magazine prevailed over the authoritarian encroachments, especially those of
Defense Minister Franz Josef Strauß, who then had to resign.
And so yesterday Compact magazine prevailed over the authoritarian, not to say fascist,
assaults of the Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser.
Yesterday was a victory of David over Goliath. It was a victory of democracy over
dictatorship and a victory of the people over the regime.
In short: it was a victory for Compact over Nancy Faeser."
Elsässer's lawyer on the next concrete steps:
"The Federal Administrative Court has ruled: Compact can continue to be published and the task of the supporters and lawyers for
Jürgen Elsässer and Compact is now to ensure that the factual conditions for this are returned to
the publisher's control as quickly as possible.
That's a challenge, it's also new territory, but this task is already being actively tackled right now."
"We were sceptical as to whether we would win in the summary proceedings, because the political pressure was
considerable and Mr. Kubicki, for example, said that the political fate of Interior Minister Faeser was at stake here."
Elsässer and his team saw their confidence in the German rule of law confirmed.
"The judges have behaved with gratifying independence, and that is a sign that we actually still have strong, very strong forces
in the judiciary, very courageous judges who insist on their sovereignty and on the law and do not allow
themselves to be put under pressure by the executive."