The president of the parliament of Baden-Württemberg, Muhterem Aras, banned three YouTubers from entering the building ahead of the local AfD-organized ‘Influencer Day’ on Saturday, July 12th, forcing the event to relocate at the last minute.
The Turkish-born Green politician justified the move by saying that the Landesamt für Verfassungsschutz Baden-Württemberg (LfV), the state’s domestic intelligence agency, had just announced an investigation into all three would-be speakers on the suspicion of spreading “right-wing extremist” content to undermine democracy.
According to Aras’ letter, sent to the AfD a week prior to the event, the LfV announced on July 8th that the YouTubers in question are “known” to the agency, and it was looking into them for allegedly attempting to “delegitimize” the state and constitution. The president, therefore, has a responsibility to ensure that the state parliament’s premises “are only used within the limits of the free, democratic basic order,” Aras said.
Naturally, the AfD doesn’t buy the arguments for this flimsy attempt to silence right-wing voices again. According to the party’s parliamentary group leader, Anton Baron, the alleged “delegitimization” of the state is an overly vague term and not a criminally relevant offence, used solely “to make it impossible for a party to carry out its work as constitutionally guaranteed and to quickly declare three young, idealistic people as extremists.”
The YouTubers in question include Leonard Jäger, the creator behind the quickly growing Christian counter-culture channel ‘Ketzer der Neuzeit’ (‘Heretic of Modernity’) with over half a million subscribers; independent conservative journalist Boris von Morgenstern; and libertarian commentator Miró Wolsfeld, behind the channel ‘Unblogd.’ The three channels have over 750,000 subscribers and 200 million views between them, so it’s easy to understand why the leftist president and the LfV were scrambling to keep them out of the state parliament.
“Anyone who knows my videos knows how absurd the accusation of right-wing extremism is,” said Jäger, whose videos have been watched nearly 150 million times. “You might think that the [LfV] is just afraid of ghosts under the bed, but unfortunately, there is strategy behind it,” he added, “an attempt to silence voices critical of the government … and an attack on free speech and press in the name of democracy, which in reality is being undermined.”
Von Morgenstern pointed out the absurdity that he is a member of a commission of the state parliament of Mecklenburg-Western-Pomerania and sits on the Koblenz city council, yet “suddenly my presence is said to be a threat to the reputation and integrity of parliament in Baden-Württemberg.”
Wolsfeld, on the other hand, said he was not surprised to hear that he was put on a watch list, which was bound to happen sooner or later, even if he (and the others) had never had any charges filed against him or his publications mentioned in any previous intelligence report.
“Well, I’m not a fan of mass migration, but of regulated migration; I’m in favor of women being able to choose a family without prejudice and not being forced to have to make a professional career for taxes; I criticize ideologically driven climate madness, I point out contradictions from the Greens, and, above all, I want them to finance their ideas and projects themselves,” he said, adding that he hopes Germany can cultivate a proper debate culture one day.
