Every single one of these "scoops" carries the narrative "the authorities / the police / people who don't share our opinion collaborate with or are nazis"; laying the mental foundation for further G20 type riots and their self-justification. This narrative is getting quite old for most people these days, even though most support non-violent anti-neonazi and anti-extremist organizations.
Outlets like indymedia and the notorious local establishments appear to be more interested in searching in their local neighbourhood politics for justification to riot than in novel kinds of extremist or outright fascist movements developing on a global scale. This makes it a bit difficult to believe their self-proclaimed goals.
To provide a more balanced picture, there's a competition held at that site:
Riot-Bundesliga [1]. Who fucks up cities the most? Throw paint at buildings! Set cars on fire! Destroy property of political enemies! And banks! And stores! Beat up (probably) right-wing people! And cops! Go win the crown!
The problem is that it's the hot phase right before the election, and Interior Minister de Maiziere, who himself comes from a family with close Nazi ties (https://twitter.com/wasloshamburg/status/901010204598222848) wants to prove, especially after G20, that he is the personification of "law and order".
What I am really afraid of is Joachim Herrmann (CSU, Interior Minister of Bavaria) succeeding that moron after the election. Herrmann recently introduced the possibility of "indefinite jailing" ("Endloshaft") for people that the police deems as "dangerous".
The German Conservatives always have been rightwing-authoritarian, but the pressure from AfD neonazis has shifted their entire politics even more towards right-authoritarian than I would ever have thought possible.
To make matters worse, the SPD has not been able to produce a qualified candidate who actually wants to take back stuff like Hartz IV which the working class really hates, the Green Party got their policies stolen / made irrelevant (environmental protection, exit from nuclear energy), and the Left Party (as well as the non-parliamentary lefties) are rather battling themselves than the Conservatives and the Nazis.
Particularly worrisome here is the potential for a raid on a pretext, ostensibly the main reason for the raid was the presence of an anonymous threat against the police.
The only way to deal with anonymous general threats against authorities is to ignore them. The potential for abuse of such threats as a fabricated pretext is simply too high, as is the number of idiots.
Anonymous threads that have become reality in the past. They're hard to ignore.
The page in question also introduced a "Randale Bundesliga", a rioting competition in which they crowned the city with the most riots. Anything from throwing paint at buildings to setting cars on fire to beating up people from the opposite political spectrum counts.
linksunten.indymedia is a widely known platform of the German Antifa. During the most recent weeks many texts glorifying or whitewashing the Hamburg G20 riots were published there. Texts can be submitted by any anonymous person, however the website owners decide whether they leave it online or not – so there is reason to see responsibility under law.
I wouldn't be surprised either if it becomes accessible again just after the German federal elections in 4 weeks.
I remember that during G20, some grandstanders set fire to some cables in the Berlin S-Bahn system, disrupting train service for a day. They then claimed responsibility with a letter on linksunten. [1]
Thing is, the comments on linksunten were uniformly condemning of the letter and the act. Yet still by sympathizers, not outsiders coming to the site. I'd link to the web archive version but the only thing the crawler was able to retrieve was a 'DDOS protection for civil society' banner [2].
Actually the operators themselves have shut it down - press reports have surfaced that the servers are located in France, and I guess that the ops team which did not get their apartments fleeced is busy moving the servers to somewhere well out of the reach of de Maiziere.
Yes, what could possibly motivate individuals to join ..... a german antifascist movement. Totally bizarre. So strange. Almost as if there was some kind of historical precedent....
This is probably done just for the election, and it's not clear whether the ban will hold in front of courts.
linksunten.indymedia is not actually a club, as which it was forbidden, nor did they publish the contents themselves. As such, they should be subject to the 'Telemediengesetz' just like e.g. Facebook and sued on this basis.
What happened on that site was straight down illegal and was tolerated for far too long. They shared instructions for making weapons and explosives, publicly shared personal information and called for attacks against the state and individuals.
Right wing organizations have been shut down for far less and extremism on both sides should be treated the same way.
Good. It's really high time German authorities take care of this situation.
This is really scary how laissez faire they were before. Bored bands of anarchists destroying public and private property (e.g. burning down cars) on daily basis accompanied by cheers of "useful idiots".
I really hope this is a first step in direction of solving this dangerous precedent.
...authorities were treating linksunten.indymedia.org as an "association" rather than a news outlet, which would help officials get around constitutional protections on freedom of expression. [...] The anonymous threat to police - called "bulls" in Germany - led officials to determine that the site had become a "lawless realm," and, for now at least, the authorities have ended it.
Which I find pretty concerning. "Don't say anything nasty about the state or the police, or we will shut you down" Isn't a message I was expecting to hear from a European Government.
There's a difference between saying 'anything nasty' and calling for physical action against individuals. Content on that page called for violence against individuals, including members of the police.
I'm not saying I disagree with your argument, but "don't say anything nasty" doesn't represent the facts accurately.
> Which I find pretty concerning. "Don't say anything nasty about the state or the police, or we will shut you down" Isn't a message I was expecting to hear from a European Government.
If you look at the legal basis they used, you will find that the organization was actually banned as (inter alia) being a criminal conspiracy with the goal of facilitating the commission of criminal offenses (and in particular, violent crimes). Searches found knives, truncheons, and other weapons [1].
Apparently the fact that the site had administrators (i.e. more than one) made it an association. By that definition a newspaper, TV network and anything else are associations too I guess?
The mechanism for closing the site is what interests me. There are certain laws in place to prevent exactly this kind of thing from happening. Authorities worked around this by classifying the site as a "club" instead of a publication platform / news portal. The move is widely seen as a response to violent G20 protests. The way to deal with that should be to find and prosecute the violent offenders, not shutting down lawful websites.
[+] [-] o-|8 years ago|reply
* Leak of AfD (right-wing populist German party) internal chat, which reveals Nazi quotes.
* Article showing collaboration between a neonazi and police in Leipzig.
* Outing right-wing arsonist who was also a police informant.
* Research on the Identitarian Movement, revealing organizational structure.
* Leak of customer data of a Nazi online shop outing parliament member as customer.
No wonder they made some good enemies.
[1] https://twitter.com/Chronik_ge_Re/status/901033270133096452
[+] [-] DanielleMolloy|8 years ago|reply
Outlets like indymedia and the notorious local establishments appear to be more interested in searching in their local neighbourhood politics for justification to riot than in novel kinds of extremist or outright fascist movements developing on a global scale. This makes it a bit difficult to believe their self-proclaimed goals.
[+] [-] mikejb|8 years ago|reply
Riot-Bundesliga [1]. Who fucks up cities the most? Throw paint at buildings! Set cars on fire! Destroy property of political enemies! And banks! And stores! Beat up (probably) right-wing people! And cops! Go win the crown!
[1] https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:gVWB7G...
[+] [-] mschuster91|8 years ago|reply
The problem is that it's the hot phase right before the election, and Interior Minister de Maiziere, who himself comes from a family with close Nazi ties (https://twitter.com/wasloshamburg/status/901010204598222848) wants to prove, especially after G20, that he is the personification of "law and order".
What I am really afraid of is Joachim Herrmann (CSU, Interior Minister of Bavaria) succeeding that moron after the election. Herrmann recently introduced the possibility of "indefinite jailing" ("Endloshaft") for people that the police deems as "dangerous".
The German Conservatives always have been rightwing-authoritarian, but the pressure from AfD neonazis has shifted their entire politics even more towards right-authoritarian than I would ever have thought possible.
To make matters worse, the SPD has not been able to produce a qualified candidate who actually wants to take back stuff like Hartz IV which the working class really hates, the Green Party got their policies stolen / made irrelevant (environmental protection, exit from nuclear energy), and the Left Party (as well as the non-parliamentary lefties) are rather battling themselves than the Conservatives and the Nazis.
[+] [-] teamhappy|8 years ago|reply
@raverbashing https://youtu.be/vypByg_H_YY?t=51s
[+] [-] jacquesm|8 years ago|reply
The only way to deal with anonymous general threats against authorities is to ignore them. The potential for abuse of such threats as a fabricated pretext is simply too high, as is the number of idiots.
[+] [-] mikejb|8 years ago|reply
The page in question also introduced a "Randale Bundesliga", a rioting competition in which they crowned the city with the most riots. Anything from throwing paint at buildings to setting cars on fire to beating up people from the opposite political spectrum counts.
[+] [-] DanielleMolloy|8 years ago|reply
I wouldn't be surprised either if it becomes accessible again just after the German federal elections in 4 weeks.
[+] [-] hedgedoops2|8 years ago|reply
Thing is, the comments on linksunten were uniformly condemning of the letter and the act. Yet still by sympathizers, not outsiders coming to the site. I'd link to the web archive version but the only thing the crawler was able to retrieve was a 'DDOS protection for civil society' banner [2].
"Antifa" is a bogeyman currently, imo.
[1] https://linksunten.indymedia.org/de/node/215853 (offline) [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20170620143720/https://linksunte...
[+] [-] mschuster91|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dtornabene|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hyperfekt|8 years ago|reply
linksunten.indymedia is not actually a club, as which it was forbidden, nor did they publish the contents themselves. As such, they should be subject to the 'Telemediengesetz' just like e.g. Facebook and sued on this basis.
[+] [-] yAnonymous|8 years ago|reply
Right wing organizations have been shut down for far less and extremism on both sides should be treated the same way.
[+] [-] discordianfish|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] odiroot|8 years ago|reply
This is really scary how laissez faire they were before. Bored bands of anarchists destroying public and private property (e.g. burning down cars) on daily basis accompanied by cheers of "useful idiots".
I really hope this is a first step in direction of solving this dangerous precedent.
[+] [-] Grue3|8 years ago|reply
The world's smallest violin is weeping. I guess "big government" isn't such a good thing now, is it?
[+] [-] br_smartass|8 years ago|reply
(Explaining: Your post only exposes the size of your ignorance)
[+] [-] mdekkers|8 years ago|reply
Which I find pretty concerning. "Don't say anything nasty about the state or the police, or we will shut you down" Isn't a message I was expecting to hear from a European Government.
[+] [-] mikejb|8 years ago|reply
I'm not saying I disagree with your argument, but "don't say anything nasty" doesn't represent the facts accurately.
[+] [-] rbehrends|8 years ago|reply
If you look at the legal basis they used, you will find that the organization was actually banned as (inter alia) being a criminal conspiracy with the goal of facilitating the commission of criminal offenses (and in particular, violent crimes). Searches found knives, truncheons, and other weapons [1].
[1] http://www.n-tv.de/politik/De-Maiziere-verbietet-linksunten-... (in German).
[+] [-] aedron|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] eatonphil|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wongarsu|8 years ago|reply
(for reference, original title was "Germain Interior Ministry shuts down, and raids Linksunten.indymedia.org")
[+] [-] mdekkers|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DarkKomunalec|8 years ago|reply
I am shocked - shocked - that anti-hate animus would be used this way!
[+] [-] mdekkers|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jlebrech|8 years ago|reply