German Court Overturns Ban on Far-Right Magazine

German court overturns ban on far-right magazine

By Thomas Escritt

BERLIN (Reuters) -A German court has overturned a ban on far-right magazine Compact that was accused of inciting hatred against Jews and foreigners, with a judge deciding on Tuesday that the publication was not extreme enough to justify it.

The Federal Administrative Court's ruling dealt a blow to attempts to contain the nativist Alternative for Germany party, the second-largest in parliament after February's election, and its range of online and print outriders.

Former Interior Minister Nancy Faeser banned the magazine, which had a circulation of 40,000 and a deep social media footprint, last July, labelling it a "mouthpiece of the right-wing extremist scene".

In his ruling, however, Ingo Kraft said that although Compact contained many extreme statements, including voicing support for expelling German citizens of migrant background, they did not amount to proof that the organisation behind the magazine was "intrinsically" unconstitutional.

"The Basic Law allows even its enemies freedom of opinion and of the press," Kraft wrote.

The magazine's chief editor Juergen Elsaesser, who has said Compact wants to overthrow Germany's "regime" and describes himself as a supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin, retweeted a picture of himself captioned with the single word: "Sieg!", or "Victory".

For the AfD, which has long pursued a strategy of peppering the state with complicated lawsuits and parliamentary questions that slow its working and discredit them, the ruling is a morale boost after it underperformed polls in the election.

Bjoern Hoecke, leader of the party's most radical wing, cast his party and the magazine as defenders of democratic norms against the previous Social Democrat interior minister's authoritarian instincts.

"Instead of prosecuting Islamists, she hunted down harmless critics of the government," he wrote on social media. "She caused great harm to democracy."

The Interior Ministry, now led by the conservative Alexander Dobrindt, did not immediately respond to an e-mailed request for comment.

(Reporting by Thomas Escritt, editing by Ed Osmond)