"Russian Narratives": Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution withdraws allegations against Junge Freiheit

After fierce protests against the claim that Junge Freiheit and other media were spreading "Russian narratives," the Office for the Protection of the Constitution backtracked and spoke of misunderstandings. The office has now also issued a written statement to JF.

Munich/Berlin - The Bavarian State Office for the Protection of the Constitution has withdrawn questionable passages in a brochure about the Russian "disinformation campaign Doppelgänger". In response to a warning letter from Junge Freiheit on Monday, the Bavarian State Office for the Protection of the Constitution has now explained in a letter to JF: "Since the public reception of the publication ... led to some misunderstandings regarding its content, the Bavarian State Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BayLfV) has made structural adjustments to the report."

In fact, the controversial brochure was changed and passages about the Russian propaganda of an "actor" (operator of fake news sites) were withdrawn and rewritten. Previously, the domestic secret service had created the impression that Junge Freiheit, the Berliner Zeitung, Tichys Einblick and Der Freitag, among others, were using Russian narratives.

JF editor-in-chief Dieter Stein then demanded in a warning letter that the Office for the Protection of the Constitution withdraw the accusation and issue a cease-and-desist declaration. Before the deadline expired, the authority changed the crucial passage and now responded in writing. While it previously said that the listed media were spreading "Russian narratives", the corresponding category now reads: "Websites whose content the actor has partially disseminated".

Kubicki: “Assessments by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution are not sacrosanct”
Criticism of the authority also came from politicians on Thursday. Speaking to the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Vice President of the Bundestag and FDP politician Wolfgang Kubicki said it was good and right that the Bavarian Office for the Protection of the Constitution had corrected its assessment. Kubicki went on to explain to the NZZ: "This correction should also give food for thought to all those who believe that the Office for the Protection of the Constitution's assessments are sacrosanct per se. We must continue to be careful that authorities do not restrict the right to freedom of expression for political reasons - not just in Bavaria, but throughout Germany." Media lawyer Joachim Steinhöfel criticized the Bavarian Office for the Protection of the Constitution's failure to act was "certainly one of the most blatant examples of how state bodies try to disparage the media."
Weidel: The Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, which fights unpopular opinions, should be abolished

AfD federal spokeswoman Alice Weidel took the affair on X as an opportunity to fundamentally question the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. The Bavarian state office must backtrack after it had "accused several media outlets - including Junge Freiheit and Berliner Zeitung - of having no real affinity with Russia," said Weidel. And she concludes: "An Office for the Protection of the Constitution that does not protect the constitution but fights unpopular opinions on behalf of the government should be abolished immediately."

Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution: “Deliberately taken out of context”
In the text, the secret service now writes that " from the perspective of the actor, the content in question supports the Russian narrative." And further: "For this purpose, some of the articles were deliberately taken out of context."

The Office for the Protection of the Constitution then corrects: "The BayLfV does not explicitly assume that those responsible for the websites listed here are spreading Russian propaganda or are aware of it or approve of their content being disseminated as part of the 'doppelgänger' campaign. Furthermore, the BayLfV does not make any assessment of the content of the websites in question."
JF text had nothing to do with Russia

Instead of the domain "jungefreiheit.de", the authority now also displays the exact link to the JF article that the apparently Russian "actor" misused for his campaign. In the case of the JF, this was an interview with the Hessian AfD politician Anna Nguyen. However, this article had nothing whatsoever to do with the Ukraine war, Putin or Russia.

Rather, it was about the fact that the other parties refused to give the candidate of the second strongest party in the state parliament the seat on the presidium that is usually the case. Only at the end of the interview, which took up an entire newspaper page, did the Vietnamese-born interviewee mention the word "Russians" - when she reported that left-wing political opponents had made the most sexist accusation that she would like to be raped by Russians.

Source: Junge Freiheit