Germany: Government Bans Linksunten Indymedia

from: http://mpalothia.net/germany-government-bans-linksunten-indymedia/

The German government banned the linksunten.indymedia website today. According to German mainstream media the decision was given to 3 alleged “operators” of the indymedia platform.

German Government Bans Linksunten Indymedia

The German government banned the linksunten.indymedia.org website today. According to German mainstream media the decision was given to 3 alleged “operators” of the indymedia platform.

Tweet by the German federal ministery announcing the ban of Linksunten Indymedia:

Cops raided buildings, confiscated computers but until now the cops did not made arrests. Thomas Strobl (CDU), state interior minister of Baden-Württemberg told reporters that raids in “multiple objects” are ongoing. Federal interior minister Thomas De Mazière said that Linksunten is acting against the “constitutional order”.

The federal interior ministery motivated the ban saying that the purpose and activity of the Linksunten Indymedia website: “adverse criminal laws.” All Linksunten Indymedia logos are now also banned in Germany.

According to German daily Neues Deutschland, the website was offline for a short moment on Friday morning but later the site was online again. At 10:50am (CET) we checked again and the site was down again. However its expected that Linksunten could be online soon again. Linksunten.indymedia is organized decentrally and stored on different servers and De Mazière admitted that it won’t be possible to shutdown Linksunten today or in the coming days.

Linksunten exists in its current format since 2009 and published calls for actions and demonstrations, claims of groups who carried out actions, articles for debates, analysis and reports from and about many acions. The platform gave people a platform to post anonymously, beyond the control of state authorities.

The repressive action against Linksunten comes after many German politicians announced that the state will step-up the fight against what they call “left-extremism”. These announcements came after last months NoG20 protests in Hamburg. Linksunten Indymedia published many calls, reports and analysis before, during and after the No G20 protests.

The German state couldn’t silence the movement after bans on magazines like Radikal and they will probably fail again. The movement can’t be silenced. We are all Linksunten!

Stay tuned for updates.

via enoughisenough14.org

Update 01:22pm (CET): At least one arrest in relation to the ban on Linksunten. According to the open newswire (so this news is still UNCONFIRMED) at de.indymedia(which is not banned) the lawyer of Daniel Behrens said that his client was arrested at 11:00am today. Tomorrow morning Daniel will have to appear before court. The court will have to decide about the pre-trial arrest of Daniel.

Update 01:28pm (CET): Federal interior minister Thomas de Mazière told reporters that linksunten.indymedia.org is banned and the people behind it are considered to be members of a terrorist association.

Update 05:33pm (CET): Solidarity gathering at the main train station (Hauptbahnhof, Hbf) in Mainz, Germany, 07:00pm (19:00). We will not let you ban our views!

Image: 20 vans with riot cops in Freiburg, Germany after raids against Linksunten earlier today.

Update 06:27pm: One of the buildings which was raided today was the Kulturtreff in Selbstverwaltung (KTS) in Freiburg. The KTS is a self-organized social center. According to the interior ministery of the German state of Baden-Württemberg (screenshot below)250 cops were deployed for the raids against linksunten. Five buildings were raided.

Update 08:24pm (CET): Here you can find screenshots of Linksunten Indy media org: http://archive.is/https://linksunten.indymedia.org/

Update 08:42pm (CET): Linksunten solidarity sticker, leaflets and avatars (originally published here):

Update 09:16pm (CET): For German speaking activists after ban on #Linksunten #Indymedia. You can also publish your texts here: https://barrikade.info/

Update 09:25pm (CET): Spontaneous solidarity demo with Linksunten Indymedia in Jena, Germany tonight (images below):