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Flag of the AfD parliamentary group: BR journalist not wanted

Photo: Michael Bihlmayer / IMAGO

The state parliamentary group and the state executive committee of the AfD in Bavaria no longer want an employee of the Bavarian Broadcasting Corporation (BR) to report on their events.

The BR made this public in a press release on Friday morning.

Accordingly, the journalist will be banned from all AfD Bavaria events with immediate effect.

According to BR information, the chairwoman of the AfD parliamentary group, Katrin Ebner-Steiner, told the broadcaster last week that an employee from the state politics editorial team had insulted her.

The journalist in question firmly rejects the allegations, it goes on to say that the BR has no reason to doubt his account.

Achim Wendler, BR editorial director for state politics, writes in an article “on his own behalf” that his employee has submitted a corresponding affidavit about the facts.

Ebner-Steiner wrote in a letter to BR that the reporter had made an “insulting and completely inappropriate statement” to her.

However, she did not provide any proof.

On X (formerly Twitter) the journalist writes about “made-up allegations.”

The employee was expressly disinvited from a press reception held by the AfD faction last week and was asked to “please stay away from our group’s event.”

AfD state chief speaks of “false information”

The AfD state leader Stephan Protschka said that the decision to ban the house was made in mid-February.

It applies to all AfD Bavaria events.

He told the “Süddeutsche Zeitung” that the house ban applies to individual reporters, otherwise the BR is “always a welcome guest.”

Thomas Hinrichs, BR's information director, described the AfD's allegations as discrediting, damaging to its reputation - and groundless.

The board decisions of the parliamentary group and state party are “an attempt to massively hinder Bayerischer Rundfunk in its journalistic work.

I see this as an attack on freedom of the press.

With its “radically negative attitude,” the AfD Bavaria is trampling on broadcasting freedom, added the chairman of the Bavarian Journalists’ Association, Harald Stocker.

It "ultimately confirms the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution's considerations of classifying the entire AfD as a 'secure extremist effort'."

The complaint about an attack on press freedom is an attempt to put the AfD “in a bad light,” said the AfD state chairman of the “SZ”.

However, he also denies the BR journalist's objectivity.

The reason for the decision of the state executive board, which is available to the German Press Agency, was as follows: “Intentional spread of false information, insult to elected officials, incitement to release information within the party and faction.”

BR: Reporters should be “silenced”

BR editor-in-chief Christian Nitsche says in the station's press release that the employee has been reporting on the AfD for five years and has uncovered a lot, including the AfD chats on Telegram with fantasies of subversion and civil war.

One could "assume that he is to be silenced and his information network in the AfD is to be destroyed."

The AfD also made attempts to hinder or even exclude other media outlets.

The ARD political magazine “Monitor” should be locked out of the Thuringian AfD party conference in November 2023.

However, after a preliminary court order from the Erfurt regional court, the party had to grant journalists access to its state party conference.

Editor-in-chief Nitsche announces that he will of course continue to use the journalist, who has now been disinvited, as a researcher and reporter.

According to information director Hinrichs, the BR expects “that the communication and house ban will be reversed immediately.”

BJV President Stocker said that a political party cannot choose who reports on it.

Otherwise, parties would “take out every journalist who works critically and has good contacts.”

Feb/dpa