Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) has expressed optimism that calls for violence, agitation and hatred in the Telegram messenger service will soon be better contained.

“Telegram continues to give us great concern.

But things are moving.

There have now been initial contacts from my house,” said Faeser before a fireside chat at the conference of interior ministers on Friday in Stuttgart.

Ruediger Soldt

Political correspondent in Baden-Württemberg.

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Critics of the Corona policy use channels and groups of the service, some of which have more than 200,000 participants, for propaganda and call for demonstrations and violent actions there. For example, calls for murder against the Saxon Prime Minister Michael Kretschmer (CDU) and against the Prime Minister of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, Manuela Schwesig (SPD), were spread via this medium.

Telegram was founded by Russian entrepreneurs, the company's headquarters are in Dubai, which is why the German security authorities had little opportunity for a long time to persuade the company to remove racist, anti-democratic statements and calls for violence. The company founder sees himself as a “fighter against state surveillance”, he has described his company as “nomadic”, which is why it has so far been difficult to even hold talks with those responsible.

Faeser said in Stuttgart that she was not yet able to give any details about these talks between her employees and those responsible for Telegram, but that there had previously been very successful talks with the American Internet companies Google and Apple, which offer Telegram on their platforms. The spread of calls for violence and hate is clearly against the terms and conditions of Apple and Google, which is why these companies would also have an interest in solving the problem. "A lot of pressure has been exerted, I'm now cautiously optimistic," said the SPD politician.

It is not their political goal to ban the Telegram app, which is also used by members of the opposition worldwide, it must be a matter of removing calls for violence and hatred from the provider's public pages. Ten years ago, when there were many Islamist calls on Telegram, that was also successful. In addition, the obligation to report hate comments will come into force at the beginning of February and a working group to combat hate postings on Telegram has been set up at the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA). This should enable suspects to be identified and tracked more quickly.

Faeser, Baden-Württemberg Interior Minister Thomas Strobl (CDU) and Lower Saxony Interior Minister Boris Pistorius (SPD) expect a further increase and radicalization of the corona denier movement and protests against general vaccination requirements in the coming weeks.

They called on citizens not to take part in violent, anti-Semitic and anti-democratic walks.

The Office for the Protection of the Constitution expects further radicalization

Strobl said: "Our democracy is under stress.

What is discharged via Telegram challenges us.” There are around 400 meetings with more than 80,000 participants per week in Baden-Württemberg alone, and 3,000 police officers have to be on duty to ensure freedom of assembly and demonstration.

The Office for the Protection of the Constitution expects the protests to become more radical and emotional, especially as long as the introduction of compulsory vaccinations is still being discussed.

Faeser agreed with this assessment, which was also the findings of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution: "Yes, the demonstrations are increasing, even if they are still an absolute minority." The demonstrations are "heterogeneous", but it can be felt that Right-wing extremists used the marches and walks to call for a general rebellion against the state.

Above all, the minister criticized the marches in front of politicians' private homes and the calls for hatred against journalists.

“We have to keep the investigative pressure high and prevent radicalization.

It's not just peaceful walks, these are dangerous political attempts at intimidation.” These threatened democracy as such.

Faeser called it "despicable" when opponents of vaccination compared themselves to Holocaust victims.