Ms Kühne-Hörmann, May 3rd is Press Freedom Day.

Rarely has it been so important to remember their importance...

Carsten Knop

Editor.

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... when Russia's illegal attack on Ukraine began, all foreign journalists had to leave Russia.

The effects on the opinion-forming process in Russia were catastrophic, but deliberately brought about by the Russian state.

By suppressing free news from outside, disinformation increased, which is the basis of Russian propaganda and warmongering.

'In war the truth dies first' is a well known and very true saying.

So we should do everything we can to protect the work of journalists.

Not only in Russia, but all over the world.

In Germany, too, the knowledge and understanding of how the free press works has been greater.

What phenomena do you observe here?

The pandemic in particular has revealed in a frightening way that the hostility towards the press by a broad alliance of conspiracy believers, Reich citizens, neo-Nazis and esotericists poses a great danger to media workers and thus to our democracy.

These people will do anything to prevent free reporting.

Can this also be assigned to specific reporting topics, such as migration/refugees, corona/obligatory vaccination or the Dannenröder Forest?

Unfortunately, there is no judicial statistical data on investigations in which journalists are victims.

On the other hand, more and more journalists are telling me how difficult it has become to report on controversial topics.

I was particularly impressed by reports from radio presenters who promoted the vaccination in their programs and subsequently became victims of horrific hate speech.

Unfortunately, I also hear very often that journalists do not want to report attacks because they see their independence from state authorities in jeopardy.

I do not share this fear.

In addition, not all phenomena that prevent reporting are punishable.

Here I see a legislative backlog.

That's why you launched the initiative "No power to hate" some time ago...

Right.

Freedom of expression is one of the most important assets in a democracy.

But what if opinions cannot be spread because people are prevented from expressing themselves publicly through hate and hate speech?

What if journalists can't do their jobs properly because they're being approached?

These are all attacks on the core of our democracy.

"#KeineMachtdemHass" is the response of the judiciary, civil society and the media to all these enemies of democracy.

What role did the murder of Walter Lübcke play in this?

Walter Lübcke died because he showed his attitude.

At the same time, the murder showed in the most brutal way that words can be turned into deeds.

That didn't intimidate me, but motivated me to stand up and say: We are more and we won't let freedom of expression be taken from us.

That's why I looked for strong partners from civil society, the media and science.

We are all united by the same goal of defending freedom of expression.

How does a first interim balance turn out?

A central pillar of the initiative is the Central Office for Combating Internet Crime (ZIT) in Frankfurt, our 'Internet Public Prosecutors'.

Our cooperation partners and citizens from all over Germany can easily report hate comments to the central office, which examines the reports under criminal law and, if necessary, initiates an investigation.

This has led to an outstanding number of reports nationwide, investigations initiated and successful identifications of hatred and hate speech on the Internet.

Since the beginning of the cooperation in November 2019, the ZIT has examined almost 7,000 reports and criminal charges from civil society.