Agency Report-
Hamburg – Participants in a far-right meeting in Germany uncovered by media outlet Correctiv have filed two complaints over the report on the secretive gathering that sparked mass protests in early 2024, a court in Hamburg confirmed on Wednesday.
Lawyer Ulrich Vosgerau and other participants in the meeting have filed a lawsuit with the Hamburg District Court against Correctiv and the journalists responsible for the report over what they consider to be false allegations made in it, according to Vosgerau’s lawyer Carsten Brennecke.
When asked for comment, Correctiv said that it would stand by the article.
The investigative outlet published a widely read report in January 2024 detailing a secret meeting attended by members of the right-wing and far-right extremist scene at a hotel in Potsdam, just outside Berlin, in November 2023.
Members of the centre-right Christian Democrats (CDU) and the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party were among those attending, according to Correctiv.
At the gathering, the head of the right-wing extremist Identitarian Movement in Austria, Martin Sellner, talked about “remigration,” a term used by far-right extremists to refer to the deportation of large numbers of people of foreign origin from Germany, including by force.
Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets across Germany following the publication of the report to protest against racism and far-right extremism.
Vosgerau, a member of the CDU, accuses Correctiv of having given the impression in its reporting that the meeting was about plans to expel German citizens, according to his lawyer.
Vosgerau’s complaint has been brought regarding a particular passage that read: “He supposedly cannot recall the matter of the idea of expatriating citizens in Sellner’s lecture.”
The wording of this passage led to other media outlets in subsequent reporting presenting a discussion about an “expatriation idea” as a fact, which Vosgerau has already successfully challenged in court multiple times, his lawyer Brennecke stated.
Correctiv editor-in-chief Justus von Daniels explained in response to a dpa enquiry that the lawsuit had not yet been officially filed, and that the outlet was waiting for the complaints’ exact wording.
“The fact remains that the meeting was about the expulsion of millions of people, including ‘non-assimilated’ citizens,” he said.
By Martin Fischer
