Original article (in Slovenian) was published on 09/11/2022
In reporting on measures against hate speech announced by a German official, the portal Skandal24 cited the blog of Joze Biscak, the former editor-in-chief of Demokracija, who in turn referred to reporting by the Hungarian portal Remix, which has ties with Hungary’s ruling Fidesz party.
On 28 October the portal Skandal24 published a piece entitled In the battle against ‘hate speech’ senior state official announces ‘energetic action against members of the opposition, up to and including killing’. The report states that German intelligence services can wiretap the far-right opposition party Alternative for Germany (AfD) without a police warrant.
The piece states that Thomas Haldenwang, the director of the German Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, went “a step further” at a hearing of the heads of federal intelligence services, whereupon the reader is directed to the Kavarna Hayek blog.
This is a blog by Jože Biscak, former editor-in-chief of Demokracija, a weekly published by Nova Obzorja, a company 30.16% owned by the SDS party. Biščak had received a suspended six-month prison sentence from the Ljubljana District Court in September for publishing a racist column headlined Accomplishments 5. The sentence is not yet final.
Biscak stated on his blog that Haldenwang announced that the opposition would be more closely watched, in particular for the spread of conspiracy theories, hate, and disinformation about inflation. He said that “if necessary, they will kill members of the opposition.”
At the public hearing of the heads of German federal intelligence services on 17 October, Haldenwang did not mention killings of members of the German opposition, he was talking about “murders of the opponents of the Russian regime who live in Germany.”
He also said that at a time when disinformation from Russia was being spread because of the war, intelligence services must analyze and intensively engage in the identification of foreign agents and classic espionage. He also warned of the “danger that the [Russian] opposition will be more closely watched and that actions against them are possible, including murder.”
As for the wiretapping of the AfD, Biscak also cited the news portal Remix, which offers readers “news and commentary from the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia” in English and is published by the Hungarian marketing and consultancy firm FWD Affairs.
Atlatszo.hu, a Hungarian non-profit investigative portal, reported in October 2020 that FWD Affairs had signed in 2016 with the office of Prime Minister Viktor Orbán an agreement worth 14 million forints (just over 44,000 euros). The owner of the company, Patrick Egan, collaborated in 2010 with Sean Tonner, a former political adviser to Fidesz.
The remix is partially financed by the Ludvik Batthyány Foundation (FLB), which among other things published April last year the Hungarian Conservative, a bimonthly magazine “on contemporary political, philosophical and cultural issues from a conservative perspective.”
Atlatszo.hu revealed in its piece that the foundation acts as a go-between for channeling Hungarian government donations to other legal entities. In 2019 it disbursed 3,534 billion forints (around 11 billion euros). The chief source of FLB revenue is the office of the prime minister, which is headed by Orbán’s party colleague Antal Rogán, who is also in charge of distributing advertising funds.
The claim in the title of the Skandal24 piece, which cited Jože Biscak’s blog, is manipulative. The director of the German Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution was not talking about killing members of the German opposition, he was speaking about the danger of opponents of the Russian regime who live in Germany being murdered.