A gentleman of the Islamic persuasion — a former student at Al-Azhar University in Cairo — is now in charge of deciding what is and is not acceptable speech for Germans who use the Internet. To make matters worse, this soldier of Allah is also allowed to pressure online platforms to remove posts that he deems unacceptable, even if they are not illegal under German law.
Can anyone say “sharia”?
Many thanks to Hellequin GB for translating this article from the online news portal Nius:
Germany’s top censor Ahmed Gaafar admits: “If it is not criminally relevant, then we will submit a deletion request to the provider”
Numerous indications already spoke in favour of this, and now a video proves it: The reporting center “REspect”, approved by the federal government in October as the first trusted flagger, also wants to have legal content on the Internet deleted.
In a report by the [regional public] broadcaster ARD alpha from 2021, Ahmed Gaafar, the current head of the reporting office, has his say. An excerpt from the ARD report has now been published on X by Argo Nerd. In the video, Gaafar explains to the ARD reporter how the reporting office works and shows him the reports received on the computer. The reporter reads out the reports:
“Calls for violence against the police, incitement against the Federal Republic of Germany, incitement to hatred, anti-Semitism, incitement against Covid-19 vaccination, denigrating Muslims as terrorists… that is what is reported to you.”
Gaafar then explains how “REspect” deals with the reports: “What happens next is that we simply look at the reports and we have a legal team that can assess whether it is criminally relevant or not. And if it is criminally relevant, then we report it directly to the police or the State Criminal Police Office. If it is not criminally relevant, then we will submit a deletion request to the provider.”
(The video proves that Gaafar and the reporting office are urging digital platforms to remove legal content as well.)
In October, the reporting office “REspect”, which is financed in part by the Ministry of Family Affairs headed by Lisa Paus (Greens), was approved as the first trusted flagger by the Federal Network Agency. The authority, which is headed by Klaus Müller from the Greens, thus implemented the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA). Since then, digital platforms have been obliged to give priority to investigating reports from “REspect” and remove content if necessary. Critics suspect that this could lead to so-called over-blocking, i.e. the mass deletion of legal content. “REspect” has since played a central role in controlling statements on the Internet.
According to the Federal Network Agency’s guidelines, in order to be approved as a trusted flagger, “REspect” actually had to prove that its own employees were competent in distinguishing between criminal and non-criminal content. The video now proves that the reporting office and its director are striving for the opposite. The Federal Network Agency’s guidelines had already given indications that non-criminal content could also be removed. It listed numerous “unacceptable contents”, including “hate speech” or “negative effects on civil discourse or elections”. The reporting office, as Gaafar’s words suggest, could report all online posts that it classifies as hate speech or negative effects on discourse and urge the provider to delete them.
“Incitement against Covid-19 vaccination”
The “incitement against Covid-19 vaccination” mentioned in the ARD report is not a criminal offense, but a legitimate expression of opinion. However, such politically undesirable statements could fall victim to the new censorship authority. Especially since, according to the guidelines, the Trusted Flaggers are supposed to specifically “monitor” social networks and actively “track down” inadmissible content.
Gaafar’s statement is particularly controversial because the responsible German authorities have also repeatedly blurred the line between legal and criminal statements, even though the DSA is actually only supposed to look at criminal statements. For example, the head of the Federal Network Agency, Müller, announced in a press release on the occasion of the approval of “REspect”: “Illegal content, hate and fake news can be removed very quickly and without bureaucratic hurdles.” The authority later corrected the sentence, and the statement now speaks of “illegal content, illegal hate and illegal fake news.”
The Federal Network Agency has so far stated that it does not want to re-examine the approval of “REspect” despite massive criticism of the reporting office. NIUS research had shown that Gaafar had posed with a Hamas supporter. He had also studied at Al-Azhar University in Cairo, which is known for its Islamism. All of this was apparently not enough for the agency to cast doubt on the suitability of “REspect”.
Gaafar’s admission that he also wants legal content to be deleted could therefore pose a massive threat to free speech on the Internet — also because it plays into the hands of the responsible political authorities.
Afterword from the translator:
A guy who went to the Al-Azhar in Cairo, studying Islam? What could go possibly wrong for the Islamization of Germany now? And that certainly sheds new light on the matter. Because it looks as if this whole espionage and sabotage structure, behind which the Greens are everywhere seen, serves Islamization, and whose main purpose is to prevent criticism of Islam and migration.
Everything is exactly as intended. It is a suppression of democracy — that is, the rule of the people. The aim is to abolish it in such a way that the people do not notice. In addition, the constant dripping of information onto people’s brains (a very effective method of torture, by the way) that other views and opposition parties are Nazi ideas. Is it wrong to speak of a resurrection of the GDR’s “state security” which is not intended to ensure the security of the state but rather the rule of the rulers? I think not.