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Home > Publications > Germany’s Office for the Protection of the Constitution as an Instrument for Character Assassination
Germany’s Office for the Protection of the Constitution as an Instrument for Character Assassination
Because it is necessary only to demonstrate “indicators” of
unconstitutional motives to justify placing an organization under
surveillance, the OPC has wandered into the realm of speculation.
Actual criminal or subversive acts need not be established. All that is
necessary is to show, by some argumentative means – for example
selective culling of a group's literature and statements by its leaders
– that a potential may exist for efforts “against the free democratic
order.”
Using this system, it would be simplicity itself to portray as
“aggressive” troublemakers even the world's most famous prophets of
non-violence, for example, Mahatma Gandhi.
Such a method is both arbitrary and contemptible. As any
intelligent person knows, nothing is easier than to pull isolated
statements out of context and use them to project hypothetical scenarios
that have nothing in common with reality. Additionally, it shows the
application of a double standard.
Take the Roman Catholic Church. There are numerous biblical
exhortations that in isolation could be alleged to show indicators of
anti-democratic intent, a point made by Hans W. Alberts, Professor at
the Administrative University of Hamburg, in an essay in Sueddeutsche
Zeitung on April 26, 1997. “What would happen if you applied this
procedure to the Bible?”, he wrote. “Unconstitutionality would be easy
to document.”
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