Germany’s Office for the Protection of the Constitution as an Instrument for Character Assassination

Peter Goebel was apprehended by the Swiss police on April 6. Basel officers caught him in a garage near the Hotel Viktoria where he had been meeting with two Swiss zealots whose common denominator was prejudice against minority religions. The police put a bag over Goebel's head and took him to the Swiss Federal Attorney, Carla del Ponte, who interrogated him for several hours.

At first the arrest went unnoticed by the media. No press release was issued either by the Basel police or the Federal Attorney's Office. There was not much interest in revealing the OPC's politically sensitive plight. Swiss authorities planned to handle the matter outside public notice – an unfriendly act of their German neighbors to be dealt with on diplomatic lines if possible.

But the OPC's sources and collaborators panicked. Trying to suppress the scandal, they lost their nerve and accidentally blew it into the open. And the details slowly came out.