“Critics of Islamic organisations are repeatedly intimidated with lawsuits and injunctions,” says Islamism expert of the University of Frankfurt, Prof. Dr. Susanne Schröter. Now it happened to her herself.
When Islamic associations repeatedly try to silence journalists and critics of their controversial actions and intimidate them with lawsuits, it is necessary to help those affected. It is all the more gratifying when this also coincides with successful lawsuits against the controversial organisations.
Susanne Schröter heads the Research Centre Global Islam and calls on German politicians to act quickly. She was recently appointed as a member of the expert group “Political Islamism”. The expert group is to “analyse current and changing manifestations of political Islamism from a scientific perspective and develop recommendations for action to supplement security authority measures with socio-political and scientific approaches”, explains the Federal Ministry of the Interior (BMI).
In a guest commentary for the newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Schröter also discussed the Milli Görüs movement, which is partly monitored by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. The latter was not amused: “The Neue Zürcher Zeitung article by Ms Schröter is defamatory and contains untrue factual allegations,” declared the Secretary General Mr Altas of the German-based association Islamische Gemeinschaft Milli Görüs e. V. (IGMG), which felt it had been targeted, and filed a lawsuit.
The NGO “Meinungsfreiheit im Netz” supported Ms Schröter. IGMG lost before the Munich Regional Court and before the Munich Higher Regional Court. In the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ), there is a passage in the article “Der Jihad der Anwälte” (The Lawyers’ Jihad) which precisely explains the actions of the Islamic associations and at the same time also explains the motivation for our support.
“Author Heinisch, who is also a member of the scientific advisory board of the Austrian Documentation Centre for Political Islam, tells the Neue Zürcher Zeitung (NZZ) that there is a method behind this procedure. Our case, but also numerous others, show that the aim is to intimidate the media with lawsuits,’ says Heinisch. Even if Islamists lose their lawsuits, trials mean personnel expenditure and costs for a newspaper. This would make authors who deal critically with Islamist actors and organisations an incalculable risk that editors would no longer be willing or able to take. Lawsuits thus have a deterrent effect, regardless of the truthfulness of the articles.”
This is all the more true if the Islamic associations do not target the publisher but the author personally. Their support is therefore absolutely necessary.
https://www.achgut.com/artikel/islamistische_milli_goerues_klagt_und_verliert