Matthias Monroy

The German Constitutional Court rules that the search of Radio Dreyeckland and the home of one of its editors was unconstitutional. The broadcaster is now calling for consequences.

The raids on the home of editor Fabian Kienert and on the premises of Radio Dreyeckland (RDL) were unconstitutional. This was decided by the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe on 3 November, following a complaint submitted in 2023 by Kienert together with solicitor Angela Furmaniak and the Society for Civil Rights. The broadcaster made the decision public on Wednesday. Previous court rulings had violated the broadcaster and its employee in their fundamental right to broadcasting freedom, according to the judgment made available by RDL.

In January 2023, Freiburg police searched the journalist’s flat, that of a managing director, and the RDL newsroom on the instructions of the Karlsruhe Public Prosecutor’s Office. The occasion was a report authored by Kienert on the ban of linksunten.indymedia, which included a link to a mirrored archive page of the online platform that had been banned in 2017 by the Federal Ministry of the Interior under association law. The Public Prosecutor’s Office viewed this as a criminal act of supporting the alleged organisation. The legality of a search warrant issued by the Karlsruhe district court had been confirmed during Kienert’s complaint proceedings by the Stuttgart Higher Regional Court (OLG). The constitutional complaint against this has now been successful.

In its ruling, the Constitutional Court emphasises that broadcasting freedom as a subjective right guarantees freedom from state coercion. Protection from such interventions also extends to residential premises that “represent a functional equivalent to the premises of a broadcasting organisation”. Searches are in principle possible there, but must be weighed against fundamental rights. This did not take place during the raids triggered by a link to “Linksunten”: the Public Prosecutor’s Office had based its suspicion of supporting a banned organisation “on vague indications and mere assumptions”.

The current ruling also addressed the question of whether the banned platform linksunten.indymedia was even still active and therefore could have been supported by Kienert, as claimed by the Public Prosecutor’s Office. The Stuttgart Higher Regional Court had confirmed this as “sustainability”, arguing that legal proceedings against the association ban had continued into the recent past. Five individuals persecuted as alleged operators of Linksunten had filed a lawsuit before the Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig against the shutdown of the website. However, such legal proceedings do not establish any fact that could justify initial suspicion against RDL and its editor, the Constitutional Court now states.

“I hope that the ruling helps ensure that authorities take fundamental rights more seriously,” Fabian Kienert said on Wednesday. In 2024, the Karlsruhe Regional Court had already acquitted him of the charge of supporting a banned organisation: his article containing a link to Linksunten did not constitute support for the archive page. However, that judgment did not yet decide on the illegality of the raids.

The broadcaster is now calling for political and personnel consequences regarding the conduct of the Karlsruhe Public Prosecutor. Although no name is mentioned, this is likely to be directed in particular at the person responsible for handling the case, Manuel Graulich. He is regarded as a hardliner against the left-wing scene in Baden-Württemberg and was also conducting the raids against RDL. At one point, Graulich even attempted to ascribe direct involvement in “Linksunten” to editor Kienert and the free radio station.

Published in German in „nd“.

Image: “We are all Linksunten”: With this image, Kienert illustrated his article, which also contained the link to Linksunten (RDL).