Junge Welt editor Knut Mellenthin has promised to no longer make the claim that Ulfkotte has been spreading “fabricated and untrue” information on the Internet. The other characterizations concerning Udo Ulfkotte as a person, or of his blog Akte Islam (The Islam File),that were included in the complaint at the Frankfurt court, can be used with impunity. For example, we can still say that Dr. Udo Ulfkotte is a “questionable sensation journalist” and is a “so-called security expert”, and not have to worry about being tormented by the Ulfkotte -Pax Europa debt collection agency (If I assume that Mellentin is correctly cited in an article in Politically Incorrect in January 2007).
The “settlement” between Ulfkotte’s and Mellenthin’s lawyers appears to be in reality a barely concealed setback for Ulfkotte, if one reads the report about it in PI carefully. The written opinion is not yet available. But the lack of enthusiasm exhibited by the PI-“news hounds” as exhibited in their report from observed the court proceedings in Frankfurt, provides grounds for optimism.
This "settlement" is a new instance in the story of legal harassments perpetrated in Germany by the ONG "Pax Europa" and Mr. Ulfkotte, its president, himself. While avoiding official or powerful critics (like the German FBI or the Jewish liberal organizations in Germany and Switzerland, who repeatedlyand publicly called Ulfkotte a "racist"), Ulfkotte and his front shops select bloggers who say the same things, as target of their "advocacy". Ulfkotte obtained several victories against isolated bloggers, like an university assistant professor and an employee of the German Army, implicitly menacing them with retaliation by way of their employers. In the Mellenthin case, he seems to have underestimated his target, for he merely obtained a lame, fast surrealistic, settlement.
Knut Mellenthin (Wikipedia) headed up the Communist Union in Hamburg from 1970-1991. Since then he as worked at several publications connected with the PDS. He is considered an expert in international policy. Wikipedia:” Mellenthin’s other topics include the history of the Holocaust, of National Socialism and Fascism, as well as the Second World War. He created a day-by-day chronology of the Holocaust which eaned him the Alternative Media Prize in 2007 and which can be found on the Web.”
In early 2007 he published a detailed article in Junge Welt and its online edition which dealt primarily with Henryk Broder. Ulfkotte and PI are mentioned in just two paragraphs as examples of vulgar imitators of Broder, the master of “psychological warfare”. The article is no longer available because of the legal injunction, but , if I recall it correctly, it presented an incisive analysis of Broder’s technique.
Ulfkotte was still in a jubilant mood at the beginning of 2007: He thought for sure that his involvement with the association “Pax Europa” would propel him to the European Parliament. So one can imagine that it was perhaps a personal hubris that led him to arrange a debate between Henryk Broder and his archenemy and then putting himself in forefront. Whatever opinion one has about Knut M., he is intellectually far superior to Ulfkotte, and - unlike those simple bloggers that Ulfkotte is attempting to bleed financially, with some success – Knut M. has the resources to fight Ulfkotte in court.
One strange detail: “Between 1991 and 1994 Knut Mellenthin was the personal assistant to PDS Bundestag member Ulla Jelpke in domestic policy matters. This is the same Ulla Jelpke who is praised in Ulfkotte’s book (on pp. 311-312) Der Krieg im Dunkeln – Die wahre Macht der Geheimdiensten (Frankfurt/M 2006) (“The War in the Dark – The Real Power of the Secret Service”) because in 2005 she brought charges against the Federal Intelligence Service (BND). Between 1991 and 1995 the writer Erich Schmidt-Eenboom was “observed” in Wilheim, because he published a book (Schnueffler ohne Nasen – Snoops without Noses). Ulfkotte maintains that he was also tormented by the BND in 2004-2005 and therefore identified with Schmidt-Eenboom. The BND is prohibited from engaging in domestic activity. Thus the scandal.
In citing her reasons for bringing charges – quoted nearly verbatim by Ulfkotte – Frau Jelpke said:
“There has been a growing number of attacks on the freedom of the press by the state in the past few years, such as the limiting the right of a witness to give evidence and protecting confidential sources, searching the homes of journalists and the surveillance of telephone data.”
A text which easily could have been written by Knut M.
My conclusion: If the Knuts write in support of freedom of the press for the Ulkottes, then they are honored and praised. But should they demand freedom of expression for the critics of Ulfkotten, then suddenly every means will be brought to bear to stop them!
And concerning the settlement: there are in fact some reports in Akte Islam that aren’t fabricated or “untrue”. They are few and far between, but they mostly have to do with incidents by “crazy” (Knut M.) individual Muslims.
So while one is not permitted to say that in general everything is fabricated and untrue, it perfectly okay to point out the many particular fabrications and distortions.
Doing that work would go a long way to exposing the general intent of Akte Islam: spreading hate and creating panic.
For at its core, Akte Islam – the Islam File - is an "Akte Im Schlamm", a muddy file.
- This article appeared 5 days ago in German as : Ulfkottes juristischer Raubzug gegen seinen Kritikern im Internet ins Stocken geraten 15.5 [DE] in HUIBSLOG, and was translated by an American friend, who shares our misgivings about Ulfkotte and Akte Islam. The paragraph in Italic was added for the information of non-German speaking readers.
- Other documentation about Ulfkotte, Pax Europa and their attacks on Internet critics in [EN] on Huibslog: In the Sidebar, go: Huibslog Journal > Browse by Theme > Ulfkotte.
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