At the beginning of 2021, the Bavarian AfD parliamentary group put a video of a member of the Free Voters online. However, the clip is cut in such a way that the politician’s message is alienated. Now the judiciary is investigating a possible copyright infringement.
The police and public prosecutors have searched the AfD parliamentary group in the Bavarian state parliament. According to the Munich I public prosecutor and the state parliament, the background to this is a criminal complaint by the state parliament office against unknown persons on suspicion of copyright infringement. According to reports, almost two dozen police officers and three prosecutors were on site.
“We searched several rooms and also confiscated evidence,” said a spokeswoman for the public prosecutor’s office. Specifically, it is about an older video published by the AfD faction on social networks. In it, statements by MPs from other parliamentary groups in a state parliament debate are said to have been distorted – because they were taken out of context.
The AfD protested sharply against the search and announced legal action. Group leader Ulrich Singer criticized that “the rooms of the members of the state parliament protected by immunity were also entered illegally”. This was an “absolutely disproportionate and undoubtedly politically motivated action against an opposition party” because of an alleged copyright infringement in a video from the state parliament. Otherwise, Singer did not go into the allegations further in the message.
