Dispute over left-wing election party in Berlin: Bremen's FDP has problems with the truth

The Bremen state election campaign is already getting dirty before it has even begun. The left-wing top candidate Sofia Leonidakis has now requested in court that FDP parliamentary group leader Thore Schäck must withdraw statements with which he had brought her close to terrorism and clan crime.

It's about election night in Berlin, more precisely about the parties of the election winner Die Linke. In a citizen debate, Schäck spoke to Leonidakis of a party “whose designated top candidate celebrates together with anti-Semites, terrorists and clan criminals at the election party there in Berlin.”

He was obviously alluding to the public election party of the Neukölln Left, at which the Palestinian activist Ibrahim Ibrahim and the alleged clan leader Issa Remmo were spotted and which has since been used by interested parties when it comes to denying the Berlin Left's ability to govern.

Only Leonidakis wasn't at this election party, but at the Left's central election party in the Kreuzberg festival hall. “I was only in one city with the gentlemen that colleague Schäck is referring to,” she told the taz a week ago.

None of this would probably have become a legal matter if Schäck hadn't subsequently posted the sequence from his speech as a video on Instagram - and included a picture of Leonidakis. She demanded that Schäck delete the video, which he refused. She then requested deletion and a cease and desist declaration from Schäck through a lawyer.

Schäck then posted another video in which he announced that he would legally fight for his “freedom of speech and expression”. Initially unsuccessful: the Bremen regional court decided on an urgent application from Leonidakis to issue an interim injunction, according to which Schäck is not allowed to repeat the allegations. Otherwise he could face a fine of up to 250,000 euros.

Schäck and his group then deleted the video from their channels - “as a precaution,” as group spokesman Julian Rabe says. However, we reserve the right to take further legal action. The reason is surprising: Schäck didn't mean the Neukölln election party at all, he says, a week after the taz asked about that party. Rather, there are media reports according to which Issa Remmo was also at the central election party of the Left regional association in Kreuzberg.

Bild had reported that Remmo had been “sighted” there, but left it unclear whether he was actually inside. In a later passage in the image text it is said that at the beginning the entrance was not controlled - but this, although not clearly stated, again referred to the Neukölln election party. The Tagesspiegel repeated Bild's claim and added the sentence that Remmo "disappeared backstage."

A spokesman for the Left Federal Party tells the taz: "That's total nonsense. We can't confirm that the guy was with us in the Kreuzberg festival hall. We can also rule out that he was ever with us backstage."

In the end, this should not be decisive for the legal dispute between Leonidakis and Schäck, because at least the Bremen FDP does not stick to the accusation that Leonidakis celebrated with “terrorists”. “There is no serious evidence of this,” admits spokesman Rabe.

In any case, for Leonidakis the matter is clear. “The Bremen regional court has confirmed: the FDP is lying,” she says. "We initially alerted the FDP verbally and in writing that they were spreading false claims. But Mr. Schäck wasn't interested in the truth."