Stasi Agents Win Anonymity in Human Rights Ruling

Schubert saw his real name and history on display and filed a petition with the district court asking that the information be deleted

By George Conger

THE RIGHT to privacy trumps the public’s right to know when it comes to the names and activities of http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=3383 secret police, a German court has held.
 
On March 25 a court in Zwickau ordered the Rev Edmund Käbisch to remove the name and details of the activities of an agent codenamed “Schubert” from his exhibition on police infiltration of East Germany’s churches.

The show entitled ‘Christian action in the DDR’ (Christliches Handeln in der DDR) had been organized in 2005 by Mr Käbisch, a Protestant clergyman, and had toured 13 towns and cities in Western Saxony, when the show opened at the Reichenbach town hall in February.

One of the displays recounted the exploits of Schubert, who had been recruited as an http://www.wvwnews.net/story.php?id=4115, while still in secondary school. Schubert was credited with providing information that led to the arrest of four members of a Christian youth group for anti-state activities.

Schubert’s assignment was to keep tabs on members of the Protestant Student Union in Reichenbach. Schubert’s zeal for the Party, led him to be baptized so as to gain the trust of his new Christian friends.The Stasi files lauded Schubert’s work saying he had been instrumental in the “decomposition of political-operational fringe groups” (Zersetzung politisch-operativer Randgruppen). For his activities Schubert received cash, government favors, and a trip to Moscow to attend the 1980 Olympics.

Schubert, who remains a resident of Reichenbach, saw his real name and history on display and filed a petition with the district court asking that the information be deleted as it infringed upon his right to privacy.

http://www.religiousintelligence.co.uk/news/?NewsID=1885

2008-04-14