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Deutsche Welle logo: Not obliged to answer?
Photo: Yuri Kadobnov / AFP
When Deutsche Welle went under the art collectors four years ago, the acquisitions were celebrated with a separate article.
African contemporary art is "increasingly popular around the world," the broadcaster wrote on its website, but it's still an emerging market.
That's why they remembered a tradition from the 1950s - and bought ten works of art, including by the "African Joseph Beuys," as the article says.
The editors of the online magazine "Vice" and the research platform FragDenStaat wanted to know more about this art collection and in January of this year made a request under the Freedom of Information Act (IFG).
This should guarantee citizens access to official information.
Deutsche Welle is financed with tax money and is therefore obliged to provide information.
The journalists, however, rebuffed the broadcaster.
Insufficient answers
The art collection is "interlinked with the program work" through reports, projects and partnerships, argued Deutsche Welle's legal advisors.
The Freedom of Information Act is not applicable to this area - and the broadcaster therefore does not have to answer.
Can that be true?
The researchers from “Vice” and FragDenstaat now want the matter to be legally clarified and have filed a lawsuit against the stonewalling broadcaster through one of the editors involved.
The reason given is that there is a right to have the information made accessible, but the journalists do not consider the refusal to be justified.
The lawsuit has been submitted to SPIEGEL.
Expensive art?
"Vice" is particularly interested in the question of whether an art historian was given a "highly remunerated consultancy contract" without a legally prescribed procurement procedure, the magazine writes on its website - and in principle why a tax-financed foreign broadcaster buys expensive art.
"As a state institution, Deutsche Welle must provide information on its administrative activities," says Arne Semsrott, project manager of FragDenStaat.
The broadcaster's refusal to ensure transparency reflects badly on him.
»Anyone who uses tax money must also be accountable for it«.
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