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The confused world of extremists: Munich conspiracy theorists arrested in the Philippines

2022-08-18T17:17:59.767Z


Munich-based Oliver Janich was arrested in the Philippines – the public prosecutor's office is also investigating the conspiracy theorist.


Munich-based Oliver Janich was arrested in the Philippines – the public prosecutor's office is also investigating the conspiracy theorist.

Munich – Oliver Janich from Munich has been spreading a crude worldview about politicians or Corona for years.

The conspiracy ideologue was arrested on Wednesday in the Philippines, where he has been living for some time.

According to the German Press Agency, he should now be brought to Germany.

The fact is that the Munich I public prosecutor's office is investigating Janich on "suspicion of insult and public incitement to commit crimes", a spokesman said on request.

Between 2020 and 2021, he is said to have publicly insulted people on his Telegram channel (where users can exchange messages) and called for politicians to be killed and a “prominent person” to be executed.

The public prosecutor's office declined to comment on any further allegations.

Munich public prosecutor determined: suspicion of incitement to commit crimes

Specifically, Janich wrote in a post on Telegram, which is available to the Münchner Merkur, that it is necessary to "execute" government members of the federal and state governments.

He later claimed the post was meant to be satirical.

Not an isolated case: Janich also wrote on the day of US President Biden's inauguration: "Hang Biden.

Hang Soros.

Hang them all, damn it.” Soros is a Jewish billionaire of Hungarian origin who is repeatedly attacked by conspiracy theorists.

The problem: Janich, who originally worked as a journalist and ran for the office of Munich Mayor for a party he co-founded in 2014, is now one of the most far-reaching actors in the conspiracy theorist scene in German-speaking countries – around 150,000 people follow him on Telegram alone.

He is also said to have influenced the pop singer Xavier Naidoo, who has often attracted attention in the past with crazy conspiracy theories.

There is a video of the two online, in which Naidoo confirms that he has followed Janich's channel.

Expert: "One of the best-known representatives of the QAnon conspiracy in Germany"

There, the Munich resident spreads his often confused ideas.

In addition to misinformation about the corona pandemic, he also repeatedly attracts attention with other conspiracy myths: "Janich is one of the best-known representatives of the QAnon conspiracy in Germany," says the author Katharina Nocun, who has already published two books on the subject, our newspaper .

The QAnon movement accuses politicians of, among other things, satanic, pedophilic actions and spreads right-wing extremist and anti-Semitic ideas.

The world view is extremely dangerous because it justifies violence, says Nocun.

And it acts like a "massive accelerator for the radicalization" of some people.

Janich also contributes to this, says the author.

Source: merkur

All news articles on 2022-08-18

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