Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the Continent (PEGIDA) founder and leader Lutz Bachmann has seen his twitter account hijacked by Turkish computer-activists, which they have used to accuse him of being a Nazi.
Presently fighting a legal battle against “hate speech” charges in the German courts, Mr. Bachmann now enjoys the minor inconvenience of having had his platform of choice for public communication taken away — by Turkish nationalists.
Although some of the tweets in pidgin-German have been interpreted as threatening towards Mr. Bachmann, he told Breitbart Londonthat he was not afraid and would “keep on fighting”
Replacing his profile pictures with a portrait of Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and a Turkish flag, the dozens of posts that have been made today since the takeover are a combination of insults, and thinly veiled threats.
Using his Twitter platform to announce their takeover, the “Turkish Patriots” announced: “The Twitter-account of PEGIDA’s leader Lutz Bachmann, a vicious German nationalist, is now ours!
“Our action is a response to the attempt of the German NRD channel to insult and humiliate Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and a protest against Germany’s arms supply to Kurdish terrorists. We demand that Merkel must apologize before Turkey’s national leader Erdogan, or Germans shall regret this”.
A number of the tweets made through his account called Mr. Bachmann a “Nazist” and compared PEGIDA to the Schutzstaffel, or SS, the infamous Nazi-era German paramilitary group held responsible for much of the Holocaust. Another message repeatedly posted was that Turks are “three million in Germany” and that Mr. Erdogan has control of Ms. Merkel, so “Nazis” should beware.
One, rendered in poor German, roughly translates as: “Hey Nazi, stop following around with our president or you’ll get some Problems. We are already more than 3 million in [Germany]”.
Despite the clearly threatening implications of some of the tweets, Mr. Bachmann said he was not phased. Although generally speaking shy of speaking to media, as befits the leader of an organisation that termed the phrase “Lugenpresse” (liar press), Mr. Bachmann spoke exclusively to Breitbart London today about the many threats against him.
He said: “I can tell you, that I am not scared or afraid about the massive death-threats from the last few weeks from Turkish fascists.
“I am not scarred about the the death threats from ISIS, Boko Haram or terrorist left-wingers such as ANTIFA [anti-Fascists], that are mostly even worse than the actual Turkish threats. I will not stop talking the truth and they will never stop my fight for freedom of speech against the fascistic ideology of Islam!
“I’ll keep on fighting!”.
Mr. Bachmann appeared in court in Dresden this week to answer charges of hate speech, after he called migrants “cattle” and “scum” on social media way back in 2014. The court said the comments “disrupted public order” and constituted an “attack on the dignity” of refugees, and if he is convicted he could be jailed for up to five years.
Follow Oliver Lane on Twitter: Follow @Oliver_Lane or e-mail to: olane@breitbart.com
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