“An interview with the physicist Roland Wiesendanger was published here on February 2, 2022,” it says in one since Monday own opinion on the website of Cicero. The editor-in-chief of the magazine Alexander Marguier explains there why the article in which Wiesendanger accused the virologist Christian Drosten of having deceived the public about the origin of the corona virus was “temporarily taken offline”.
“Because of individual statements by Wiesendanger, the Berlin virologist Christian Drosten has decided to take legal action against Mr. Wiesendanger and this article.” Cicero I am currently legally examining the individual points and waiting for the substantive results of the dispute between Christian Drosten and Roland Wiesendanger. We will respond to this in due course.
This time could now be much closer: According to information from NDR, WDR and Suddeutscher Zeitung the Hamburg district court has now made a decision – which can be interpreted as a kind of draw. Wiesendanger is prohibited from disseminating some statements, others consider the judges to be covered. Accordingly, the lawyers of both parties interpret the decision differently. Lucas Brost, the legal advisor to the physicist Wiesendanger, sees a victory for freedom of expression. His colleague Gernot Lehr, who represents the virologist Dorsten, says, on the other hand, that the court prohibited Wiesendanger’s central statements. “This shows that Mr. Wiesendanger’s polemics have no factual basis.”
“I don’t have to and won’t put up with that,” said Drosten
Wiesendanger can no longer claim that Drosten “deliberately deceived the public”. The judges did not see any “sufficient connecting facts” in Wiesendanger’s argument for this statement. However, they considered his formulations that Drosten would spread “untruths” and run a “disinformation campaign” to be permissible: This was a mere “counterstrike” after Drosten and other researchers had published a statement in which similar formulations could be found. This one in the journal lancet The published text contradicted the laboratory thesis spread by Wiesendanger, according to which the corona virus could have been grown in a Chinese laboratory.
in one SZ interview Christian Drosten had immediately after the publication in Cicero spoken of “baseless allegations” and announced in early March that to defend themselves legally. “This slander has an upward curve. I don’t have to and won’t put up with it,” he said at the time.
Drosten had already opposed the fact that in January world reasoned in the form of a question as to whether he based his statements on the frequency of contact between children at school “on general experiences” “like those every layman collects in everyday life”. The regional court in Hamburg considered this a rhetorical question and issued an injunction.
The fact that the current decision of the district court is neither a victory for Drosten nor a complete defeat for Wiesendanger is shown by the division of costs: the virologist and the physicist have to share the court costs. However, when asked, Wiesendanger’s lawyer said that he also wanted to object to the statements now prohibited by the court – with one exception, in which the court believes that Wiesendanger made a “misquote”. The physicist referred to a statement by Drosten in his podcast and probably refrains from further challenge here.