Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung published another article criticizing the satire of the ZDF-magazine Royal. Michael Martens wonders why Jan Böhmermann’s team says Schmidt didn’t answer their questions – when he did.
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung journalist Michael Martens writes that the author of the satirical ZDF-magazine Royal, Jan Böhmermann, “found it important to attack Schmidt as a “conservative joke-figure”, while “Bosnia acted as an exotic backdrop”.
“That would be fine if the contexts were not twisted, the facts misrepresented or dubiously interpreted,” writes Martens. In this and in the previous article, he quotes Krsto Lazarevic, whom he says has no reason to defend Schmidt as a leftist, but who ” truncations and inaccuracies bother” in Böhmermann’s show.
Incorrect claim that they did not receive a response from Schmidt
Martens then states that Böhmermann’s associates responded to the criticism with “a series of justifications” on Twitter and stated that they “asked Christian Schmidt before the show for the specific reason for his security concerns, but did not receive an answer.”
Martens, however, states that “the editors did receive answers to their questions, and very detailed ones”, but that “the answers did not fit into the concept of the show, which is why they were omitted”.
“FAZ is in possession of Schmidt’s four-page answer to seven questions posed to him by ‘Royal‘ magazine,” Martens writes further. The editor’s first question was “whether and, if so, what concrete signs of a threat existed against Vucic Junior”. The response of Schmidt’s press department, Martens continues, is long and in a condensed form: “It was stated (which is correct) that a Bosnian portal published a confidential diplomatic note from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Serbia sent to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) at the time when Vucic‘s son was in BiH. It contains sensitive information about the travel route as well as the personal data of the bodyguard. Such notes are common in international diplomatic relations, and publishing such sensitive information to the public represents a breach of trust in diplomatic missions in BiH“, stated, among other things, Schmidt’s written response to the editors of ZDF Royal magazine before the show.
In such cases, says Schmidt’s answer, “it is usual for the doyen, that is, the oldest foreign diplomat, who has been accredited for the longest time in the city, to contact the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the host country on behalf of the entire diplomatic corps.” So Schmidt, after consultation, contacted that doyen (diplomatic representative of Palestine in Sarajevo), and he then contacted all diplomatic missions and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of BiH to report the violation of diplomatic rules and ask for correction.
The response of Schmidt’s press office “is not entirely convincing”
Martens writes that this response from Schmidt’s press service “is not entirely convincing”, because the letter of course had something to do with media reports, but “the claim of the editorial staff of ”Royal” magazine that they did not receive a response from Schmidt is simply incorrect”.
What caused the confusion in Böhmermann’s criticism
Sueddeutsche Zeitung also writes about the criticism of the satire of Jan Böhmermann, who is accused of “exaggerating and shortening the facts” in his February 18th show about BiH and High Representative Schmidt.
“Many complain about the fact that there is an institution that has quasi-colonial powers. Abolition of the Office of the High Representative (OHR) – that is what the Kremlin and the Serbian nationalists in the country, supported by it, are asking for. To keep the OHR, because without the international community they would be left to the nationalists – that is the position of many actors of the Bosnian-Muslim civil society, who demand that Schmidt be replaced as a person,” writes SZ.
The German newspaper adds that the United States (U.S.) and Great Britain were behind the change in the Election Law – two members of the Peace Implementation Council, to which High Representative Schmidt is accountable.
SZ also writes that the confusion was caused by Böhmermann’s statement that the vote of Croats is now worth four times more than the vote of Bosniaks, and that he should have noted that this is not the Parliament of BiH, but the House of Peoples of the entity Federation of BiH (FBiH), which is proportionally filled by ethnic groups, DW reports.
E.Dz.
