10 December 2007
A left-wing German politician has withdrawn charges against the online encyclopedia ‘Wikipedia’ for promoting the use of banned Nazi symbols in Germany. Katina Schubert, a deputy leader of the ‘Die Linke’ party, had filed the charges with Berlin police last week. She argued that Wikipedia's German site contained too much Nazi symbolism, particularly an article on the Hitler Youth movement. Schubert said she had spoken to Wikipedia Deutschland, which promotes the Internet encyclopedia in Germany, and had decided not to pursue the case even though she still believed neo-Nazis could take advantage of such sites.
"Filing charges is obviously the wrong path to go down in this dispute so I am today withdrawing them after intensive discussions with Wikipedia," Schubert said in a statement on her party's web site. She noted most of the symbols linked to the Hitler Youth had been removed from the website. Wikipedia Deutschland had rejected the accusations and said the symbols were clearly used for educational and documentation purposes.
