Peter Pilz is a man who keeps his hair short, with not a single piece of clothing sticking out. If there was a strong wind now, nothing would flap about him. But there’s no wind, Pilz is fiddling with hoses, he’s just cleaned the aquarium, nobody in the ZackZack editorial office even looks up. Pilz pauses, sleeves rolled up, an amused expression on his mouth: “I always have piranhas in my office” – look at the reporter – “that makes visitors with a guilty conscience more talkative.”
Stow hoses into the publisher’s office above Reumannplatz in Vienna’s tenth district. “The Brothers Karamazov” is on the shelf, and an open volume of Trojanow lies on the chaise longue. Pilz sits down in his chair, sleeves down again. Born in Styria in 1954, he is an author and editor, was a Trotskyist for a short time and was a member of the National Council for many years, including in the Vienna Landtag. Pilz co-founded the Austrian Greens, uncovered insurance fraud with numerous deaths or illegal arms exports and then pursued them right up to parliamentary committees of inquiry.
In Austria, Peter Pilz is known as one of the rare colorful dogs. Few would claim that he had diplomatic talent. The Internet platform “ZackZack”, which he founded after leaving the National Council, has a story ready for every political affair early on, and it aims to create a scandal. “ZackZack” reports on an “organized judiciary” in the country or the “organized criminal police”, meaning networks of officials and public prosecutors who belong to the Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP). “ZackZack” researches drug trafficking in Viennese clubs that a friend of the former Chancellor Sebastian Kurz runs. Sometimes there are murmurs on the platform of “new tracks” and “string pullers”, as a rule the articles are stuffed with sources, references and background information.
Most of the time, Pilz is right, and he likes to show it
Pilz is all about enlightenment, morale and combat. Anyone who messes with him must have massed arguments. Because most of the time, Pilz is right. Occasionally he likes to show it off a little too much; maybe that’s why he had to say goodbye to the Greens with unpleasant background noise.
And he kept coming to court: a builder once sued him for damages of one hundred million schillings. mushroom won. His non-fiction book on Austrian politics was published last year, and shortly afterwards a journalist warned him that an OVP lawyer was collecting material against “ZackZack”. Then the real estate speculator René Benko and the ÖVP politician Michael Kloibmüller, former head of cabinet in the Ministry of the Interior, complained. In addition, a legal protection officer, who classifies Pilz as “close to the ÖVP”. And Andreas Holzer, the head of the Austrian Federal Criminal Police Office, whom Pilz calls the “highest ÖVP police officer”. The aforementioned club owner and Kurz friend sued with another attorney. All of this, says Pilz, is an attempt to silence him.
SLAPP (strategic lawsuits against public participation) are procedures that are not conducted in order to win a legal dispute, but are intended to tie up resources: with high amounts in dispute and legal fees, it is hoped to scare off critics, journalists or non-governmental organizations. SLAPP sounds like the English slap in the face.
Silencing by high legal amounts in dispute
A few months ago, the report by a pan-European coalition against SLAPP found that such lawsuits were skyrocketing across the EU. In the meantime, the Commission in Brussels is working on a directive that is intended to create a national legal framework that will allow unjustified complaints to be dismissed more quickly, support victims and launch information campaigns to raise public prosecutors’ and judges’ awareness.
However, Andreas Holzer did not sue the author Peter Pilz, but his publisher Kremayr & Scheriau. Holzer appears in Pilz’s research-packed book about former Chancellor Kurz and the ÖVP’s closeness to the anti-liberal Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán. In the office, Pilz reports again how a group of men installed the chancellor, who was disinterested in factual issues, brought the security apparatus and judiciary in Austria into line through cadres, and influenced the press through loyal publishers. The book is called “Short – A Regime” and has 256 straightforward pages. About Holzer it says, among other things, that he was part of the “organized police” and would have protected the ÖVP from unwanted investigations.
