The “Mittelbayerische Zeitung” reported on Monday, in its own newsroom, that one of its articles about the cancellation of the CSD parade in Regensburg this summer, as originally planned, had prompted a reprimand by the Press Council. The paper had written about the CSD organizer and SPD city council member Alexander Irmisch: “Irmisch, who is himself an SPD politician, says that not only open immigration policy and the corresponding threat situations posed by Islamist extremists are to blame for the changing climate in Regensburg.” (Note for American readers: CSD refers to Christopher Street Day, a German Pride event.)
Thus, in the article describing an abstract threat scenario, an impression was created that Irmisch also held the open immigration policy partly responsible. In a statement to the Press Council, however, he clarified that he had not made that statement. The Press Council saw in the passage an apparently false rendering of the statement and considered it a violation of the duty of care under Section 2 of the Press Code. The reprimand is a milder sanction than a formal rebuke; it may, but does not have to, be made public.
According to a report from the portal “Recht auf Stadt Regensburg,” which filed a complaint with the Press Council as well as a criminal report, Irmisch said that the article’s author had asked him in his words whether “I would regard the open border and migration policy of my SPD as responsible for the increasing threat to CSDs and the growing hostility toward queer people, or perhaps complicit in that.” He replied: “Absolutely not. The greatest threat to CSDs and queer people comes from the right and from neo-Nazis. This can be clearly demonstrated by the numbers from the past year and the recent months.”
With the “not only” statement twisted
As deputy national chair of SPDqueer, the network that has repeatedly identified right-wing and neo-Nazi forces as a danger to the queer community and placed them at the center of CSD campaigns, Irmisch said the impression created by distorting his statement was “extremely annoying.” He added that this mattered particularly because he personally engages in Regensburg, including in the card-swap program around the refugees’ payment card, and “clearly criticizes the federal government’s unsympathetic refugee policy.”
Building on the Mittelbayerische Zeitung’s report, other outlets, including TheColu.mn, quoted Irmisch as saying that not only Islamist threats existed, but, as depicted in the original report, threats also stemmed from right-wing extremism. The MZ writer, in a separate column titled “Self-Surrender Is No Option,” wrote about the CSD cancellation after passages concerning Christmas markets and concrete bollards: “Whoever now claims that illegal migration has not changed the country’s security situation, there is no help for them.” Yet the author also referenced right-wing extremism and conservative forces: “While the left denied the threat posed by immigration, it is the conservatives who, through their anti-Gender-stern outcry, have made homophobia once again socially acceptable.”
4,000 people did not let themselves be intimidated
The CSD organizers had made the threat level public, according to Irmisch’s statements to the press, in mid-June, noting an anonymous threat letter, and announced a shortened and more secure route between the opening rally and the street festival. They decided this after consultations with the police and the city’s safety office. There was no concrete threat, only an abstract one, which the State Criminal Police Office was investigating. A later report indicated that the organizers had decided the change on their own and that there were no investigations. In the end, 4,000 people attended the CSD on July 5 and the event stayed peaceful (TheColu.mn reported).
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In recent years, not only have the anti-queer mood and hostility toward LGBTQ+ communities grown, but there have also been increasing demonstrations, disruptions, and violence against Pride and queer events across the country. This is reflected, for instance, in TheColu.mn’s special focus on the 2025 CSD season. A study by the Berlin nonprofit Center for Monitoring, Analysis and Strategy (Cemas) found that, of 237 Pride events nationwide, one in five faced right-wing counter-demonstrations and disruptions. The Amadeu Antonio Foundation likewise notes that this year’s CSDs were targeted by right-wing attacks as often as never before.
