1300 march in Berlin in support of 2 journalists

A day later, chief federal prosecutor Harald Range said that the probe is being “paused” pending an expert opinion on whether the outlet revealed state secrets.

Last week, Germany’s chief prosecutor launched a treason investigation against Markus Beckedahl and Andre Meister, two journalists with the Netzpolitik website, after they disclosed domestic security agency plans to boost social media surveillance.

Justice Minister Heiko Maas, who oversees his office, questioned the decision after news of the investigation broke last week.

Netzpolitik is believed to have quoted from an intelligence report categorized as “classified document – confidential” that proposed a new unit to monitor the Internet, particularly social networks.

Fellow Netzpolitik writer, Anna Biselli stated on the website: “From the very beginning, the charges against our alleged source(s) were politically motivated and targeted to crush the necessary public debate about Internet surveillance post-Snowden”.

Both articles were based on leaked secret documents.

The German Journalists Association called the development an attack on press freedom, with chairman Michael Konken describing it as an “impermissible attempt to make two critical colleagues silenced”, the AFP reported.

The journalists were being investigated under German criminal code section 94, which defines treason as allowing “a state secret to come to the attention of an unauthorized person or to become known to the public in order to prejudice the Federal Republic of Germany or benefit a foreign power”.

One German news website is hitting the media spotlight following two published reports on domestic surveillance.

The investigation has been widely criticised by digital rights activists and organisations, with the Electronic Frontier Foundation referring to it as “a matter of deep public concern” and Pulitzer prize-winning journalist Glenn Greenwald calling the news “huge”.

Meister and Beckedahl were officially informed of the controversial investigation on 24 July. Probably the most high-profile case occurred in 1962, when an investigation towards the weekly journal Der Spiegel prompted road demonstrations and the resignation of 5 Cupboard members in protest. Legislators from opposition parties have pointed out that, rather than harass the bloggers, the authorities should investigate NSA spying on German soil.

A court later ruled in its favour and the defence minister stepped down, in what was seen as a victory for democracy and cemented its reputation for investigative journalism. The Sueddeutsche Zeitung likened the charges against Netzpolitik.org to Chancellor Otto von Bismarck’s 127-year-old attempt to accuse journalists of treason for the publication of the German crown prince’s war diaries.