Aug 31, 2023 | In December last year an attempted coup in Germany took that nation and the rest of the world by surprise. But the movement behind the coup, the Reichsbürger group, has been fomenting discontent for decades.
This week Foreign Correspondent travels to Germany to take a close look at this far-right ‘sovereign citizens’ movement, many of whom believe they are not bound by German laws. Some are now on trial for shooting police and engaging in acts of terrorism.
Reporter Eric Campbell visits the State of Thuringia, where a self-styled prince allegedly plotted the coup in his royal hunting lodge. He meets intelligence officials who claim the Reichsbürger are now in a dangerous alliance with a far-right political party, the AfD. Its radical policies to end migration and stop action on climate change have made it the second most popular party in Germany.
But State Intelligence chief Stephan Kramer, who is Jewish, describes the AfD as ‘Nazis in suits” and says he’ll take his family out of Germany if they come to power.
This is an intriguing and disturbing look at how the far right is surging in support in the one country that has shunned far right extremists since the end of World War Two.
This documentary is age-restricted; therefore, it cannot be embedded, so it must be viewed on YouTube itself. Please click here to watch it.
Aug 17, 2023 | A Foreign Correspondent exclusive – secret interviews from inside Iran’s protest movement.
Almost a year since widespread protests erupted on the streets of Iran, young dissidents who continue to defy the country’s repressive regime, have participated in secretly recorded interviews with Foreign Correspondent. …
Apr 28, 2020 • When Poland’s Archbishop of Krakow talks about fighting a plague, he’s not talking about the new coronavirus. He’s talking about gay rights.
“A certain ideology is a threat to our hearts and minds…so we need to defend ourselves just like against any other plague”, says Archbishop Jedraszewski.
In the 1980s Poland played a central part in liberating the world from communism. Now there’s a push to wind back many of those hard-won freedoms.
The Catholic church and the Polish government are forming a holy alliance, joining forces to denounce Western-style liberalism as the new enemy.
“From the very beginning the history of the Polish state and Polish nation were connected with the history of Christianity”, says Archbishop Jedraszewski. “Christianity, nation and state were so tightly connected, they were almost inseparable.”
In today’s Poland, the church is supporting government moves to discriminate against gay people, wind back sex education and outlaw abortion.
But feminists, gays and liberals are fighting back.
Foreign Correspondent’s Eric Campbell reports on a deeply divided nation in the throes of a culture war.
He meets the Archbishop of Krakow who likens gay activists to the much-reviled Soviets who occupied Poland after the Second World War.
“This time it is not a red but a rainbow plague”, says Archbishop Jedraszewski. Regional governments across Poland have declared about a third of the country ‘an LGBT free zone’.
Eric interviews critics of the current government, including Lech Walesa, the father of Polish democracy, who warns “our Constitution is being broken, the separation of powers has been violated and we have to do something about it.”
He meets a gay mayor in a small town who says the rhetoric from church and state is leading to an “increase in hatred spreading against homosexual people.” And he films at a far-right rally in Warsaw where Catholic extremists are co-opting the church in their bid to push their nationalist agenda and vision of Poland as a new theocracy.
While many Poles believe a religious revival will lead their country to the light, others fear it is opening the gates to something darker.
Jun 2, 2022 • He started as a low-level spy. He ended up President for Life. For two decades, former Moscow correspondent Eric Campbell has tracked Putin’s rise to power.
Premiered May 19, 2022 • A troubled man. His missing father. A secretive Kingdom, faraway.
American Jared Morrison has dreamed of meeting his dad since he was a kid.
Like many young Saudi men, Jared’s father came to America to study in the 1970s. At university, he met Jared’s mum and they began a relationship. When she became pregnant, he disappeared back home.
Throughout his childhood and into adulthood, Jared was obsessed with finding his Saudi father.
“I had that overwhelming urge and drive...to find him, locate him, learn about him, learn about the culture. It was just an innate instinct.”
Jared connected once on the phone when he was in his early twenties but his father rejected him. Now that Saudi Arabia has begun to open up to the world, Jared wants to try again.
Reporter Brietta Hague and Saudi producer Essam Al-Ghalib tell the exclusive story of Jared as he travels to the Kingdom to try and track down his father. It’s a dangerous, fraught and emotionally risky mission.
Jared's family is powerful and well-connected in Saudi and Jared bumps up against the unwritten rules of a deeply conservative society, which values reputation and family honour above all.
Jared is not alone in his quest to connect with his Saudi father.
Saudi men abroad continue to father and abandon children. In Guatemala, we meet a young boy and his single mother, his Saudi father long since departed. Sami Alrajhi Chang visits the mosque every week to learn Arabic in the hope he may one day meet his Saudi family.
Sami’s father Sulaiman came to study in the USA as part of a Saudi government scholarship programme. There he met student Mandre Chang. Despite promising her marriage and a life together, he abandoned Mandre days after Sami’s birth.
Mandre and Sami are part of a global network of people searching for answers. Stone-walled by the Saudi government and embassies, Mandre sought the help of a blog called ‘Saudi Children Left Behind’, a platform encouraging the children and ex-partners of Saudi men to publish their stories of abandonment in the hope they’ll make contact.
'Saudi Children Left Behind' is an untold story about the powerful human impulse to connect with family, against all odds, and a rare insight into the rigid rules governing this hidden Kingdom – rules about kinship, obligation and family honour
Apr 14, 2022 • In the modern State of Israel, the ultra-Orthodox – or Haredi – communities live a world apart.
Rejecting the secular, they live according to ancient religious principles. Many Haredi men spend their days in religious schools studying the Jewish bible.
“People here focus on the essentials: on the Torah. Material things are irrelevant here,” says Yossef, a member of a Haredi community on the edge of Tel Aviv.
“On Shabbat, cars stand still, everyone observes Shabbat. The women show restraint outdoors.”
Yossef’s wife, Esther, supports her husband.
“Man was created to study day and night. As a woman, I support that and benefit from it as well.”
The Israeli government subsidises this lifestyle, exempting community members from compulsory military service.
It has lead to resentment among secular Jews, tensions which have deepened during COVID.
“This is a state within a state,” says one Israeli MP. “Many Haredi movements want to integrate into Israeli society…the only problem is that some Haredi leaders strongly hinder this integration.”
Presented by Eric Campbell, this Arte documentary explores how pressures from outside are forcing many Haredim to integrate more with the modern world.
Moshe is one who’s pushing the boundaries. He’s set up a tech company which adheres to religious rules, including providing separate workspaces for men and women.
“In the business world, the sexes share a space and many Haredim don't deal well with that. So, we founded this place, so the Haredim feel comfortable in the high-tech world.”
Chira dreams of becoming a professional singer, but as a Haredi woman she’s not allowed to perform for men. She’s decided she wants to be a performer, but only for other women.
“I will never be able to sing on a stage where everyone can see me. But a new female audience is emerging. They organise parties, celebrations for young girls, festivals for women.”
Moshe feels his community’s traditions can help drive innovation.
“Some think if you preserve tradition, you stay stuck in the past, but the future is innovation… The talent for innovation comes precisely from reflection…This legacy enables us to look forward and invent new things.”
This is a fascinating and rare insight into a normally-closed world on the cusp of change.
About Foreign Correspondent:
Foreign Correspondent is the prime-time international public affairs program on Australia's national broadcaster, ABC-TV. We produce half-hour duration in-depth reports for broadcast across the ABC's television channels and digital platforms. Since 1992, our teams have journeyed to more than 170 countries to report on war, natural calamity and social and political upheaval – through the eyes of the people at the heart of it all.
