Sensitive data leaked – Blauer Vilimsky vs. ORF: Posting is causing a stir

Leading members of the EU Parliament’s Patriots Group – including Vilimsky – pointed out the threatened freedom of expression and the danger of censorship in Europe during a press conference in Strasbourg on Tuesday.

Vilimsky defends posts
An email from an ORF journalist, which Vilimsky shared Vilimsky defended his post, which was criticized by some MPs and journalists.

“Balancing the information situation”
In the email that the FPÖ delegation leader now shares, the journalist’s name and telephone number were clearly visible. “If a representative of the ORF sends an email through the house and labels me as ‘extreme right’, I have the right to defend myself,” Vilimsky said in response to the criticism. He described our “ability to defend ourselves” as “democracy.” He emphasized that he was interested in “balancing the information situation.”

Vilimsky v ORF: Not the first dispute
This is not Vilimsky’s first confrontation with the ORF. Last summer he lost his temper during an interview on the street.

Vilimsky faction colleague: “The extreme right does not distinguish us”
When a journalist asked him for his opinion on the current post, his colleague from the Patriot group, the Belgian EU MP Tom Vandendriessche (Vlaams Belang), pointed out that he was a political scientist. “We do not distinguish ourselves as extreme right-wing,” said Vandendriessche. He said 60 MEPs from 18 member states and five political groups had signed a draft resolution to set up a committee of inquiry into social media censorship in the EU Parliament.

ÖVP at a distance from Vilimsky
ÖVP delegation leader Reinhold Lopatka distanced himself from Vilimsky. “I don’t think anything of the sort, including the choice of words,” Lopatka said on the sidelines of the European Parliament’s plenary session in Strasbourg. “I have a different way of dealing with journalists,” emphasized Lopatka, who is negotiating the foreign policy chapter for the People’s Party in the ongoing FPÖ-ÖVP coalition negotiations.

The Greens and SPÖ were furious
The Greens reacted indignantly. “They say very clearly what they want: to silence difficult media,” says delegation leader Thomas Waitz. You only have to look at Hungary to see “which direction we are going”.

Waitz’s party colleague Lena Schilling said Vilimsky’s post was “unfortunately not surprising.” “With the FPÖ, freedom of expression apparently only applies if you agree with their right-wing agitation,” she wrote on the social network Bluesky. Vilimsky had ‘publicly pilloried an ORF employee who did not suit him.’

Like the Greens, the SPÖ criticized Vilimsky’s actions. “The disclosure of a journalist’s personal data is not only a scandal, but an attack on the fundamental rights of this person and must therefore be strongly condemned,” said Social Democratic MP Elisabeth Grossmann.

The publication “violates the privacy of this person and thus breaks with the data protection to which every citizen is entitled.” Such behavior further fuels hatred and hate speech on the internet, especially against women. A behavior that we know all too well from right-wing politicians.”