{"id":501694,"date":"2025-12-11T14:37:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T11:37:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/reform.news\/?p=501694"},"modified":"2025-12-11T15:33:46","modified_gmt":"2025-12-11T12:33:46","slug":"jorg-dornau-fined-20-000-euros-over-onion-farm-in-belarus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/jorg-dornau-fined-20-000-euros-over-onion-farm-in-belarus","title":{"rendered":"J\u00f6rg Dornau Fined 20,000 Euros Over Onion Farm in Belarus"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"fb-root\"><\/div>\n<p>A deputy from the populist party Alternative for Germany (AfD), <b>J\u00f6rg Dornau<\/b>, has indeed been fined for concealing his business in Belarus \u2014 the onion farm \u201cCybulka-Bel\u201d near Lida. However, he may appeal the decision.<\/p>\n<p>In August 2024, the presidium of the parliament (Landtag) of the state of Saxony imposed a fine of 20,862 euros on Dornau. The violation was that Dornau did not inform the German authorities within the legally required timeframe that he owned a stake in a company in Belarus and served as its director.<\/p>\n<p>The deputy appealed the decision. He claimed that he was not obliged to report the farm and also considered the fine too high. On 10 December, the Leipzig Administrative Court ruled that the fine was lawful. The deputy had failed to declare his stake in the Belarusian company for about three and a half years, and submitted declarations only after the Landtag initiated proceedings against him, reports Die Zeit.<\/p>\n<p>Given the size of the agricultural land (around 1,500 hectares) and the period during which Dornau failed to report his business, the court determined that the deputy\u2019s actions did not constitute a \u201cless serious case\u201d or minor negligence and therefore could not be punished with only a warning.<\/p>\n<p>Dornau may appeal the court\u2019s decision to the Higher Administrative Court of Saxony.<\/p>\n<p>The story of the onion farm belonging to J\u00f6rg Dornau was first reported by Reform.news. Dornau had concluded an agreement with the Lida Center for the Isolation of Offenders (CIP) and regularly employed Belarusians convicted on political charges to work on his onion plantation near Lida. They were paid about five euros per day. Dornau personally inspected the work of political prisoners. Those who refused to work on the farm were handcuffed to a radiator.<\/p>\n<p>The Leipzig Prosecutor\u2019s Office declined to open a criminal case against Dornau.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A deputy from the populist party Alternative for Germany (AfD), J\u00f6rg Dornau, has indeed been fined for concealing his business in Belarus \u2014 the onion farm \u201cCybulka-Bel\u201d near Lida. However, he may appeal the decision. In August 2024, the presidium of the parliament (Landtag) of the state of Saxony imposed a fine of 20,862 euros [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":119,"featured_media":501693,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sharing_image":{"poster":"https:\/\/reform.news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/693aba3060dd1.jpg","width":1200,"height":630,"template":"691142dd","mode":"auto"},"_sharing_image_fieldset":{"dTVKfmI95PYT":"J\u00f6rg Dornau Fined 20,000 Euros Over Onion Farm in Belarus"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[142339,142338,142373],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-501694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-main","category-news","category-germany"],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/119"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=501694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501694\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/501693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=501694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=501694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reform.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=501694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}