We don't know what's going on behind our Western border. The media doesn't talk about it. alternatively of being truthfully informed, they scare “anti-democratic” and even supposedly fascist parties, specified as AfD, and celebrate all action of governments to harm them. In another countries it is similar.
This is how freedom of speech and another civilian liberties in the wonderful European Union die. However, anyone trying to argue this is anti-European. This time I present a text published on Substack by a German commentator writing as
.German writer sentenced to 7 months probation for a Twitter meme mocking the deficiency of engagement of the Home Minister in freedom of speech
It's like individual called you aggressive and you punch him in the nose to show him how incorrect he is.
, April 08, 2025David Bendels, Editor-in-Chief of AfD Deutschland Kurier, He was threatened with jail time and sentenced to 7 months suspended for Twitter memes. This is the harshest conviction always passed on a writer for a crime of speech in the national Republic of Germany.
This is an illegal tweet, Bendels posted to the authoritative account Deutschland Kurier X 28 February 2024.:
The image shows German Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser holding a banner on which the inscription appears “I hatred free speech!‘ [1]. Bendels posted a photograph to laughter at Faeser's disturbing plans concerning the regulation of freedom of expression, travel and economical activity of political dissidents in GermanyFaeser announced at a press conference a fewer weeks earlier.
Nancy Faeser personally filed criminal charges against Bendels for defamation after the Bamberg police drew her attention to the meme. Last November, the Bamberg territory Court ordered Bendels to pay a immense fine for this speech crime “against a individual in political life It’s okay. ” It's another process that is based on our statue of lèse-majé [Majesty's insult], Paragraph 188 of the German Criminal Code, which provides for stricter penalties for those defaming or insulting politicians, as politicians are unique people far more crucial than all of us.
The same prosecutor in Bamberg and the same territory Court in Bamberg had previously been prosecuted by German pensioner Stefan Neihoff for the crime of posting another meme suggesting that German Minister of Economy Robert Habeck may be an idiot [2]. On this case, too, it seems, Habeck's attention was returned by the Bamberg police, who requested him to press charges. The police in Bamberg seemingly have small to do but search the net for political memes and defend democracy by suppressing democratic freedoms.
Bendels appealed the conviction, a trial was held before the Bamberg territory Court. Yesterday, the judges found him guilty and sentenced him to 7 months in prison, which they suspended for a probationary period. The judges stated that Bendels was guilty due to the fact that he was spreading "the actual claim about the Minister of the Interior, Mrs Faeser... which was not recognizable...unauthentic" and concluded that his meme "probably importantly harmed the public image [Faeser]". The justice president requested Bendels to make a written apology to the Minister of the Interior for specified gross defamation.
What else can be said about these cases?
Firstly, we have rich irony in the case of the Minister of the Interior Faeser, who considers the proposition that he may hatred freedom of speech to be so angry that he takes active steps to limit the freedom of speech of anyone who publishes memes of specified content. Secondly, we have the paradoxical reasoning of the Bamberg territory Court, where the judges would like us to believe that a meme depicting Faeser as an opponent of freedom of expression is likely to “enforce [her] public activity to a large extent” (the legal standard required for conviction under Section 188), while the actual conviction for a speech crime obtained at Faeser's request is entirely in order and in no way proves the validity of Bendels' argument in the most public way possible. Finally, we simply have handicapped judges who betray their deficiency of experience on the net (or possibly simply their clumsy malice), suggesting that Bendels' meme "was not recognizable...unauthentic", and so peculiarly serious. specified reasoning seems to lead to the criminalization of much of the political satire and image culture of the net in general.
The conviction is not yet final, and Bendels announced that he would appeal:
We will not accept this judgement and we will fight it with all the legal means available to us. Deutschland-Kurier and we will proceed the fair fight for freedom of the press and freedom of opinion with determination, determination and consistency, due to the fact that this fight is essential for the continued existence of democracy in Germany.
[1] In the first photograph – published on the authoritative X account of the Ministry of the Interior on 26 January 2023 on the occasion of the Day of Memory of the Victims of National Socialism – the inscription Faeser reads “We Remember”. [EC REMEMBER — It remains a mystery to me why the German ministrica keeps the inscription in English]
[2] There utilized to be a gag in Poland that in specified times the prosecution should concern betrayal of state secrecy.
