More and more cases are coming to light in Germany involving citizens being prosecuted for “insulting” politicians, and in one remarkable case, a civil engineer was imprisoned for 30 days after he failed to properly appeal a fine he received for insulting a prominent Social Democrat (SPD) politician.
The incident began when a civil engineer living in Lower Saxony sent an angry email to Mecklenburg-Vorpommern state Prime Minister Manuela Schwesig of the far-left Social Democrats (SPD).
In the email, which he sent to the state chancellery, he called her a “storyteller” and accused her of talking “stupid stuff.” He also told her she should start working in construction instead of politics and wrote: “You don’t need to sell people stupid things.” The letter was sent in May 2022 and criticized what he believed to be her pro-Russian stance towards the war in Ukraine that had just broken out.
🇩🇪 JUST IN: Police raided a German pensioner's house and arrested him after he retweeted a meme of Green Economy Minister Robert Habeck, which described Habeck as an “idiot,”
The meme has been recorded as a “politically motivated right-wing crime.”
On Tuesday, police officers… pic.twitter.com/BGQLSQVBd8
— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) November 14, 2024The Osnabrück public prosecutor’s office pursued a case against the man because Schwesig felt insulted. She personally filed the criminal complaint, according to Apollo News. The criminal complaint states that the man “consciously and intentionally” degraded her honor and fined the man €3,000.
The man appealed, but apparently his written appeal did not reach the proper authorities, as the man allegedly submitted the appeal in the wrong form. He was then ordered to serve a prison sentence at the end of May 2023, but he ignored this request to begin the sentence.
If you thought the law on insulting politicians in Germany was bad now, wait until a new proposal passes. An even bigger wave of arrests and house raids could be on the horizon.https://t.co/AQxlb5xLy2
— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) November 28, 2024Police then arrived at this workplace a few weeks later, arrested him, and brought him to prison for 30 days. He served his time in Dortmund prison, leaving many of his friends and family concerned about his disappearance. The man then lost his job upon his release.
The report comes after a wave of other cases involving police raiding and arresting German citizens who insult politicians and other officials, including a case in which a retired soldier had his house raided in Bavaria for calling Economic Minister Robert Habeck an “idiot.”
🇩🇪🚨 A 69-year-old pensioner from Biberach has been fined €900 by a German court for sharing memes on Facebook that insult high-ranking German politicians.
The defendant's frequent posts alerted the Central Reporting Office for Criminal Content on the Internet – a division of… pic.twitter.com/WUpHZbtglP
— Remix News & Views (@RMXnews) August 13, 2024
