German journalist sentenced to seven months of probation for a Twitter meme poking fun at the the Interior Minister's lack of commitment to free speech This is like when somebody calls you violent and so you punch them in the nose to show them how wrong they are EUGYPPIUS APR 8
David Bendels, the chief editor of the AfD-adjacent Deutschland Kurier, has been threatened with prison time and sentenced to seven months of probation for a Twitter meme. It is the harshest sentence ever handed down to a journalist for a speech crime in the Federal Republic of Germany.
This is the illegal tweet, which Bendels posted via the official Deutschland Kurier X account on 28 February 2024:
It shows German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser holding a sign that has been manipulated to read “I hate freedom of speech!”¹ Bendels posted the image to satirise Faeser’s disturbing plans to restrict the speech, travel and economic activity of political dissidents in Germany, which she had announced at a press conference a few weeks earlier.
Faeser personally filed criminal charges against Bendels for defamation after Bamberg police brought the meme to her attention. Last November, the Bamberg District Court summarily ordered Bendels to pay an enormous fine for this speech crime “against a person in political life.” This is yet another prosecution that proceeds from our lèse-majesté statute, or section 188 of the German Criminal Code, which provides stiffened penalties for those who slander or insult politicians, because politicians are special people and more important than the rest of us.
The same Bamberg prosecutor’s office and the same Bamberg District Court had previously pursued the German pensioner Stefan Neihoff for the crime of posting another meme implying that German Economics Minister Robert Habeck might be a moron. That case, too, seems to have been brought to Habeck’s attention by Bamberg police, who requested that Habeck file charges. The Bamberg police apparently have very little to do and must spend hours defending democracy on the internet by suppressing democratic freedoms there.
Bendels appealed his summary penalty, and so the Bamberg District Court put him on trial. Yesterday the judges found him guilty and sentenced him to seven months in prison, which they suspended in favour of probation. The judges claimed that Bendels was guilty because he had distributed a “factual claim about the Minister of the Interior, Ms Faeser … that was not recognisably … false,” and judged that his meme was “likely to significantly impair [Faeser’s] public image.” The presiding judge demanded that Bendels submit a written apology to the Interior Minister for having so egregiously slandered her.
What is there even to say about these cases any longer?
First, there is the rich irony of Interior Minister Faeser, who finds the suggestion she might hate free speech so enraging, that she takes active steps to abridge the free speech of anyone posting memes to that effect. Second, there is the paradoxical reasoning of the Bamberg District Court, where judges would have us believe a meme casting Faeser as an opponent of free speech is likely to “make [her] public activities substantially more difficult” (the legal standard required for conviction under section 188), whereas an actual speech crime conviction procured at Faeser’s behest is totally fine and in no way proves Bendels’s point in the most public way possible. Finally, there are the flatly retarded judges who betray their lack of internet experience (or perhaps merely their hamfisted malice) by suggesting that Bendels’s post “was not recognisably …. false” and therefore especially grave. The reasoning would seem to criminalise a great part of political satire and internet image culture in general.
The sentence is not yet binding, and Bendels has announced he will appeal:
We will not accept this judgement and we’ll fight it with all the legal means at our disposal. The Deutschland-Kurier and I personally will continue the just struggle for freedom of the press and for freedom of opinion with determination, resolve and consistency, for this fight is indispensable for the continued existence of democracy in Germany.
1 In the original photo – posted by the official X account of the Interior Ministry on 26 January 2023 on the occasion of the Memorial Day of Victims of National Socialism – Faeser’s sign reads “We remember.”德国记者因在内政部长缺乏对言论自由的承诺而被判处七个月的缓刑模因嘲笑模因 这就像有人叫你暴力时，所以你在鼻子上猛击他们，向他们展示他们有多错误 Eugyppius 4月8日
阅读应用程序
AFD-Adjacent Deutschland Kurier的首席编辑David Bendels受到监禁的威胁，并被判处七个月的Twitter模因缓刑。 这是有史以来最严厉的判决在德国联邦共和国犯罪的记者。
This is like when somebody calls you violent and so you punch them in the nose to show them how wrong they are
EUGYPPIUS
APR 8
https://open.substack.com/pub/eugyppius/p/german-journalist-sentenced-to-seven
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David Bendels, the chief editor of the AfD-adjacent Deutschland Kurier, has been threatened with prison time and sentenced to seven months of probation for a Twitter meme. It is the harshest sentence ever handed down to a journalist for a speech crime in the Federal Republic of Germany.
This is the illegal tweet, which Bendels posted via the official Deutschland Kurier X account on 28 February 2024:
It shows German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser holding a sign that has been manipulated to read “I hate freedom of speech!”¹ Bendels posted the image to satirise Faeser’s disturbing plans to restrict the speech, travel and economic activity of political dissidents in Germany, which she had announced at a press conference a few weeks earlier.
Faeser personally filed criminal charges against Bendels for defamation after Bamberg police brought the meme to her attention. Last November, the Bamberg District Court summarily ordered Bendels to pay an enormous fine for this speech crime “against a person in political life.” This is yet another prosecution that proceeds from our lèse-majesté statute, or section 188 of the German Criminal Code, which provides stiffened penalties for those who slander or insult politicians, because politicians are special people and more important than the rest of us.
The same Bamberg prosecutor’s office and the same Bamberg District Court had previously pursued the German pensioner Stefan Neihoff for the crime of posting another meme implying that German Economics Minister Robert Habeck might be a moron. That case, too, seems to have been brought to Habeck’s attention by Bamberg police, who requested that Habeck file charges. The Bamberg police apparently have very little to do and must spend hours defending democracy on the internet by suppressing democratic freedoms there.
Bendels appealed his summary penalty, and so the Bamberg District Court put him on trial. Yesterday the judges found him guilty and sentenced him to seven months in prison, which they suspended in favour of probation. The judges claimed that Bendels was guilty because he had distributed a “factual claim about the Minister of the Interior, Ms Faeser … that was not recognisably … false,” and judged that his meme was “likely to significantly impair [Faeser’s] public image.” The presiding judge demanded that Bendels submit a written apology to the Interior Minister for having so egregiously slandered her.
What is there even to say about these cases any longer?
First, there is the rich irony of Interior Minister Faeser, who finds the suggestion she might hate free speech so enraging, that she takes active steps to abridge the free speech of anyone posting memes to that effect. Second, there is the paradoxical reasoning of the Bamberg District Court, where judges would have us believe a meme casting Faeser as an opponent of free speech is likely to “make [her] public activities substantially more difficult” (the legal standard required for conviction under section 188), whereas an actual speech crime conviction procured at Faeser’s behest is totally fine and in no way proves Bendels’s point in the most public way possible. Finally, there are the flatly retarded judges who betray their lack of internet experience (or perhaps merely their hamfisted malice) by suggesting that Bendels’s post “was not recognisably …. false” and therefore especially grave. The reasoning would seem to criminalise a great part of political satire and internet image culture in general.
The sentence is not yet binding, and Bendels has announced he will appeal:
We will not accept this judgement and we’ll fight it with all the legal means at our disposal. The Deutschland-Kurier and I personally will continue the just struggle for freedom of the press and for freedom of opinion with determination, resolve and consistency, for this fight is indispensable for the continued existence of democracy in Germany.
1
In the original photo – posted by the official X account of the Interior Ministry on 26 January 2023 on the occasion of the Memorial Day of Victims of National Socialism – Faeser’s sign reads “We remember.”德国记者因在内政部长缺乏对言论自由的承诺而被判处七个月的缓刑模因嘲笑模因
这就像有人叫你暴力时，所以你在鼻子上猛击他们，向他们展示他们有多错误
Eugyppius
4月8日
阅读应用程序
AFD-Adjacent Deutschland Kurier的首席编辑David Bendels受到监禁的威胁，并被判处七个月的Twitter模因缓刑。 这是有史以来最严厉的判决在德国联邦共和国犯罪的记者。
这是非法推文，本德尔斯通过Deutschland Kurier X帐户于2024年2月28日发布：
它显示了德国内政部长南希·菲瑟（Nancy Faeser）举着一个迹象，该标志被操纵以阅读“我讨厌言论自由！”。
在班贝格警方引起了她的注意之后，富瑟亲自提起了针对本德尔斯诽谤的刑事指控。 去年11月，班贝格地方法院公开下令本德尔斯（Bendels）“对政治生活中的一个人”为这种言论犯罪罚款。 这是从我们的Lèse-Majesté法规或德国刑法第188条进行的另一项起诉，该法案为那些诽谤或侮辱性政客提供了严厉的处罚，因为政客是特殊的人，比我们其他人更重要。
同一个班贝格检察官办公室和同一班贝格地方法院此前曾曾在德国养老金领取者斯特凡·内伊夫（Stefan Neihoff）犯下另一个模因犯罪，暗示德国经济部长罗伯特·哈贝克（Robert Habeck）可能是个白痴。 班贝格警方似乎也引起了Habeck的注意，该案件也要求Habeck档案指控。 班贝格警察显然几乎没有什么可做的，必须花费数小时来捍卫互联网上的民主，从而压制那里的民主自由。
本德尔斯对他的简易处罚提出上诉，因此班贝格地方法院对他进行了审判。 昨天，法官认为他有罪，并判处他判处七个月的监禁，他们暂停了缓刑。 法官声称本德尔斯是有罪的，因为他已经发出了“关于内政部长的事实主张，费瑟女士……这不是可以承认的……虚假的……”，并判断他的模因“可能会大大损害[faeser]的公众形象。” 主席法官要求本尔斯（Bendels）向内政部长宣告书面道歉，因为她遭受了如此严重的诽谤。
关于这些案件，甚至还有什么要说的？
首先，内政部长福瑟（Faeser）的富有讽刺意味，她发现她可能讨厌言论自由的建议，以至于她采取了积极的步骤来删除任何人以这种效果的任何人的言论自由。 其次，班贝格地方法院有矛盾的推理，法官会让我们相信，作为对手言论自由的对手的模因铸造的模因，“她的公共活动可能会变得更加困难”（根据第188条的定罪所需的法律标准）（第188条所需的法律标准），而在Faeser Behest的实际语音犯罪中，这完全是公开的，这完全可以证明这一点是不错的选择。 最后，有一些弱智的法官背叛了他们缺乏互联网经历（或者只是他们的hamfist恶人），暗示了本尼尔斯的帖子“不可公开……。虚假”，因此尤其是严重。 总体上，这种推理似乎将政治讽刺和互联网图像文化的大部分定为犯罪。
该判决尚未约束，本德尔斯宣布他将上诉：
我们将不接受这一判决，我们将以所有法律手段与之作斗争。 我和我个人将继续为新闻自由和意见自由而努力以决心，决心和一致性为由，因为这场斗争对于德国继续存在的民主存在是必不可少的。
1
在原始照片中 - 由内政部的官方X帐户发布于2023年1月26日，在阵亡将士纪念日的国家社会主义受害者之际 - Faeser's标语上写着“我们记得”。