by tts-admin | Aug 24, 2023 | 0 comments
Off-Guardian – Aug 23, 2023
It’s been an astonishing couple of days for German judges. Well, “astonishing” if you’ve been living in a cave for the last four years.
Many of you likely already know that satirist and playwright (and frequent OffG contributor) CJ Hopkins is being prosecuted in Germany for “disseminating propaganda, the contents of which are intended to further the aims of a former National Socialist organization,”
All because the cover of his book has a swastika on it.
Needless to say, the charges are absurd. Insultingly so. You can read CJ’s first-hand account of this nonsense here and here.
Anyone who isn’t a) stupid or b) delusional can plainly see these charges have nothing to do with a stock-image swastika, and everything to do with the content of the book. In short, they are politically motivated charges brought against an author for criticizing the state. The very essence of dystopian tyranny.
…and yesterday he was convicted.
He now faces 60 days in prison or a 3600 Euro fine.
That’s case one, and as we say one you are likely familiar with if you’re regular readers.
Something you probably haven’t heard is that, just this morning, a different German court sentenced a former judge to two years in prison.
His crime? Ruling that mask mandates in schools were not constitutional.
The case dates back to April 8th 2021, when Weimar District Family Court judge Christiaan Dettmar ruled that two schools in the district a) could not enforce mask mandates, b) must continue in-person classes and c) could not force pupils to test for “Covid”.
From Human Rights Blog:
The court case was a child protection case under to § 1666 paragraph 1 and 4 of the German Civil Code (BGB), which a mother had initiated for her two sons, aged 14 and 8 respectively, at the local Family Court. She had argued that her children were being physically, psychologically and pedagogically damaged without any benefit for the children or third parties. At the same time, she claimed this constituted a violation of a range of rights of the children and their parents under the law, the German constitution (Grundgesetz or Basic Law) and international conventions.
After listening to testimony from expert witnesses, the judge ruled in favour of the mother, writing in his verdict:
These are the risks [to mask mandates]. The children are not only endangered in their mental, physical and psychological well-being by the obligation to wear face masks during school hours and to keep their distance from each other and from other persons, but they are also already being harmed. At the same time, this violates numerous rights of the children and their parents under the law, the constitution and international conventions.
Two weeks after handing down this ruling, his home and office were raided by the police and his mobile phone was seized.
And now, two years later, he was found guilty of “judicial misconduct” and initially given two years in prison (the court has since suspended the sentence). “Judicial Misconduct”, for simply disagreeing with the government.
Free speech is the first and most vital liberty, without it no one is truly free. An independent judiciary is a must to preserve any kind of justice, judges who simply nod along with government edicts are the building blocks of authoritarian states.
The voice of the people and the power of the courts – ideally – work together to hold the government to account.
And yet, whether in the judiciary or the arts, the German legal system is now a machine for criminalizing and punishing dissent of any kind.
…I’d make a comparison to another German government that used to function in a similar way, but I really can’t afford a 4000 euro fine.
§ 130 – Incitement to hatred
Incitement to hatred is considered case fact if hate and violence is called upon against individual people, or whole groups, because of their background or their ethnic or religious affiliation. Incitement to hatred is punishable with a fine or a custodial sentence of three months to five years. (§ 130).
Examples
Pegida founder Lutz Bachmann was convicted and fined € 9,600 in May 2016 because of Facebook posts that were categorised as inciting incitement to hatred… more
A 34 year old man from Berlin was convicted because of anonymous posts. The statement ‘I think we should just should re-open the gas chambers and throw their whole spawn in’ cost him € 4,800. August 2015… more
Youtube blogger ‘Julien’ was handed a suspended sentence of eight months and fined € 15,000. ‘We should gas the bastards’ he declared in a video which reached almost 800,000 views about train drivers – among others – from the GDL trade union. February 2016… more
This comment was on Facebook for five hours: ‘There are enough Germans who work for a Euro just to survive. F*ck those scum bags. They should be shot.’ Verdict: six months suspended prison sentence as well as 80 hours of community service for refugee relief. February 2016… more
—————–
Germany
German Criminal Code
Original Text
Section 130
Incitement to hatred
(1) Whosoever, in a manner capable of disturbing the public peace
1. incites hatred against segments of the population or calls for violent or arbitrary measures against them; or
2. assaults the human dignity of others by insulting, maliciously maligning, or defaming segments of the population,
shall be liable to imprisonment from three months to five years.
(2) Whosoever
1. with respect to written materials (section 11(3)) which incite hatred against segments of the population or a national, racial or religious group, or one characterised by its ethnic customs, which call for violent or arbitrary measures against them, or which assault the human dignity of others by insulting, maliciously maligning or defaming segments of the population or a previously indicated group
(a) disseminates such written materials;
(b) publicly displays, posts, presents, or otherwise makes them accessible;
(c) offers, supplies or makes them accessible to a person under eighteen years; or
(d) produces, obtains, supplies, stocks, offers, announces, commends, undertakes to import or export them, in order to use them or copies obtained from them within the meaning of Nos (a) to (c) or facilitate such use by another; or
2. disseminates a presentation of the content indicated in No 1 above by radio, media services, or telecommunication services
shall be liable to imprisonment not exceeding three years or a fine.
(3) Whosoever publicly or in a meeting approves of, denies or downplays an act committed under the rule of National Socialism of the kind indicated in section 6 (1) of the Code of International Criminal Law, in a manner capable of disturbing the public peace shall be liable to imprisonment not exceeding five years or a fine.
(4) Whosoever publicly or in a meeting disturbs the public peace in a manner that violates the dignity of the victims by approving of, glorifying, or justifying National Socialist rule of arbitrary force shall be liable to imprisonment not exceeding three years or a fine.
(5) Subsection (2) above shall also apply to written materials (section 11(3)) of a content such as is indicated in subsections (3) and (4) above.
(6) In cases under subsection (2) above, also in conjunction with subsection (5) above, and in cases of subsections (3) and (4) above, section 86(3) shall apply mutatis mutandis.
Attachments
Comment
Please note that this legislation was uploaded on 23 January 2019 and might, hence, not include amendments to the legislation after this date.
—————–
German police cancel Pro-Palestine rally in Berlin on Al-Quds Day
- ByAl Mayadeen net
- Source: Agencies
- 29 Apr 2022 14:20
- 2 Shares
The rally’s organizers say the decision was subject to pressure from the Zionist lobby.
On Thursday, German police announced the cancellation of a rally in support of Palestine and condemned the Israeli aggression on Al-Aqsa coinciding with World Quds Day.
See more: The world stands with Palestine
The organizers of the demonstration told Al Mayadeen that they were surprised to hear the rally was banned, particularly since the reasons mentioned by the German police are illogical and illegal, owing to pressure from the Zionist lobby in Germany.
Organizers of the demonstrations have resorted to the German judiciary to decide on the validity of the illegal decision and if it is in line with the German constitution and Germany’s freedom of expression laws.
This comes after the arrest of several people following a pro-Palestine demonstration in the German capital to protest Israeli attacks on Al-Aqsa.
The police claimed that several demonstrators chanted “anti-Semitic” slogans during the demonstration in Berlin’s Kreuzberg and Neukölln districts on Saturday evening.
In recent weeks, organizers said the demonstrations were marketed by German media as anti-Semitic to smear them.
Germany paying for the surveillance of Palestinians, activists
Days ago, a German-Palestinian scholar, who was barred from appearing at a 2019 panel after a dossier portraying her as “anti-Semitic” and a “terrorist sympathizer” was shared with organizers, has launched a lawsuit against the state-funded organization purportedly behind the dossier.
Lawyers for Critical Race Theory professor Anna-Esther Younes filed a civil suit in a Berlin district court earlier this month against the Society for a Democratic Culture in Berlin (VDK), an umbrella group that handles programs supporting “human-rights-based democratic culture.”
MEE obtained a two-page paper from Younes that is a compilation of publicly available material about her, organized chronologically with links and snatches of comments throughout.
There are records of a 2014 Facebook post in which Younes shared a photo of graffiti on a wall saying, “Boycott Apartheid ‘Israel'”; and a 2019 letter she signed – along with over 100 other academics – raising concerns about Germany’s growing tendency to equate criticism of “Israel” with antisemitism.
In general, the ELSC says that the way Younes’ data was obtained and handled – without her knowledge or consent – “amounts to monitoring” by publicly funded institutions with no transparency or accountability.
DW fires Palestinian journalists for being “anti-Israel”
Germany’s shut-down of Pro-Palestinian demonstrations is no surprise, as in February, German state media Deutsche Welle dismissed a Palestinian journalist Maram Salem after a German journalist published a report accusing her of “anti-Semitism” and being “anti-Israel” in reference to her Facebook posts.
However, this dismissal did not end with Maram, but also stretched onto Palestinian-Jordanian journalist Farah Maraqa, who tweeted that she received a notice, without any explanation, that she is fired from DW on similar grounds. Basil Al-Aridi, Daoud Ibrahim, and Murhaf Mahmoud have also become the victims of an Israeli-sponsored media purge, as they had also been laid off.
BIG BROTHER in the 21. Century 
