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 an X 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 February 28th 2024:
In the original photo – posted by the official X account of the Interior Ministry on January 26th 2023 on the occasion of the Memorial Day of Victims of National Socialism – Faeser’s sign reads “We remember”.
It shows German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser holding a sign that has been manipulated to read “I hate freedom of speech!” 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 beyond trawling the internet for political memes and protecting democracy by suppressing democratic freedoms.
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… inauthentic”, 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 meme “was not recognisably… inauthentic” 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 judgment 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.
This article originally appeared on Eugyppius’s Substack newsletter. You can subscribe here.
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I far preferred the Glen Miller Band.
Or the Steve Miller band,
The square root of FA of course.
The square root of -1 – it’s imaginary
Yeah – but useful. Unlike Miliband Minor (or Major for that matter)
As much as that?
Moribund
There’s no hope for the terminally dim Ed ‘Marxist’ Miliband, he deserves to die hungry and cold like he appears to think that the rest of us should.
The man is a fool.
It would be justice if he suffered as much as his worst-off victims – but he won’t.
He deserves to be kept warm and fed and safe – but his policies will ensure that not everyone will be.
He’s probably aiming to follow Alok Sharma into a highly lucrative role with the Rockefeller Foundation.
There is a serious concern about Ed Miliband’s mental health. So much so there is good case for him to be sectioned. The energy security and financial well being of our country is at stake. Perhaps join Joe Biden in a secure unit.
Okay everyone, join in…”Things, can only get better…”
At least when Miliband has driven the ship up the shore, the oil will still be at the bottom of the sea.
“Government’s Net Zero commitments will cost “hundreds of billions” of pounds. “
I am sure there are better things that the money could be spent on. Like fixing world poverty? Curing cancer?
Cancer cures have been found. Big Pharma don’t want them on the market because current 100 year old treatments rake in so much money.
Charidees like Cancer Research UK are just a racket, income in 2023 £719 million and they have been pulling these amounts for many years. However, they still haven’t found a cure for cancer?
BS.
Donations to charities are just secondary taxation for the gullible.
It only costs hundreds of billions if the requirement is to get a replacement to meet the same demand.
There is already a cure for “world poverty” —-It is called FOSSIL FUELS.
OT:
Some good news for a change: Forced Vaccinations On Our Loved Ones (crowdjustice.com) Mother finally wins in court battle to stop the state forcibly “vaccinating” her son against “covid”
Yes a “win” but what sort of people are they that they would put parents through all this strain and actually suffering.
Line the Next Tuesday’s up.
I’m sure you don’t need to be a parent to feel how despicable these people are, but as a parent I’d be homicidal towards all of them.
Miliband is just an extreme version of the UN and WEF lackey politician that has forced this country in law to reduce emissions to 100% of 1990 levels of CO2 by 2050 with no concern for cost (estimated by the grid to be in the region of 3 trillion) and with no real worry whether the technologies required for this absurdity can do what is proposed or whether new ones could ever be invented. This absurdity is ofcourse known as NET ZERO.
Our Political class are no longer answerable to the people that voted for them. They are just a local administration of the Global Governance via the UN/WEF. The policies they impose on their own citizens are ones desired by that same Supranational Politics that Margaret Thatcher warned about and indicated in her book “Statecraft”. At first Thatcher was onboard with the global warming issue because the Nuclear Energy that she favoured had no CO2 emissions to worry about. But she soon realised that the opportunity for global socialism was the real motivation behind control of CO2, which is the one gas that can be directly tied to Industrial Capitalism and that Climate Change policies were really just the excuse for anti capitalist polices that seek to control the worlds wealth and resources.
Off-T
Sort of…
https://www.thepublica.com/student-in-germany-murdered-by-gang-of-migrants-in-alleged-anti-christian-hate-crime/
Another young lad has lost his life to cultural enrichment. Bastards.
Off Topic….but good to know.—The squirming multi cultural cesspit parasites have no shame
Shit. Somebody just tried to assassinate Trump. It’s the way the signs say ”You’re fired!” then you hear the shots…
https://x.com/FergusPower1/status/1812255109750931734
He’s OK though, thank goodness. Jesus, the Leftards must be really pissed. Trump has more lives than a cat;
https://x.com/GhorbaniiNiyak/status/1812254092850241665
A close-up. Bless him. Brandon and Co need to pay for this. Prepare for all the faux concern from those lying dirtbags. I wonder who the hitman with a dodgy aim is and if they’ve got him yet…Well I reckon we know who’s got that election in the bag now. I just hope the guy can survive that long.
https://x.com/DaveAtherton20/status/1812255100053680542
An alternative headline is “One shot dead and two seriously injured at Trump rally”.
Not if, how soon. There will be a lot of pain and wasted money, but the end is inevitable.
We will all feel a great deal of pain socially and financially, but it will be a price worth paying if it ends this falsehood that renewables are cheap and secure.
All those that voted for Labour should be made to pay a premium for the idiocy.
I think he should answer a questions that senator Kennedy asked ” How much money will it cost? What time period? How many degrees lower do you expect these measures to cause?” These scammers expect this country to self destruct while those countries that will be producing goods that we find too dirty to make, will grow rich through industry. This is financial suicide. It is about time we started arresting these WEF shills for treason.
Apologies it was for 2050, the YT description is “‘You Don’t Know, Do You? You Don’t Know, Do You?’: Kennedy Does Not Let Up On Top Biden Official” “ Deputy Energy Secretary David Turk about the cost of green energy reforms. “
He’s made a good start, IMF by christmas
He’s made a good start. IMF by christmas
That man is an idiot. Hopefully his decisions will cause massive disobedience, disorder and protest. Hopefully that will destroy the communist Labour government.