In June, a pensioner called Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck an idiot on X, for which he filed a criminal complaint. Last week, the prosecutor’s office issued a search warrant and the police seized the tablet on which the entry was made. The outrage is huge.
Last Tuesday, the police called a 64-year-old Internet user in Lower Franconia early in the morning to search the former military officer’s home. The authorities got the man out of bed shortly after 6 a.m., questioned him and took his pills. According to the report, however, the police refrained from actually searching the apartment. The reason for the search warrant, which was the basis of the investigation, was that at the end of June, the man reposted on X (formerly Twitter), i.e. distributed, the portrait of Federal Minister of Economy Robert Habeck, under which the logo of the Schwarzkopf company, known for its hair care products, was visible, with a modified inscription: Schwachkopf PROFESSIONAL” (professional idiot pun intended).
The measure quickly went viral: #Schwachkopf and #Hausdurchsuchung topped German trends for days. AfD leader Alice Weidel wrote on X that the search was “a scandalous violation of freedom of speech, completely disproportionate and unworthy of a rule of law.” His party wants “a democracy in which citizens can once again express their opinions without fear of any #stupid!”. But there was also criticism from the legal side: constitutional lawyer Christian von Coelln wrote on X: “Such images can be considered tasteless, but I have great doubts as to whether the constitution allows satire to be criminalized.” He considered the search of the house because of the picture to be disproportionate.
The search warrant of the Bamberg district court was posted on the Internet. The introduction states that the user is being investigated for hate speech – which would mean that such a meme is hate speech. But the justification for the decision no longer includes the charge of inciting hatred, it only mentions “insults directed against a person participating in political life”. There is a separate crime for this, Article 188 of the German Penal Code. This crime is punishable by up to three years in prison – simple insult is punishable by up to one year in prison.
Von Coelln considers the reasoning tricky: “To be punishable under Section 188 of the Penal Code, the crime must be capable of significantly hindering the public work of the injured party,” he says. But on the one hand, the image had already circulated on X before, and on the other hand, the account had a very limited reach, at the time of publication, the pensioner had barely 900 followers. “The seriousness of such a massive invasion of privacy is disproportionate to the crime and the evidence that the police and prosecution can hope to find.”
The prosecutor’s office still accuses the user of inciting hatred, but regardless of the Habeck meme: the prosecutor’s office in Bamberg said on Friday morning that the 64-year-old posted a picture on X in the spring of 2024 showing an SS or SA soldier, the ” Germans don’t buy from Jews” and a short text: “True democrats! We’ve already got everything!” But all this came to light only after the Habeck meme and related events.
“Calling someone an idiot is basically an insult,” admits lawyer Christian Conrad, a partner at the Höcker law firm, which regularly receives assignments from the right wing. Conrad, for example, represents the AfD in the legal dispute against the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution. Conrad also knows the motivation for the house search. to some extent: the goal is to “prove later who posted, above all, that the person actually operates the account”. Otherwise, the user could defend himself by saying that someone else has manipulated his account the meme in question is punishable in this particular case: the expression is already “on the low end of possible criminality”, especially that it is a “recognizably satirical contribution”, which should generally be treated somewhat more generously.
Politicians have to put up with a little more than ordinary citizens anyway – although not everything. Moreover, according to Conrad, it is obviously just a so-called retweet – that is, the further distribution of a meme already posted by someone else. According to Conrad, in such a case, it is in any case questionable whether the user claimed the content as his own or just wanted to show it to others in a completely neutral way. His colleague, Chan-jo Jun, judges the legal situation in a similar way: he also doubts that the house search was proportionate. Although the potential sentence is three years, this “must be weighed against the inviolability of the private residence”. This is even considered in the case of death threats, Jun says.
The justification for the search warrant is very thin, says Jun, above all, it lacks an examination of the factual context. Even if the statement itself doesn’t show a specific reference to a controversy or current event, the timing could also depend a lot, but the prosecution does not seem to know for sure when the retweet happened: the user in the days before June 26, 2024 or he published the image file weeks ago, at a time that cannot be determined by date – the search warrant states. According to Jun, this suggests that the prosecution only had a screenshot from that day, with no further evidence – at least until the search.
In addition, the search warrant was apparently requested and issued weeks ago, but the prosecutor’s office delayed it until a national day of action against online hate crimes. According to Conrad and Jun, this is not entirely objectionable either – since according to the signs, this is all about setting an example. However, Jun also says that some people still find it surprising “that things you write to others on the Internet can be considered a crime.” According to Jun, no one would assume that you can simply call someone stupid on the street without any consequences. This also applies to a seemingly neutral retweet, Jun says: “In that case, the user needs to make it clear that they’re distancing themselves. And that can also apply to those who are spreading the memes, whether or not they’re referring to the particular case.”
Robert Habeck – even more than other green politicians – is famous for paying attention to insults on the Internet and has filed the necessary criminal complaint. It even hired a company for the job: So Done, which scours social media for threats on behalf of potential victims. The company confirmed that they are working with Robert Habeck and will send their findings to him, who will then decide what to take action against and what not. According to founder Franziska Brandmann, the politician only focuses on “serious insults” and stated that the company has “nothing to do” with the current case.
Source: sg.hu
