German journalist convicted for satirical free speech meme

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 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 … 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.