Free Speech Doesn’t Exist in Germany: Federal Authorities Raid and Arrest Those Who Insult Elected Officials

Free speech has always faced opposition. Wherever truth is spoken, there will always be a type of “authority” that doesn’t like it.

In Germany, mass raids have been carried out across various parts of the country by Federal Police – after these people had apparently made “insults” against Germany’s politicians.

Federal Police in Germany, are wanting to prosecute anyone speaking ill of elected officials and on Tuesday, they carried out their raids of houses and apartments.

Apparently, Federal authorities have checked 600 statements for “criminal content” and over 100 people were “searched and questioned.”

Der Spiegel released a report that stated a significant number of those who had been raided had posted what was deemed to have been illegal online messages. These were being investigated by Federal authorities. 

Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office, called a press release and said the raids came after social media posts targeted politicians around the 2021 Federal elections. In Germany, elected officials are given special legal privileges – essentially making it illegal for their constituents to make certain criticisms.

“The basis for these investigations is Section 188 of the Criminal Code (StGB), which was revised in spring 2021 and makes insults, slander and defamation of people in political life particularly punishable,” the Federal Criminal Police Office statement reads.

“Public officials and elected representatives are given special criminal protection under [Section]188 StGB , regardless of the political level, against hate postings,” it continues.

Holger Münch, the President of the Federal Criminal Police Office, threatened further raids and arrests if citizens continued to insult their politicians.

“With the day of action, we are making it clear: Anyone who posts hate messages must expect the police to be at the door afterwards,” Münch said, also noting that his force has been “pursuing criminal content on the Internet even more intensively since February of this year”.

Hessian Attorney General Torsten Kunze, gave his own insight into Federal Authority’s attack on free speech – saying that it was necessary for such things to happen, for “democracy” to be protected, naturally. Of course, Kunze had no evidence at all to back up his claims.

“This day of action illustrates the extent to which public officials and elected representatives are insulted, slandered and threatened on the Internet,” he said. “In order to prevent the withdrawal of those affected from reaching a level that endangers democracy, we are prosecuting these crimes consistently and in close cooperation with the public prosecutors of the other federal states.”

Censoring free speech is not something one does to maintain a democracy and politicians should absolutely be answerable to their constituents, since they are the people who put them in their position in the first place.

According to a report from Breitbart:

The central European country has become infamous for targeting certain political viewpoints, going so far as to put the country’s populist Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party under surveillance as a so-called “suspicious entity”.

What’s more, when the party tried to challenge this decision in court, it was ruled that the state spying on the political party was legal, with the court claiming that the party was supposedly a threat to democracy.

Thomas Haldenwang, the President of the German Office for the Protection of the Constitution, which ruled on the surveillance case said, “The party stands for racism, the party stands for exclusion of minorities, the party stands for contempt of the social system,” and added that it was a “good day for society,” that minority dissenting voices, are silenced.