German Editor Sentenced and Fined for Satirical Picture of Interior Minister

We previously discussed the case of  Deutschland-Kurier editor David Bendels who published a satirical meme of Interior Minister Nancy Faeser holding an altered sign that read “I hate freedom of speech.” Ironically, the sign was believable given the anti-free speech positions of Faeser and the German government. Faeser, however, went ballistic. In a country that routinely arrests people for their views, the matter was immediately turned into a criminal investigation. In a decision that could easily have been rendered in China or Iran, a Bamberg district court in Bavaria sentenced Deutschland-Kurier editor David Bendels to seven months in prison on probation and a fine of nearly sixty percent of his annual income. It is only the latest evidence of the free fall of free speech in Germany.

Faeser recently tried and failed to shut down a right-wing publication.

Conservative journalist David Bendels, editor-in-chief of the AfD-aligned DeutschlandKurier, lampooned Faeser by showing a meme of her holding a sign reading, “I hate free speech.” Deutschland-Kurier is aligned with the opposition conservative AfD party.

As if to prove her point, Faeser allegedly unleashed her office on Bendels and threatened him with a criminal prosecution for lampooning her views. The court has already imposed a fine, but according to some reports, jail time is possible.

I recently returned from speaking at the World Forum in Berlin on free speech. As I previously noted, it was an appropriate location for a gathering of some of the most anti-free speech figures in the European Union and America. Billed as working toward a “New World Order with European Values,” the most prominent value was the global effort to criminalize and regulate speech.

Bendels was convicted in November, and the ruling has now confirmed that he had committed “defamation directed against people in political life,” as reported by Die Welt. It is believed to be the first time a journalist has been charged under the statute. Both the sentence and the fine are well above the average for non-violent crimes in Germany.

Americans should not dismiss the Bendels case as some foreign matter with little relevance to their lives. The EU has moved aggressively to extend its anti-free speech and censorship policies globally, including a grotesque $1 billion fine against X for restoring free speech protections on that site. Germany is the epicenter of the anti-free speech movement, and figures like Faeser are among its champions.

Germany, France, the United Kingdom and other countries have eviscerated free speech by criminalizing speech deemed inciteful or degrading to individuals or groups. The result had made little difference to the neo-Nazi movement in countries like Germany, which is reaching record numbers. It has, however, silenced the rest of society.

According to polling, only 18 percent of Germans feel free to express their opinions in public. Fifty-nine percent of Germans do not even feel free expressing themselves in private among friends. Only 17 percent feel free to express themselves on the internet.

They have silenced the wrong people, but there is now a massive censorship bureaucracy in Europe and the desire to silence opposing voices has become insatiable.