Does it seem like people on the Right are getting better looking relative to people on the Left?
The German woman who raised concerns about immigration is better looking than the immigrant woman crowned Miss Germany. https://t.co/oq9sacbSyv pic.twitter.com/XE4hj2UvtC
— Frank DeScushin (@FrankDeScushin) May 6, 2024
Using Google Translate, from www.kreiszeitung.de:
Regional court confirms verdict against Rotenburg AfD leader
Was standing:May 6, 2024, 6:22 p.m.By: Tom Gath
The Verden regional court confirms a judgment against Rotenburg AfD leader Marie-Thérèse Kaiser. She was found guilty of sedition because she is said to have stirred up hatred against Afghan local staff.
Rotenburg/Verden – Although judge Heiko Halbfas did not accept the defense’s request to call Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser to the witness stand, it took almost seven hours on Monday until he announced the verdict: Rotenburg AfD district leader Marie-Thérèse Kaiser has was guilty of incitement when she linked Afghan local Bundeswehr staff to gang rape in a social media post almost three years ago.
“Anyone who attacks human dignity cannot invoke freedom of expression.” — Judge Heiko Halbfas
… Kaiser warned of “culturally alien masses”
In August 2021, a few weeks before the federal election, Kaiser wrote on a so-called tile on her social media accounts: “Afghanistan refugees; Hamburg SPD mayor for ‘unbureaucratic’ admission; Welcoming culture for gang rape?” The article referred to an interview with Hamburg Mayor Peter Tschentscher (SPD), who had campaigned for the rescue of Afghan local workers threatened by the Taliban. He announced that he would take in 200 Bundeswehr helpers in Hamburg. In a supplementary text, Kaiser justified her concern about uncontrolled immigration and warned of rape by “culturally alien masses”. She also referred to newspaper articles that claim to show that Afghans are disproportionately exposed to sexual crimes.
In a first-instance judgment from June 2023, the Rotenburg District Court came to the conclusion that Kaiser had taken the information quoted in the text of the article out of context and accepted that the tile would be perceived as inciting by an objective viewer. In addition, the rhetorical question violates the human dignity of a distinct group of Afghan refugees. The verdict at the time: a fine of 100 daily rates of 60 euros each.
Scene lawyer sees no contempt
Judge Halbfas decided on Monday that it should stay that way. During the trial, his role was largely limited to that of reader: First, he read out the district court’s verdict, the text written by Kaiser and the three newspaper articles she linked to about crime statistics and the confusing situation at Kabul Airport at the time.
At the defense’s request, he then read out further articles about the situation of women in Afghanistan and about individual threats who are said to have smuggled themselves into the program to accept Afghan local workers. The defense wanted to “show that Ms. Kaiser’s statements are part of a discussion that continues to this day,” said scene lawyer Björn Clemens, who defended NSU supporter André Eminger in 2018 and was himself active in the Republican party for a long time. For Clemens, the applied paragraph 130 is a “snoopy paragraph” and Kaiser’s contribution is merely a metaphor and not a contempt.
The surprising request to summon Interior Minister Nancy Faeser was intended to prove “that increasing migration has led to more crimes,” as the SPD politician recently said when presenting the police crime statistics. However, Judge Halbfas only allowed a short video sequence of the press conference to be played. At the same time, he pointed out that it was irrelevant for the assessment whether posts formulated in an inciting manner referred to actual facts or not.
The truth is no defense in Germany, evidently.
Kaiser announces revision
He and the two lay judges ultimately followed the prosecutor’s argument, who saw Kaiser’s contribution as an “attack on the human dignity” of a nationally definable group and classified the contribution as an “incitement to hatred”. From the prosecutor’s point of view, the contextualizing text under the title actually reinforces the “negatively shortened representation” and stirs up a climate of fear and rejection.“My confidence in my innocence is great, but my trust in the rule of law is shaken.” — Marie-Thérèse Kaiser
In the reasons for the judgment, Halbfas also made it clear: “Anyone who attacks human dignity cannot invoke freedom of expression.” Kaiser deliberately created an image in the minds of others that led to hatred of a nationally determined group. After the hearing, Kaiser announced that he would appeal. Their confidence in their innocence is great, but their confidence in the rule of law is “shattered”.
I haven’t been to Europe in a long time. As an inveterate noticer of crime statistics, how much at risk am I of getting arrested for posting graphs of CDC homicide death data on Twitter? Are some European countries less risky than others?
