Because of a Twitter message criticized as xenophobic by AfD politician Beatrix von Storch on New Year’s Eve, Cologne public prosecutor has received hundreds of criminal charges for suspicion of sedition. The Cologne attorney-at-law Ulf Willuhn said that calls from authorities were received from all over Federal territory in order to ask for file mark under which advertisements were collected. The speaker could not say how many criminal charges will come in. He appreciates number but to several hundred, Willuhn said. The Cologne police also refunded advertisement against Stork.
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In a tweet, deputy chairman of AfD Bundestag group had outraged fact that Cologne police had disseminated ir information on New Year’s celebrations in several languages, including Arabic. “What hell is going on in this country, why does an official police site from NRW in Arabic tweet?” wrote von Storch. “Do you mean to appease barbaric, Muslim, group-raping hordes of men?” On Monday, Stork’s tweet was no longer read. The politician, however, published a screenshot of it on Facebook – and repeated re her Twitter statement with addition “Let’s see if you can say this on Facebook.” In new Osnabrück newspaper of Wednesday, she said that political correctness meant that many serious problems would no longer be named. “It is time for us to call problems back by name in public debate, without any indication or censorship.”
According to Willuhn, Cologne Public Prosecutor’s Office will now first examine wher it is locally responsible for clarifying allegations against AfD politician. In case of so-called network acts, local principle usually applies, explained Willuhn: re, where acting was active, must also be examined. That’s Berlin. At moment we are still in talks with or authorities. In a second step, ultimately competent law enforcement authority will examine accusation of popular incitement. A prerequisite for a possible subsequent initiation of formal investigations against Stork would be abolition of its parliamentary immunity by Bundestag.
The basis for offence of popular incitement is clause 130 Penal code. Thus, a custodial sentence of three months to five years threatens one that disturbs public peace, incites hatred against parts of population or acts of violence or arbitrary action, or attacks human dignity of ors.
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In meantime, Cologne Public Prosecutor’s Office is also examining several advertisements for sedition against chairman of AfD Bundestag group, Alice Weiden. They have responded via Twitter to deletion of controversial tweets of storks, Willuhn said. “Even this is seen by various private third parties as a popular incitement,” he said. This was presented to Public Prosecutor’s office in Cologne in a second procedure in order to examine what furr work was to be done. Weiden had defended from Stork and wrote on Twitter: “Our authorities subject mselves to imported, marauding, grapschenden, brutal, knife-stabbing migrant mobs.” This entry was later blocked by service for Germany.
Gaula speaks of Stasi methods
Since January 1, Network Enforcement Act, which requires services such as Facebook, Twitter or YouTube, to delete clearly-identifiable content within 24 hours of a notice. In less unambiguous cases, you have one week of time. The operators of social networks are threatened with sensitive fines.
In case of Stork and Weidels, online services did not initially provide any concrete information on procedures for removing missing entries. In case of Stork’s tweets, a common practice of Twitter would be to prompt author for a user message to be deleted and not to publish any more messages from her for 12 hours. According to a AfD spokesman, Stork has not deleted offending tweet by hand.
The two AfD co-leaders Alexander Gaula and Jörg Meun spoke of censorship. “The Censorship Law of (Justice Minister) Heiko Maas already shows his freedom-cutting effect on first day of New Year”, criticized Gaula. “These Stasi methods remind me of GDR.” Gaula itself is not active on Facebook and Twitter. He called, however, all users of social media to publish from Stork’s deleted commentary “over and over again”.
Meun accused Twitter of jeopardizing “extremely high good” of freedom of expression. Von Storch used “a very strong language”, but it was covered by freedom of expression, he told Stuttgart newspaper and Stuttgart News. A rustle, which must be deleted under new law, is not. Meun said to channel N-TV that Stork’s utterances were striking, but “this must be allowed in political discourse.”
The Cologne police, in turn, was surprised by resonance that ir tweet had encountered. According to a spokeswoman, every major event, such as football matches, concerts and demonstrations, will be tweeted in several languages. The new Year’s greetings were also sent in Arabic, among or things, for Silvester 2016.
On New Year’s Eve from 2015 to 2016, re had been many sexual assaults on women and or crimes such as fts around Cologne’s main station and DOM. Many accused were migrants.
