German media has revealed that a man was fined over a social media post that described Robert Habeck, Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Action and Vice Chancellor of Germany, with a pile of poo emoji.
In April, 2023, the man, who lives in Saxony-Anhalt, had posted on X: “Mr Habeck, you are such a lying piece of 💩”.
On November 19, German news outlet NIUS reported that as a result, the man was later fined €600 after Habeck, who wants to become the next chancellor for the Greens, filed a criminal case over the post.
The comment related to a debate about the then-proposed “heating act” legislation championed by Habeck and aimed at phasing out oil and gas heating systems in buildings throughout Germany in favour of a switch to renewable energy.
On January 1 this year, the Building Energy Act (GEG) came into force. This policy has sharply increased costs, especially for homeowners and led to a rush on items such as heating pumps, leading to shortages in the market.
During the emoji case in the district court at Bitterfeld-Wolfen, the public prosecutor’s office had stated: “The witness Habeck feels his honour has been violated, especially by the use of the emoji, and is filing a criminal complaint for insult.”
According to the prosecutor, the man also knew “that the Habeck witness was a federal minister and that your comment was suitable for making its work as a federal minister more difficult in public”.
The district court issued a criminal order imposing a €600 fine for “insulting individuals in public office, slander and defamation” under Section 188 of the Criminal Code. The man accepted the penalty, telling NIUS that he did so “to avoid even higher legal costs”.
“The comment was intentionally written with the emoji to avoid a direct insult and to make it seem a bit less harsh,” the man claimed. As a property owner, he said he was personally affected by the heating law.
Habeck is known for being particularly sensitive to personal insults. Earlier in November, officers raided the home of a pensioner who had retweeted a meme deriding the politician.
Police confiscated the man’s tablet. His daughter, who reportedly has Down’s syndrome, was there at the time.
Also in April 2023, Habeck launched a criminal complaint against popular German journalist Rainer Meyer who had tweeted that the vice Chancellor’s appearance “would not stand out negatively in a group of train-station alcoholics”.
According to Apollo News, Habeck has filed at least 805 complaints in the current legislative period and his Greens colleague Annalena Baerbock made a similar number of complaints.
A man has been fined €6,000 for insulting politicians from the German Greens over their handling of the COVID pandemic.https://t.co/aU61LUmjnA
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) June 19, 2024
