A documentary aired by US television station CBS has apparently revealed how Germany criminalised freedom of opinion, causing shock worldwide.
The segment on the show 60 Minutes, titled Policing the Internet, followed German police officers as they searched the homes of people accused of spreading hateful content online.
It was shot during a “day of action against hate crime online” announced by German Social Democratic Party (SPD) interior minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) in November 2024.
On the day featured, German police raided more than 50 private homes in 15 of Germany’s 16 States over “politically motivated criminality”.
A two-thirds majority of defendants were accused of “right-wing orientation”, which the Federal Criminal Police Office defined as “assuming that people are not equal or of equal value”.
In one scene, the US reporters accompanied a team of three police officers on an early-morning raid to secure evidence in connection with the posting of a “racist” meme online. The officers were filmed as they confiscated the accused’s smartphones and computers.
In a scene that has caused particular outrage, CBS reporter Sharyn Alfonsi interviewed German public prosecutors Matthäus Fink, Svenja Meininghaus and Frank-Michael Laue about the country’s crackdown on free speech online, asking them how people react when they have their phones taken away.
“They are shocked,” the prosecutors answered – and started laughing. “It is a kind of punishment when you lose your smartphone. It is even worse than the fine you have to pay.”
The apparent arrogance of the public officials has caused consternation in Germany as well as abroad.
Markus Haintz, a prominent lawyer from Cologne, announced on February 19 that he had filed complaints against the three prosecutors.
“The mockery of people who are victims of disproportionate and often simply unlawful searches and seizures is completely unacceptable for state organs of the administration of justice and must result in disciplinary action,” Haintz said on X.
Ich habe gegen die Göttinger Staatsanwälte Svenja Meininghaus, Dr. Matthäus Fink und Oberstaatsanwalt Frank-Michael Laue der Niedersächsischen Zentralstelle zur Bekämpfung von Hasskriminalität im Internet Dienstaufsichtsbeschwerden erstattet.
Die drei politisch abhängigen… pic.twitter.com/HLud6PuIAs
— Markus Haintz (@Haintz_MediaLaw) February 18, 2025
Germany has some of the harshest laws regarding free speech in Europe, especially relating to insulting politicians.
In April 2021, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU)-SPD coalition government adopted a new clause in the Criminal Code criminalising insults and defamation of politicians “if the offence is likely to make his public work considerably more difficult” with up to five years in prison.
Politicians from the Left have been exposed as habitually suing people over criticisms of their policies online.
In one prominent case in November 2024, German police raided the house of a man and his daughter who had Down’s syndrome over retweeting a meme that mocked the Greens party Vice-Chancellor Robert Habeck as a moron.
In another case, a lawyer who had called Habeck and other leftist politicians “malicious losers” online almost lost his admission to the bar.
Markus Roscher, a lawyer from Brunswick, wrote on X on February 15 that he had been fined €3,000 for his post and could lose his gun carrying licence. “The bar association even reviewed my legal licence,” Roscher added.
Those two cases were only the tip of the iceberg.
In 2024, it was revealed that Habeck alone had sued more than 800 people for online defamation, closely followed by foreign minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens) with more than 500 charges pressed.
Altogether, representatives of Germany’s government coalition had filed criminal charges for threats or defamation against more than 1,500 people by September 2024 alone last year.
