Lighter punishment for inciting images

The district court of Würzburg made short work of it: it took less than an hour on Thursday afternoon, chaired by Susanne Krischker, to end the two-year-long smoldering case of inciting pictures in a WhatsApp group around the Giemaul guild in Würzburg-Heidingsfeld.

Convincing judgment in the first instance

The condemnation from the first instance “reads very convincingly for us”, emphasized the chairman right at the beginning. Unless there are new facts. An acquittal was a long way off, the accused and his defense lawyer understood the hint: The 54-year-old former carnival official pleaded guilty and limited his efforts in court to reducing the sentence. For good reason, as it turned out: Because the accused had perhaps the most harmed himself by forwarding a hate picture and showed himself to be guilty, the court reduced the fine from 120 daily rates to 60 euros to only 90 daily rates.

The convict looked so relieved after the verdict that he accepted it immediately. He had not only lost all offices and his membership in his association. His defense attorney Bernhard Hirsch also spoke of his client’s “social ostracism”. What weighed more heavily in court: The 54-year-old has now lost his job – “because of this process,” as he said.

Clean certificate of good conduct

For a promising application for a new position, he is dependent on a clean certificate of good conduct. Penalties of more than 90 daily rates are entered therein. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to incite or insult anyone,” said the 54-year-old ruefully on Thursday. A right disposition is also alien to him.

Public Prosecutor Jörg Peterek doubted this. He cited several pieces of evidence that had been found during an investigation into the Würzburger: a picture of a “camelficker”, a message on the phone with “Here is the leader’s headquarters!” right up to the saying that was aimed at the former board member who started the case: “The biggest villain in this country, that is and remains the informer!” The public prosecutor, who had withdrawn his appeal against a partial acquittal in the first instance to end the proceedings, again demanded 120 daily rates. But he was not heard at the court.

Disturbing picture as an example of xenophobic hate postings

The verdict was now only about the disturbing image from the Internet, which gained notoriety: a Wehrmacht soldier aims a machine gun at the viewer. Below it says: “The fastest German asylum procedure, rejects up to 1,400 applications per minute”. Investigators now see this as a prime example of xenophobic “hate postings” that operators of social networks are supposed to report to the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA).

The picture had also brought an AfD MP to explain and occupied the Bundestag. In Meißen and Stuttgart, it cost senders their jobs, nationwide courts pronounced fines for sedition – in one case in Cologne even a prison sentence of eight months with probation.

Judge: A particularly blatant picture

The Würzburger had spread this and similar pictures in the “11 nonsense group” on WhatsApp. The group was private, but the 25 participants were – as the name suggests – primarily penalty councilors and other high-ranking officials of his carnival club. He sees a severe damage to his image – which is now richer by one facet: In the first reports about the process on Thursday, some media claimed that the accused sender of the hate speech was the president of the association. This is wrong.

The court now remained at the bottom of what the law provides with its verdict. “I do not want to gloss over what went”, emphasized the chairwoman Susanne Krischker. The picture is “blatant” and hurts the reputation of asylum seekers “in a particularly blatant way”.

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• Heidingsfeld

• Manfred Schweidler

• accused

• Jobs

• Xenophobia

• Federal Criminal Police Office

• German Bundestag

• Explanation need

• Investigators

• Guild Giemaul

• Imageschäden

• District Court of Würzburg

• Judge (profession)

• Scandals and affairs

• Prosecutors

• Daily rates

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