In Germany, You Can Now Be Arrested for Criticizing Refugees

Last year a German couple by the name of Peter and Melanie (last names have been withheld) founded a secret Facebook group that opposed the refugee flow into Germany. Within months the group (called the Anti-Refugee Movement) had over 900 members, before they were reported to Facebook for their supposedly inflammatory content.

Now Peter and Melanie are facing “charges of incitement” by the German government, and recently had to show up in court to answer for those charges. So what did this group say that’s so outrageous and illegal? Their mission statement was read in court, and says “The war and economic refugees are flooding our country. They bring terror, fear, sorrow. They rape our women and put our children at risk. Bring an end to it!”

Surprisingly though, it wasn’t the typically leftist Facebook that turned this couple in to the police. When they first started receiving complaints about the group, they inspected its content and found nothing wrong. When Facebook refused to shut the group down, the anonymous leftists who first filed these complaints, notified the police. They eventually tracked down Peter and Melanie, raided their apartment, and confiscated their computers.

The Judge who presided over their case, criticized the couple for their right-wing rhetoric, and sentenced Peter to a nine month suspended prison sentence. His wife was fined €1,200. “I hope you are clear on the seriousness of the situation” he told the couple, “If you sit again in front of me on the dock, you will go to jail.”

Peter protested the decision, saying that “You cannot even express a little bit of criticism about refugees without getting called a Nazi.” Unfortunately for Peter and his wife, the German government has as much respect for free speech as their Nazi predecessors.