Anti-migrant slogans shouted in a video that went viral in Germany last year did not constitute the crime of incitement to hatred, and are protected under free speech, according to prosecutors who announced the dropping of charges on Monday, April 28th.
The singing of a right-wing rendition of DJ Gigi D’Agostino’s “L’amour toujours”—or, with the new lyrics, “Ausländer Raus!” (Foreigners Out) came to prominence when it was sung in a video by young German partygoers last year on the island of Sylt. They were singing “Germany for the Germans, foreigners out” to the tune of the song.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz called the slogans “disgusting” and “unacceptable,” and Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said anyone shouting Nazi slogans is “a disgrace to Germany.”
In Germany, ‘hate speech’ is punishable under the Criminal Code. An investigation on suspicion of incitement to hatred was launched following the incident in Sylt.
However, only one 26-year-old man was fined €2,500 for a “waving greeting” with an outstretched arm and the suggestion of a “Hitler moustache.”
The case against two men and a woman was dropped because the slogans shouted in the video did not constitute the crime of incitement to hatred, prosecutors said.
The incident marks a rare occasion when freedom of expression has not been curtailed in Germany.
The outgoing leftist-liberal government has been eager to censor free speech, especially conservative voices that have critiqued the government’s failed policies. The incoming centre-right-leftist cabinet has also vowed to clamp down on “enemies of democracy,” and the spread of “right-wing extremist thoughts.”
