On Wednesday morning at 6 a.m., a large-scale police operation was launched across Germany, targeting hundreds of individuals suspected of insulting politicians or spreading “hate and incitement” online.
The massive crackdown saw police launch morning raids against 170 individuals, which saw police seize computers, cell phones, and tablets, and conduct searches in multiple locations across the country.
The action, which was conducted by the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), uses the new Criminal Code Paragraph 188 to target individuals accused of racism and hate speech.
North Rhine-Westphalia’s Interior Minister, Herbert Reul (CDU), who has overseen a massive increase in crime in his state in recent years — including violent crimes and knife crimes committed by foreigners — celebrated the police raids.
“Digital arsonists must not be able to hide behind their cell phones or computers,” he said.
His state conducted 14 of the approximately 130 nationwide cases in a “day of action” against so-called hate postings.
In fact, even as the number of such raids has exploded in recent years, violent crime has also reached record highs in Germany, in large part due to mass immigration, which is a statistical fact. However, police resources have shifted towards targeting hate speech violations, including those complaining about rising crime in relation to mass immigration, with even politicians, such as Alternative for Germany’s (AfD) Marie-Thérèse Kaiser, being targeted in such cases.
Germany now routinely has these “days of action” against citizens who commit “violations” against new and more draconian speech laws in Germany. In some cases, a national scandal has erupted when the details of the cases became public, such as the case of a pensioner, Stefan Niehoff, having his house raided over calling former Economic Minister Robert Habeck an “idiot.”
As the details of the case show, Niehoff became a major target for speaking out against the raid, with the state eventually dropping the “idiot” charge, the one they raided his house for, and pursuing other ones. He was eventually convicted for a variety of retweets despite these retweets being explicitly anti-Nazi posts that targeted left-wing politicians.
In another case, someone criticized CDU leader Friedrich Merz as “drunken.”
It is unclear who was targeted in the latest raids and what statements they made. Most cases allegedly involve right-wing extremist statements, but a small number of cases involve extremist religious or left-wing extremist content. It should also be noted that Alternative for Germany (AfD) co-leader Alice Weidel has also filed a number of such complaints, a point she has been criticized for. However, it is unclear if anyone’s house was raided over any of her complaints. So far, there have been no reports of such raids based on any complaints Weidel has filed.
CDU Interior Minister Reul said there needs to be a clear distinction between opinion and hate speech.
“What you don’t do in the real world isn’t appropriate digitally either. It’s time for more attitude, both offline and online,” he said.
However, the federal interior ministry made a similar argument last year while conducting raids against multiple homes of Compact Magazine journalists, as well as the magazine’s publisher. The raids were followed by a ban on Compact Magazine and its erasure from the internet. A top federal court has now ruled this week that the ban was not constitutional and constituted a violation of freedom of the press in a major blow to the federal interior ministry.
These house raids are conducted with the support of various reporting centers run by left-leaning organizations. Essentially, a center reports a post, which then forwards this to the federal police for action.
Last year, there were 10,732 such cases recorded, which is quadruple the number of 2021.
As an example of the type of raids going on, last year, a 14-year-old German boy had his house raided for posting a banned hashtag on TikTok, which translated to “Everything for Germany.”
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