Jan Böhmermann and Freedom of Speech in Germany

Eleven months before the Pearl Harbor attack, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt spoke to the nation about the Four Freedoms: Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Worship, Freedom from Want, Freedom from Fear.  Of the Four Freedoms, Freedom of Speech is the most important; Freedom of Worship is derivative, since with free speech we can insist God is Not Great.  Also, the state has limited capacity to ensure freedom from want and fear. 

Similarly, German Basic Law (Grundgesetz) guarantees freedom of expression (in Article 5): 

1) Jeder hat das Recht, seine Meinung in Wort, Schrift und Bild frei zu äußern und zu verbreiten und sich aus allgemein zugänglichen Quellen ungehindert zu unterrichten. Die Pressefreiheit und die Freiheit der Berichterstattung durch Rundfunk und Film werden gewährleistet. Eine Zensur findet nicht statt.

Now that basic freedom is under attack in Germany after the comedian Jan Böhmermann read a crude poem about the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan on German public television: This incident has provoked an international crisis: 

TURKISH PRESIDENT Recep Tayyip Erdogan has all but crushed domestic criticism of his regime by taking over newspapers, jailing journalists, and bringing slander cases against more than 1,800 people, including children who make fun of him. Now he is attempting to export his repression by demanding that Germany prosecute a comedian who read an insulting poem about him on television. It’s a case that ought to produce nothing more than guffaws about Mr. Erdogan’s megalomaniacal delusions. Instead, alarmingly, German Chancellor Angela Merkel is at least pretending to take it seriously.

Unbelievably, there is an obscure law in the German Criminal Code which makes deliberate slander against a foreign head of state a crime punishable up to 5 years in prison.  Paragraph 103: 

(1) Wer ein ausländisches Staatsoberhaupt oder wer mit Beziehung auf ihre Stellung ein Mitglied einer ausländischen Regierung, das sich in amtlicher Eigenschaft im Inland aufhält, oder einen im Bundesgebiet beglaubigten Leiter einer ausländischen diplomatischen Vertretung beleidigt, wird mit Freiheitsstrafe bis zu drei Jahren oder mit Geldstrafe, im Falle der verleumderischen Beleidigung mit Freiheitsstrafe von drei Monaten bis zu fünf Jahren bestraft.

The crisis comes at a bad time for the chancellor, since she is now looking to Turkey as a buffer against the wave of migrants flooding into Germany.  However, freedom is non-negotiable:

We’d like to believe Ms. Merkel’s rejection of any prosecution of Mr. Böhmermann is a foregone conclusion. Even so, her waffling is likely to encourage Mr. Erdogan’s and other regimes — China’s comes quickly to mind — that are trying to suppress critical speech outside their borders as well as within. “The cornerstone of the constitution, freedom of expression, is non-negotiable,” Ms. Merkel had her spokesman say Monday. That should have been her only response.

Angela Merkel knows first-hand what it's like to live in a country without this basic freedom. Hopefully she -and the criminal court system - will do the right thing here and resist the interference of the petty tyrant in Ankara. 

Comments

[koogleschreiber]

There is another law in the German Criminal Code: §90 STGB, which makes denigrating the German President a crime punishable up to 5 years in prison, because it is endangering the democratic rule of law. This criminal code also includes the Federal Republic of Germany and its constitutional bodies.

It would have been interesting if Boehmermann had taken the German President to illustrate the limits of satire, which is his specious justification.

Freedom of speech doesn't justify everything, at least in Germany. For example, it is forbidden to publish how to build explosive devices. Even if you flag it as satire and always say things like 'don't mix ammonium nitrate with diesel, never place a detonator' it would be clear for everyone that this is a description how to do it.

Boehmermann willingly doubled down on this issue and he knows the risk. He insulted a muslim leader, the tabloids and the public opinion are on his side (no brainer). Maybe, things will not come his way at last. Can Boehmermann himself stand a joke if it's on him?

[Zyme]

Now we witness what becomes of a government which maneuvered itself into total dependency of another nation...
This embarressment of a chancellor must go.