Posted on 04/13/2016 9:49:11 PM PDT by Olog-hai
The center-left Social Democratic Party said on Tuesday that Germany should scrap a law against insulting foreign leaders — which has been used by the Turkish President to target a German comedian.
“The honor of a head of state is just as important as the honor of a normal citizen,” SPD leader in the Bundestag (German parliament) Thomas Oppermann said in Berlin.
SPD MPs are ready to repeal the paragraph banning insults against foreign leaders, Oppermann went on, calling it an “antiquated rule” that should not be updated but simply abolished.
Changing the law would also allow the federal government to avoid having to make a decision on whether to prosecute comedian Jan Böhmermann, who is being pursued by Turkish President Recept Tayyip Erdoğan for a “slanderous poem” he read out on air, Oppermann said. …
(Excerpt) Read more at thelocal.de ...
The want the law repealed before there is a President Trump...
Good Point.
Sorry, Bono, those jokes are illegal in Germany.
What was the poem?
Oh wait! Frau Merkel ist die Kanzlerin!
That explains it!
I was just thinking this law was never enforced when George Bush was President
Scrap the insults and throw them they hell out
Seems that Germany is slowly returning to 1940’s level “freedom”.....At least THIS is a small step in the right direction.
Actually, it’s never been enforced when Germans openly criticized Bush, Reagan, Thatcher, Putin, Orban (Hungary’s leader), or a dozen-other-odd foreign leaders. This has been brought up in recent days in Germany....that no one can think of a single person that they’ve used this law upon in thirty-odd years.
For this reason, there’s a lot of doubt among Germans (intellectuals and journalists) that any court session will result in a conviction. In fact, if they were to convict him....I suspect at least 50,000 other Germans would openly insult Turkey’s supreme leader and they’d be forced to openly admit they can’t move ahead.
Probably they didn't file a suit, Erdogan has done it.
Let’s just say that it had something to do with Turkey’s President Erdogan, and goats....and I’ll let your imagination run wild.
The thing is...Erdogan could have gone to civil court, sued for a personal insult, and probably won half-a-million. He’s using the German Constitution against them...bringing up this law which says you can’t make any satire against a foreign leader (to include North Korea’s Kim)....if you are a German.
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