Free Republic

Germany’s Justice Ministry said Wednesday it has put forward a proposal to replace the term “race” in the country’s constitution after a row broke out over its links with Nazi ideology. “The Justice Ministry sent a draft proposal … to affected associations on Tuesday with the opportunity to comment,” a spokesman told AFP. Paragraph three in Germany’s Basic Law states that “no person shall be favored or disfavored because of sex, parentage, race, language, homeland and origin, faith or religious or political opinions”. But critics have taken aim at the word “race”, pushing for a change to the constitution in...

Germany is set to start enforcing a law that demands social media sites move quickly to remove hate speech, fake news and illegal material. Sites that do not remove “obviously illegal” posts could face fines of up to €50 million (£44.3 million; $60 million). The law gives the networks 24 hours to act after they have been told about lawbreaking material. Social networks and media sites with more than two million members will fall under the law’s provisions. Facebook, Twitter and YouTube will be the law’s main focus, but it is also likely to be applied to Reddit, Tumblr and...

The BND, Germany’s version of the CIA, has been accused of massive breaches of the constitution in a leaked report by the government’s representative for data protection. “The BND [Bundesnachrichtendienst] systematically lifted and used personal data without a legal basis to do so,” wrote Federal Data Protection Commissioner Andrea Voßhoff in a report seen by public broadcasters NDR and WDR. Voßhoff is responsible for ensuring that government agencies do not infringe on German citizens’ legal rights when using their personal data. …

<p>BERLIN (AP) -- Berlin police say they've raided 10 residences in the German capital in a crackdown against far-right hate speech on social media.</p>

The Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in Essen will distribute the German Constitution in response to Salafists’ plans to give out free copies of the Koran in the city on Saturday. But Muslim residents say they’re creating a false opposition. “In a time when the threat from Islamist criminals is greater than ever, we have to combat the Salafists with all democratic means.”, president of the local CDU chapter Franz Joseph Britz told the Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung. But some Muslim residents of Essen were dismayed by the way the CDU had chosen to counter the Salafists. …

The German parliament’s scientific research service says the government’s legal argument to justify a training mission for Kurds in Iraq has “no constitutional basis,” according to a survey seen by both the news agency DPA and Der Spiegel magazine. Berlin is planning to send up to 100 soldiers to the northern Iraqi city of Irbil to help train Kurdish Peshmerga forces fighting “Islamic State” (IS) terrorists. The cabinet approved the plans last December. As the mission is not part of a formal NATO or United Nations operation, it is not clear whether it is legal. The parliamentary survey says the...