A Gab user stands criminally accused of…free speech…in Germany. Gab, so far, is standing tall and refusing Germany’s Federal Criminal Police Office demand that the social media outlet dox the user so s/he can be hauled before a German court to answer for his “crime.” The user, it seems, called the Leader of Alliance 90/The Greens, Ricarda Lang, fat.
This is from German Criminal Code, Section 186:
disseminat[ing] a fact about another person which is suited to degrading that person or negatively affecting public opinion about that person, unless this fact can be proved to be true [is a crime]….
Here is Lang, in all her bountifully curvaceous glory:
That’s fatter than fat, it seems to me, and her image provides ample proof of the Gab user’s characterization. But telling the truth, even when the truth is proved, seems to be illegal in Germany.
While we’re on the subject of free speech, here’s Section 188:
If…insult (section 185) is committed publicly, in a meeting or by disseminating content (section 11 (3)) against a person involved in the political life of the nation on account of the position that person holds in public life and if the offence is suited to making that person’s public activities substantially more difficult
Never mind that that’s the whole point of public insults against a political personage—especially if the insult turns out to be accurate and not merely contemptuous (which would be legal in any nation whose politicos are not terrified of their own constituents).
But wait—Section 192 the German attitude toward proof that Section 185 otherwise says would exonerate the person.
Proof of the truth of the asserted or disseminated fact does not preclude punishment in accordance with section 185 if the insult results from the form of the assertion or dissemination or the circumstances under which it was made.
Here’s my “form of the assertion or dissemination:” my echo of the Gab user’s characterization of Lang’s physique, repeated from above:
How far Germany has fallen.