By American C.J. Hopkins Unjustly Convicted in Germany of “Hate Speech”
by Eugyppius | Substack
Twice in August 2022, the American playwright, satirist and longtime Berlin resident C.J. Hopkins tweeted cover art from his book on The Rise of the New Normal Reich. This art featured an image of a Covid-era medical mask with a barely-visible white swastika superimposed upon it. In his first tweet, Hopkins wrote that “Masks are symbols of ideological conformity. That’s all that they are, and that’s all they ever were. Stop pretending that they were ever anything else or get used to wearing them.” In his second tweet, Hopkins simply quoted Health Minister Karl Lauterbach’s notorious statement that “Masks always send a signal.”
For those tweets, Amazon Germany promptly banned Hopkins’s book, and eight months later the Berlin state prosecutor’s office informed Hopkins that he was under investigation, because they believed his tweets violated German criminal statutes against “the use of symbols of unconstititional and terrorist organisations.” In January of this year, Hopkins was tried before the Tiergarten Berlin District Court and acquitted. In many countries that would be the end of it, but in Germany double jeopardy is not a thing. The prosecutor appealed, and Hopkins found himself on trial once again, this time before the Berlin Court of Appeals. Yesterday, the appellate court overturned his acquittal and found him guilty. He has been referred back to the Berlin District Court for sentencing.
I never tire of saying that there is no free speech in Germany, however much our Basic Law claims to guarantee freedom of expression. Yet Hopkins’s conviction is farcical even in the context of German criminal statutes and jurisprudence. To understand why, we must wade through some technicalities, but it’s worth it, I promise.
A variety of legal mechanisms have been used to forbid the reproduction of Nazi symbols and slogans since Germany’s defeat in World War II. The purpose is to impose a general tabu on the discursive accoutrements of National Socialism. Since 1968, these prohibitions occur in sections 86 and 86a of the German Criminal Code. These statutes forbid the “dissemination” of propaganda material or symbols that are “intended to further the activities of a former National Socialist organisation.” Read Full Article >
