(LifeSiteNews) — A German YouTuber and satirist who has been imprisoned for months due to “hate speech” sent a message to Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and J.D. Vance.
The video message by the YouTuber known under his pseudonym Shlomo Finkelstein was recorded in prison and published by German conservative influencer Naomi Seibt on X.
🚨🇩🇪 PRlSONER FOR SATIRE LEAKS MESSAGE TO THE WORLD – #FreeShlomo
6 months ago, our friend Aron aka Shlomo was sentenced to pr!son for political satire.
Today, he breaks his silence.
Inspired by @elonmusk and JD Vance, Shlomo gathered the courage to send us an audio message. pic.twitter.com/WwazxKkWdG
— Naomi Seibt (@SeibtNaomi) March 2, 2025
“Dear Mr. Vice President J.D. Vance, dear Mr. President Donald Trump, dear Mr. Elon Musk, and dear other friends in America, Germany, and around the world,” Finkelstein begins his recording. “This is a message from a German Prison.”
The German content creator was initially sentenced to three years in prison on probation in 2020 for several “hate speech” crimes. According to court documents, Finkelstein violated two of his probation requirements. He was required to pay a fine of 600 euros and immediately inform authorities if he changed his residence. However, he was not living at his registered address at the time and had not received the letters. Therefore, on March 4, 2022, the Cologne District Court decided to convert the suspended sentence into a prison sentence.
Finkelstein was eventually arrested on August 13, 2024, and has been in jail ever since.
In his video message, the YouTuber detailed the charges, which can also be seen in official court documents. One of his crimes was playing a few seconds of the politically incorrect song “What the Black Says” by American comedian Rucka Rucka Ali on his YouTube channel. This charge alone led to a six-month prison sentence.
Moreover, “They also took a clip in which I made fun of leftists who smear right-wingers as Nazis out of context and charged me with the use of extremist symbols” because he used a historical image of Joseph Goebbels wearing a Swastika on his arm.
The other charges concerned “hate speech” against Islam and Muslims, including Koran burnings shown in his videos.
Finkelstein said that he “felt compelled” to make these statements in defense of free speech “after the murders of Charlie Hebdo cartoonists in 2015.”
“Lastly, they charged me with antisemitic hate speech because I have represented myself with a stereotypically Jewish-looking caricature as an avatar.”
However, Finkelstein said he chose the name because “Neo-Nazis” called him Shlomo due to his support for Israel, and he wanted the rebrand the name into something positive.
He detailed the story of how the German version of the FBI (“Bundeskriminalamt”) searched for him for two years to find out where he lived. The Bundeskriminalamt surveilled five of his close family members and friends, listening to their calls and spying on their messages to get information on him.
“They had undercover police officers follow me, videotape, and photograph me for a few days before they made the bizarre arrest in front of my son,” Finkelstein recalled.
He was arrested by 15 masked policemen while he was on a walk with his 1-year-old son. He recalled that the police were shouting, “Don’t do anything stupid; think of the child.”
He said the police “had many opportunities to catch me by myself,” but they wanted to arrest him in front of his son in order to traumatize him. The German police are now demanding that Finkelstein pay “for his own manhunt,” the cost of which amounts to over 10,000 euros.
The deep state sought to turn Finkelstein into an informant on the conservative AfD
Finkelstein recalled that the German Intelligence Agency (“Verfassungsschutz”) visited him in prison on January 15.
“I rejected to talk to the German Intelligence Agency, which is notoriously known for blackmailing people into spying on the political opposition to the left-wing German government and deep state,” the YouTuber said.
“I talk to a multitude of AfD politicians, both in public and in private, and the ‘Verfassungsschutz,’ the German intelligence agency, probably knows that. They came here to turn me into a government spy against the leading opposition party, which now, after the elections, represents more than one-fifth, more than 20% of German citizens.”
In January, it looked like Finkelstein could be released on parole in February for good behavior in prison. However, a few days after he refused to speak to the German Intelligence Agency, a new criminal charge against him for “hate speech” was brought forward on seemingly ridiculous charges that would likely be thrown out by an unbiased judge, according to Finkelstein’s lawyer. However, according to German law, a person in prison cannot get parole if there is an open criminal court case against him.
Finkelstein said the German intelligence agency made sure that he “will remain locked away from my son and my girlfriend for at least another six months.”
“I suppose Orwellian nightmares like this are pretty much on the menu as soon as the state implements thought and speech crimes,” the 28-year-old German YouTuber said.
Thousands of people online have expressed their solidarity with Finkelstein and called for his immediate release from prison under the hashtag #FreeShlomo. Many politicians from the conservative AfD are among his supporters.
A ‘thank you’ to Vice President J.D. Vance
Finkelstein ended his video message with a note to U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance, praising him for his defense of free speech.
“This is what’s happening in Germany,” he said. “Dear Mr. Vice President J.D. Vance, at almost exactly the same time, I saw your speech at the Munich Security Conference, and it gave me a sliver of hope.”
“Hope that the authoritarian course that my country has taken isn’t set in stone. So I think that I speak for a silent majority of Germans when I say: ‘Thank you.’ And ‘Let’s make Europe great again!’”
READ: JD Vance exposed European elites’ anti-democratic hypocrisy in his bombshell Munich speech
