You can’t make this stuff up. In Germany, a newspaper editor has been fined and sentenced to seven months in prison for posting a meme:
The Bamberg district court in Bavaria sentenced Deutschland-Kurier editor David Bendels this week to seven months in prison on probation and a fine of nearly sixty per cent of his annual income, or 210 ‘daily rates’, for posting an image on social media of Interior Minister Nancy Faeser holding an altered sign.
The newspaper editor was convicted of committing “defamation directed against people in political life.”
So, what did the sign say?
The common meme tactic of changing the words on signs held by politicians for satirical purposes was used to make Faeser’s sign read: “I hate freedom of speech”.
#Faeser HASST #Meinungsfreiheit! pic.twitter.com/O0Wr0dLpJb
— Deutschland Kurier (@Deu_Kurier) February 28, 2024
So obviously, the “defamation” of the Interior Minister was true, as posting the meme turned out to be self-validating. No one ever said Germans suffer from an over-active sense of humor.
