Exalting Terrorism and Expressing Antisemitism In Germany -- One Count and You're Out!

"[The acts perpetrated by Hamas on October 7 have been] celebrated in a repugnant way [on social media in Germany. [The attack in Mannheim] also was glorified on the net by many in the most appalling way."

"Such brutalization online stokes a climate of violence that can drive extremists to new acts of violence."

"So it's very clear to me that Islamist agitators who mentally live in the Stone Age have no place in our country. Anyone who has no German passport and glorifies terrorist acts here must, wherever possible, be expelled and deported."

German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser

A protester is dragged away by police officers during a pro-Palestinians demonstration on the campus of Berlin's Free University, in Berlin, Germany, May 7, 2024.

 

New legislation is being launched in Germany to make it easier to deport foreigners who engage in public approval of terrorism. With the new law a sole, single comment posted to social media could conceivably represent adequate grounds for government agencies to deport those it considers have countered the law, offending Germany's moral and ethical codes unpermitting of verbal violence against Jews in particular. 

Public demands that the state  take remediative action against foreign elements that have supported the Hamas atrocities in southern Israel on October 7, and the rising levels of antisemitism that have resulted from among asylum seekers compelled Chancellor Olaf Scholz to take hard action against those who unreservedly promote hate among themselves and infecting larger parts of the population.

 

A man attacks people with a knife, at a far right-wing information stand of the Buergerbewegung Pax Europa (BPE) in the central market of the city of Mannheim, Germany, May 31, 2024, in this screengrab obtained from a social media video. Buergerbewegung Pax Europa/Handout via REUTERS

 

The Cabinet approved the measure in the wake of a deadly knife attack a month ago against a group describing itself as opposition to "political Islam". During the assault a police officer was killed. Migration continues to be a headache for Germany. Under Chancellor Angela Merkel, in 2015 a million asylum seekers, basically economic migrants, were permitted to enter Germany when the EU was being flooded with an unstoppable migrant rush, mostly young males from the Middle East and North Africa.

Now, Chancellor Scholz faces a backlash by a population fed up with rising crime levels and in particular violence against women where incidents of rape have increased substantially. More latterly, since the October 7 Hamas assault in Israel, many from among the migrant community have expressed their general contempt and hatred for Jews; their cultural/religious racism in free expression.

 

New citizenship legislation stipulates that naturalized people must be capable of supporting themselves and their relatives financially, that those seeking citizenship be committed to the "free democratic fundamental order" is already covered under the existing law, with the new version specifying that antisemitic and racist acts are incompatible with the original stipulation. 

 

Basically, according to government rules, issues like antisemitism, Israel's right of existence, along with Jewish security in Germany now have greater weight in the test for citizenship which applicants must undergo.

 

The country's law on residence will also undergo change; approving or promoting "a single terrorist crime" is to be viewed as grounds for a "particularly serious interest in expulsion", according to the German Interior Ministry. In other words, a single comment that "glorifies and endorses a terrorist crime on social media" could result in expulsion.

Under the new guidelines anyone publicly approving of an offence "in a manner which is suited to causing a disturbance of the public peace", could face expulsion, without  a conviction. Simple social media post 'likes' will not fall into the deportation category. Interior Minister Nancy Faeser expressed her confidence that these changes would shortly be approved by lawmakers, nor is she concerned that freedom of speech laws would be impacted.

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