{"id":235433,"date":"2026-08-04T12:50:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-04T12:50:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/235433\/"},"modified":"2026-08-04T12:50:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-04T12:50:12","slug":"german-court-rules-that-israel-nazi-comparisons-are-protected-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/235433\/","title":{"rendered":"German court rules that Israel-Nazi comparisons are protected speech"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Exhibiting the swastika is a criminal offence in Germany, whose criminal code bans the display of symbols associated with proscribed groups, though there are exceptions for its use in ways which oppose or do not promote their ideology, such as for educational or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thejc.com\/news\/world\/artist-turns-swastikas-into-flowers-and-insects-o8i9emiy\" data-tracking-context=\"In article link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">artistic purposes<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>However, the\u00a0Higher Regional Court of Zweibr\u00fccken\u00a0overturned the woman\u2019s sentence on appeal, finding that her posts were protected under legal guarantees of freedom of expression.<\/p>\n<p>It ruled that the first post clearly indicated opposition to Nazi ideology, and that the comparison with Israel was cast in such a light.<\/p>\n<p>As such, the court held that the woman\u2019s\u00a0use of the swastika was intended to \u201cexpress sharp criticism of the methods of the State of Israel while being accompanied by a clear distancing from, or condemnation of, Nazi wrongdoing\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>It also found that the posts did not reach the threshold to be considered\u00a0incitement to hatred under Germany\u2019s strict laws regarding discussion of the Holocaust, saying they did not amount to\u00a0denial, trivialisation, or minimisation sufficient to \u201cdisturb\u00a0the public peace\u201d\/<\/p>\n<p>The woman was acquitted of all charges.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Exhibiting the swastika is a criminal offence in Germany, whose criminal code bans the display of symbols associated&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":235434,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[33],"tags":[537,37,44253,33207],"class_list":["post-235433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-germany","tag-israel","tag-nazi","tag-nazis"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/117037329494750890","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235433\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/235434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}