Image: (APA/GEORG HOCHMUTH)
A text on Sellner’s private Telegram channel, which he posted on December 7, 2022 after raids on the German Reichsbürger scene, was incriminated. The court did not see the fact that hatred was incited against the group of asylum seekers.
According to the German Federal Prosecutor’s Office, the arrested Reichsbürger proponents had planned to overthrow the state order in Germany and take over the leadership of the state. “Putsch? Because of it,” said Sellner in this context on his channel. And he let his subscribers know that every asylum home posed more danger than the Reich Citizens’ Movement.
Covered by free speech?
The prosecutor’s accusation was that he had presented the group of asylum seekers as criminals in general. For Sellner, on the other hand, the text message is covered by freedom of expression. “I wrote explicitly that there is a danger from every asylum home and not from every asylum seeker,” because the latter would be a generalization, and “of course I’m not claiming that either.”
He also referred to a specific case with his message, Sellner confirmed. Two days before he sent the message, two girls were attacked and injured with a knife by an asylum seeker in Illerkirchberg, Germany, one of them fatally. The connection to this incident lies in the fact that “the press gave the raids much more effort”. The message was “criticism that the terrorist action displaced the incidents in Illerkirchberg”.
Judgment not final
The judge could also follow this reasoning. The judge did not agree with the accusation that the message meant the group of refugees in general. The statement that there is a danger from every asylum home is “not sufficient to incite hatred against an entire ethnic group”. For Sellner there was therefore an acquittal. The judgment is not final.
Source: Nachrichten
