Human rights: Berlin contradicts US report on human rights situation

The Federal Government has objected to a report by the U.S. State Department that attested Germany to a limited freedom of expression. “There is no censorship here in Germany,” emphasized the deputy government spokesman Steffen Meyer in Berlin. “We have a very high degree of freedom of expression in Germany, and we will continue to defend this in every form.”

Union faction leader Jens Spahn (CDU) also contradicted the allegations from Washington: “Everyone in Germany can say what they think. This is a free country,” he assured world TV.

Washington speaks of censorship

The US government’s human rights reports appear annually and describe the situation in numerous countries. According to the latest report, the situation in Germany has deteriorated. For example, there is talk of censorship because Internet platforms are obliged to delete hate messages. From the Federal Ministry, it is said that this is also not negotiable. Such regulations “cannot become part of a deal,” said a ministry spokesman.

From the right political spectrum in the United States, it has long been claimed that the European approach to hate speech is the same as a censorship. In the election campaign, today’s Vice President JD Vance threatened to delete NATO’s US support if the Europeans were doing tech billionaire Elon Musk against content on the online platform X. You would have to commit to American values such as freedom of speech.

The US report also complains about an increase in anti-Semitic incidents in Germany. Here, too, government spokesman Meyer defended the work of the black and red coalition: “The federal government is fighting anti-Semitism in all its forms.” The US government’s report states that the federal government attributes neo-Nazis and other extremist persons or groups to most anti-Semitic deeds. This assessment is questioned and referred to Germany, Afghanistan and Turkey to Germany in this context.

A newspaper article from 2018 in which it was said that anti -Semitic crimes with a unclear background would also be quoted on the right. However, this is outdated. Since the beginning of 2024, the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) has recorded anti -Semitic acts in which the phenomenon area cannot be clearly clarified, in a new category “other assignment”. Of the 6,236 anti-Semitic crimes last year, according to BKA statistics, 3,016 acts were presumably right-wing perpetrators.