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generic92034today at 7:44 AM3 repliesview on HN

That was a overall very rarely occurring abuse of power of a politician in charge of leading local law enforcement. It was declared illegal later. And you take that as a proof for what about the whole of Germany?


Replies

raincoletoday at 9:13 AM

> His unit has successfully prosecuted about 750 hate speech cases over the last four years.

It's just one of the sixteen units that prosecute 'hate speech' cases in Germany.

Oh, by the way, the Chancellor himself is calling to demolish online anonymity completely: https://dpa-international.com/politics/urn:newsml:dpa.com:20...

But sure, abuse of power is so rare. Nothing to see here.

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Podrodtoday at 9:25 AM

Not just for Germany but apparently for the entire continent of Europe!

joe_mambatoday at 12:08 PM

>It was declared illegal later.

You're missing the point. That's exactly how democratic governments cloak fascist behavior everywhere: The punishment IS THE PROCESS.

People in Germany (and the UK and other places) have to self censor because they don't want to be visited by the police and then dragged through courts for months/years, even though it eventually gets thrown out and you get to walk away innocent, you still had to suffer the entire prosecution process, which nobody wants to, so they keep their mouth shut.

The stress toll of having to go through all that annoying grind through the legal system, even though you did nothing wrong and what the government is doing will be considered illegal, is how the government preemptively keeps people in line.

>That was a overall very rarely occurring abuse of power

Very rare?! Unless there's direct consequences with actual punishment on government officials for illegally abusing the legal system on citizens just because they hear stuff they don't like, then they will keep throwing prosecutions at innocent people just to keep them in check since currently they have nothing stopping them from this abuse turning from rare to being the norm.

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