In connection with posters with the inscription “Hang the Greens”, the Bavarian Supreme Court has sentenced an activist from the right-wing extremist party Der III. Way confirmed. His appeal against a ruling by the Munich I Regional Court was rejected as obviously unfounded, according to a statement on Tuesday. According to the information, the man has now been legally sentenced to a fine for incitement to hatred in conjunction with public incitement to commit crimes.
The Munich I regional court convicted the man in the second instance in March. The 18th Criminal Chamber saw the poster text as an invitation to commit execution-style killings against members of the “Alliance 90/The Greens” party. During the 2021 federal election campaign, the man, as chairman of the party, was responsible for a total of 20 posters of the small party with the slogan being hung in Bavaria, the regional court found at the time. After the authorities took down the posters, he called for them to be “immediately put up again.” It is therefore impossible that they were originally hung without his involvement.
The 7th Criminal Senate of the Supreme Regional Court has now found that this interpretation is not objectionable. The act is also not justified by the constitutionally guaranteed freedom of expression, since freedom of expression has its limits in this case. With regard to the paramount importance of protecting human life, the consideration clearly shows that in the case of an incitement to kill people, there is no impairment of the defendant’s freedom of expression, the Criminal Senate reasoned.