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| - By: Emmi Kivi
May 20 2024
The politician was fined for "incitement to hatred" for a post linking local Afghan staff to gang rape, not for posting statistics of sexual assault.
The context
Allegations that a politician from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party was convicted for sharing statistics of sexual assaults committed by migrants have circulated widely across online platforms.
These claims were shared with captions like, “German politician of the AFD party, Marie-Thérèse Kaiser was just convicted & fined $6,000+ Her crime? Posting statistics showing that Afghan immigrants are disproportionately committing sexual assault in Germany."
X owner Elon Musk shared a similar post asking, “Are you saying the fine was for repeating accurate government statistics?”
However, Logically Facts found that Kaiser was not fined for posting statistics of sexual assault. She was fined for “incitement to hatred” for calling Afghans “gang rapists” back in 2021.
In fact
The German newspaper Kreiszeitung reported on May 8 that a regional court confirmed a verdict finding AfD politician Marie-Thérèse Kaiser guilty of “incitement to hatred” for an online post referring to Afghans as “gang rapists,” (translated from German). The incident occurred during Kaiser's campaign for the federal election in 2021.
The politician received a fine of €6,000 ($6,500) for violating section 130 of the German Criminal Code. The German news outlet die Tageszeitung reported the court had found Kaiser’s post to be inflammatory in two respects: one was inciting hatred, and the other was for an “attack on human dignity” by clearly targeting a defined group of people.
Amid the withdrawal of U.S. and coalition forces from Afghanistan in August 2021, Hamburg Mayor Peter Tschentscher posted on X (formerly Twitter): “The development in Afghanistan is dramatic… Hamburg was the first federal state to offer to take in 200 rescued people immediately and unbureaucratically” on August 16 (translated for German). Kaiser was fined for linking these local Afghan staff to gang rape in an online post when responding to Hamburg Mayor Peter Tschentscher’s statement, according to Kreiszeitung.
On May 6, Kaiser disputed the court's verdict in a statement on X (formerly Twitter):
Screenshot of the X post by the AfD politician disputing the verdict of the court. (Source: X/Screenshot)
The local reports do not link Kaiser posting statistics of sexual assault as the reason for her verdict. The politician did post on X (formerly Twitter) sexual assault statistics, but they do not specifically refer to Afghans but to migrants in general.
In a similar recent court case, AfD politician Björn Höcke was fined €13,000 for knowingly using a Nazi slogan in a rally in May 2021.
The verdict
The AfD politician Marie-Thérèse Kaiser was not convicted for posting statistics of sexual assault by Afghan migrants. The fine was for “incitement to hatred” under the German criminal code for alleging Afghan local staff were “gang rapists” in an online post in August 2021, according to the court verdict. Therefore, we have marked this claim as false.
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