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The defendant is seated in the courtroom in the criminal justice building at the beginning of the trial
Photo: Marcus Brandt / dpa
The district court of Hamburg has fined a 30-year-old for publishing video footage of a police check during the corona lockdown.
Including another verdict, the defendant, known on social media as Freddy Independant, has to pay 160 daily rates of 40 euros (4600 euros) each.
The judge found him guilty on Thursday of violating the Art Copyright Act and defamation.
The public prosecutor had demanded 140 daily rates, the defense attorney an unspecified small fine.
The accused had conducted video interviews on April 2 last year on the Outer Alster Lake when two police officers drew the group's attention to the obligation to wear masks.
Freddy Independant filmed the ensuing discussion with officers and streamed some of it live on Instagram.
He later uploaded three videos on different platforms.
One was titled "Stupid" and showed the officials without pixels and with name tags.
The police officers had asked him several times during the operation not to film them.
According to the court, the accused thus violated the Art Copyright Act, according to which portraits may only be published with the consent of the person depicted.
»The subject is not your criticism of the corona measures - quite the opposite, you are allowed to express yourself critically.
But you can't put people in the digital pillory," said the judge to the accused, who said he wore a mask for the first time this year.
The videos had been clicked more than six million times, mainly on the Tiktok platform.
The 30-year-old regretted his behavior, also towards the officials who were called as witnesses.
Because of two similar incidents, he was sentenced to a fine of 80 daily rates of 40 euros each - a total of 3200 euros - by the Altona district court last April, a few days after the crimes now being tried.
kha/dpa
