After accidents: Ministry of Justice proposes penalties for gazers

In the future, gazers who are filming or photographing accident victims must expect punishment. The Ministry of Justice intends to make a criminal offense "making and transmitting a picture that grossly depicts a deceased person". This emerges from a bill that the Federal Ministry of Justice recently sent to countries and associations for comment.

Not only accident victims, but also victims of violent crime would be protected by this law. So far, that is not the case - only the production of degrading images of living people is punishable.

In the case of the dead, such recordings are only considered a violation of the right to privacy, relatives may request the deletion on Internet pages. In the future, fines would be threatened or even imprisonment of up to two years possible.

"Keeping the memory of the dead better protected"

Thanks to ubiquitous cell phone cameras, the creation of such images has become increasingly easier, writes the ministry. In addition, the anonymity of the Internet reduces the threshold for dissemination.

If the Cabinet has passed the changes, the Bundestag must also agree with them. However, CDU, CSU and SPD have already agreed on this in very general terms in the coalition agreement.

The right-wing and consumer-political spokesman of the SPD parliamentary group, Johannes Fechner, demanded a speedy adoption. "We have better protect the memory of the dead from sensational gazers, such as when a fatal accident victim is photographed and the images are spread on the net, we can not tolerate that," he said. (Read here an interview on the phenomenon of gazers).

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