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Moderator Jan Böhmermann (archive image): Team tested police reaction to reports of hate postings
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Rolf Vennenbernd / dpa
The concept of the experiment was very simple: the team from the program "ZDF Magazin Royal" reported hate speech on the Internet to 16 police stations in all federal states - and then documented how the individual authorities dealt with the respective cases.
Some departments reacted immediately to the reports last summer, others not at all.
After the broadcast of the program on Friday evening, it is now clear: investigations have been initiated against at least two police officers.
In Bremen, for example, the public prosecutor's office is investigating an official on suspicion of frustration.
The police officer is said to have taken the report, but only recorded it in the system two months later when the complainants asked.
Now it must be checked why the matter was processed late, said the spokesman for the public prosecutor in Bremen.
Even before the program was broadcast, the public prosecutor's office announced that the police officer had been transferred to office work.
Internal investigations were launched in Saxony-Anhalt.
The Magdeburg Police Inspectorate announced that an officer at the police station had been investigated on suspicion of thwarting criminal prosecution.
In Böhmermann's program, a police officer was quoted as saying: "You found something on the Internet?
Maybe they should try consumer protection.« They sent away the correspondent who had personally appeared on site.
According to the information from the program, the research team had submitted seven online postings with hate speech to each of the police stations tested.
Death threats were displayed, as were anti-Semitic content and anti-constitutional, right-wing extremist symbols.
According to the research, not all police forces did a bad job. There was praise for the police in Hesse on the show.
“Everything was done in eleven minutes.
(...) It can be as simple as that«, summed up the police testers.
The Hessian police saw themselves confirmed.
"Since the murder of District President Walter Lübcke at the latest, we have been taking the fight against hate and hate speech very seriously, including on the Internet," said a spokesman for the Hessian Ministry of the Interior on Saturday.
It is not the first attempt by the Böhmermann editorial team to take action against online hate comments.
The »Reconquista Internet« project, founded in 2018, aimed to collect and display hate comments.
sol/dpa