As of: March 6, 2024, 5:37 p.m
By: Isabel Winklbauer
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Maximilian H. does not agree with the verdict.
He is appealing.
© Sigi Jantz
When does dissenting opinion become a criminal offense?
The district court quickly decided: A participant in a pro-Palestine demonstration who relativized the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023 must pay.
Six days after the devastating attack by the terrorist group Hamas on Israeli civilians on October 7, 2023, a demonstration of “solidarity with the Palestinian people” took place at Odeonsplatz.
The city had actually banned the demonstration, but since the ban came very late and the demonstrators were peaceful, the police tolerated the gathering.
It was also here when the 27-year-old demonstrator Maximilian H. said to a Bavarian television camera: “I have no understanding for the act alone, but for what happened in the years before, when I look at this act I say, that's far too little." A statement that brought him an indictment for condoning crimes - and now also a guilty verdict.
The Munich I Regional Court yesterday sentenced Maximilian H. to 110 daily rates of 30 euros each for his relativization and also for violating the ban on masking, which makes 3300 euros.
On October 13, 2023, Munich residents demonstrated in solidarity with the Palestinians.
© Sigi jantz
But the matter does not end there.
“The court is making it far too easy for itself,” says Ricarda Lang, one of the two lawyers for the accused bus driver, “our client’s statement must be evaluated in context.” But neither the police nor the court had requested the complete footage from the BR, for example to find out whether H. even knew that his statement would be broadcast on public television or whether he perhaps expressed regret about the attack during the rest of the interview.
According to his own statements, he was interviewed for 15 minutes and eight seconds were broadcast.
The reporter in question who did the interview at the demonstration even sat in the courtroom and was quickly called in as a witness.
But he invoked his right to refuse to testify.
For H. and his defense lawyers, one thing is clear: “If freedom of expression is restricted here, the court must fulfill its duty to clarify the facts more carefully.
Of course we are appealing.”