{"id":86112,"date":"2024-07-02T17:14:02","date_gmt":"2024-07-02T17:14:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/07\/02\/german-court-fines-far-right-politician-for-using-nazi-phrase-again\/"},"modified":"2024-07-02T17:14:02","modified_gmt":"2024-07-02T17:14:02","slug":"german-court-fines-far-right-politician-for-using-nazi-phrase-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/07\/02\/german-court-fines-far-right-politician-for-using-nazi-phrase-again\/","title":{"rendered":"German Court Fines Far-Right Politician for Using Nazi Phrase, Again"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"text-align:center\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1050\" height=\"550\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/07\/02\/multimedia\/germany-afd-bgfv\/germany-afd-bgfv-facebookJumbo.jpg?fit=1050,550&amp;ssl=1\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image\" alt=\"German Court Fines Far-Right Politician for Using Nazi Phrase, Again\" title=\"German Court Fines Far-Right Politician for Using Nazi Phrase, Again\" \/><\/div><p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">For the second time in seven weeks, a German court has convicted the prominent far-right leader <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/05\/14\/world\/europe\/germany-afd-nazi-hocke.html?pgtype=Article&amp;action=click&amp;module=RelatedLinks\" title=\"\">Bj\u00f6rn H\u00f6cke<\/a> of using a banned Nazi slogan.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The conviction \u2014 at a time when <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/05\/05\/world\/europe\/europe-far-right.html\" title=\"\">the far right<\/a> <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/06\/09\/world\/europe\/european-parliament-elections-far-right.html\" title=\"\">is on the ascent in Europe<\/a> \u2014 is the latest in a series of legal setbacks for Mr. H\u00f6cke, the leader of the nationalist Alternative for Germany party in the eastern state of Thuringia.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">After a three-day trial, Mr. H\u00f6cke was found on Monday to have willfully ignored the ban on using the banned Nazi slogan \u2014 \u201cEverything for Germany\u201d \u2014 and was fined 16,900 euros, about $18,100, after using the phrase late last year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The decision came after Mr. H\u00f6cke was fined <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/05\/14\/world\/europe\/germany-afd-nazi-hocke.html?pgtype=Article&amp;action=click&amp;module=RelatedLinks\" title=\"\">13,000 euros<\/a> in mid-May for using the slogan during a 2021 campaign speech.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<div>\n<div class=\"css-53u6y8\">\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The judge in the city of Halle found that Mr. H\u00f6cke had deliberately directed a crowd of supporters to complete the slogan, which was carved into the knives of the paramilitary wing of the Nazi party.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cWhen I see what is happening in Europe, it is still essential that we counter the danger of old Nazi-era symbols from becoming acceptable again,\u201d Judge Jan Stengel said in delivering his verdict, according to local <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.spiegel.de\/politik\/bjoern-hoecke-warum-der-afd-mann-zum-zweiten-mal-verurteilt-wird-a-22460e6d-7319-4cd3-9092-ed06471ed089\" title=\"\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" target=\"_blank\">news reports<\/a>. Still, the punishment fell short of the suspended prison sentence and a two-year ban on political posts that prosecutors had sought.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Specific phrases, greetings, uniforms, and symbols associated with the Nazis are banned in Germany.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">While Mr. H\u00f6cke and his lawyers unconvincingly denied knowing of the phrase\u2019s dark past during his first trial in Halle, his defense this time had argued that the phrase should not be banned. And despite a video presented as evidence of Mr. H\u00f6cke gesturing to the crowd to complete the phrase, his lawyers also argued that the crowd\u2019s reaction was unexpected.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">In his half-hour closing statement, Mr. H\u00f6cke, <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/06\/23\/world\/europe\/germany-extremism-hocke-afd-nazi.html\" title=\"\">one of the most extreme voices in the far-right party<\/a>, said the trial was politically motivated and designed to muzzle his political speech. He also called on his party to launch parliamentary investigations into the state justice system.<\/p>\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">The AfD made solid gains during elections for the European Parliament, which <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/06\/12\/world\/europe\/election-germany-olaf-scholz.html\" title=\"\">have no direct consequences on federal or state governments in Germany<\/a> but are seen as a barometer of the mood in the country. The far-right party won 15.9 percent of the vote across Germany. In the state of Thuringia, where Mr. H\u00f6cke leads the party, it garnered 30.7 percent \u2014 7.5 more than its closest mainstream competitor, and the AfD is poised to make significant gains in state elections in September.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<aside class=\"css-ew4tgv\" aria-label=\"companion column\"\/><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/07\/02\/world\/europe\/germany-court-fine-nazi-phrase-afd.html\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For the second time in seven weeks, a German court has convicted the prominent far-right leader Bj\u00f6rn H\u00f6cke of using a banned Nazi slogan. The conviction \u2014 at a time when the far right is on the ascent in Europe \u2014 is the latest in a series of legal setbacks for Mr. H\u00f6cke, the leader [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":86113,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2024\/07\/02\/multimedia\/germany-afd-bgfv\/germany-afd-bgfv-facebookJumbo.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1625,724,6353,10563,11331,50711,18657],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86112"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86112"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86112\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86114,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86112\/revisions\/86114"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}