Even schoolchildren are falling foul of German hate speech laws as establishment struggles to deal with the craze.
Official figures show that German police have launched a minimum of 360 separate investigations into the singing of a right-wing rendition of DJ Gigi D’Agostino’s “L’amour toujours”—or, with the new lyrics, “Ausländer Raus!” (Foreigners Out)—since last October. The figures do not include the states of Bavaria and Saxony.
The song first came to prominence when it was sung in a viral video by young German partygoers in May, resulting in participants being fired and facing up to five years in prison, courtesy of tough hate speech legislation.
In Germany, ‘hate speech’ is punishable under the Criminal Code, with penalties ranging from fines to imprisonment of up to five years.
Most worryingly, the figures describe how even schoolchildren have not been spared from police harassment as authorities interviewed pupils for posting the video online and even launched an investigation into the singing of the song in class by a student in the coastal town of Sassnitz in eastern Germany.
The overreaction to the song’s viral rise occurs in tandem with a wider state crackdown on the populist AfD party, which soared to second place in recent European elections despite official efforts to purge members from institutions such as the police, civil service, and military.
The cultural rise of Gen Z AfD voters in particular has also surprised the German political establishment, with the party winning 16% of voters under 24 during last month’s European elections, second only to the Christian Democrats.
There is still legal ambiguity within the Federal Court of Justice about whether the phrase ‘foreigners out’ constitutes hate speech under German law. Last month, police swooped in on an all-female birthday party at Cochem where the song was observed to have been sung.
The popularity of the viral sensation on platforms such as TikTok has flummoxed German hate speech enforcers, as it even became a major feature of the German beer and music festival calendar, leading to further police inquiries last month.
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