Comment by ltbarcly3 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ltbarcly3 | Hacker News Reader

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No, they wouldn't be put through this horrible detention, they would just be removed from the country, or have their visa revoked and be barred from entry to Schengen after that. It is a much calmer, humane, and efficient process with what I consider to be a much more restrictive and aggressive enforcement regime.

Germany's 'freedom of speech' is just qualitatively different and much less meaningful. It's illegal to burn the German flag, use a diminutive to address a police officer (du vs sie). More troubling it's illegal to insult a foreign leader (and the government must determine whether criticism is 'abusive', which would constitute a crime)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%B6hmermann_affair

Chanting 'from the river to the sea' is illegal. Publishing statistics that suggest that refugees commit crimes at a higher rate. Calling a politician a 'criminal'. And of course the nazi stuff you mention. In general, 'human dignity' is considered more important that free speech.

I agree, the detention is insane, unnecessary, arbitrary, and a complete abuse.

Not really. At least not in the past and probably also not in the future if they are already in the country legally. These things a) take a lot of time (especially in Germany) and b) all the right-wing pandering of the current government is relatively new and will probably be moderated drastically by court decisions.

edit: As to your other points - I would argue that stuff like the Böhmermann affair is a good example that free speech more or less works in most parts of Europe. Yes, there were - very old - laws about insulting royalty and heads of state. However, a state-financed comedian was able to push on those issues enough for those paragraphs to be changed/struck (as far as i remember, at least) - and he's still state-financed, still has his head and his freedom and still happily insults important people.

edit2: It's not really correct to state that the phrase "from the river to the sea" is forbidden, specifically. There are no legal means to ban specific phrases on a whim in Germany. There are, however, blanket bans on using phrases/slogans of organisations that are unconstitutional such as terrorist groups. The argument has been made that "from the river to the sea" is a Hamas-slogan but as far as I've kept up with the discussion, there are different legal oppinions on that and there's no final court decision yet.

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