Two decisions by two courts, but the legal principle is about – almost – the same thing. The administrative court in Frankfurt am Main has ordered the city to grant the musician Roger Waters access to the local festival hall so that he can give a live concert there (Az.: 7 L 1055/23.F, not yet legally binding). And the Federal Administrative Court allows the small radical party NPD to put up posters with the slogan “Migration kills” (Ref.: BVerwG 6 C 8.21).
Anti-Semitism, of the kind Waters is accused of, and right-wing extremism are unacceptable. Anyone who incites hatred against Jews or makes them despise them, whoever glorifies the Nazi Reich is even liable to prosecution.
Moral rigor is poorly suited to executive action, and general suspicion does not justify a ban.
Jost Müller-Neuhof
All of this is so self-evident that you probably think you no longer have to listen or look. sender is sufficient. Waters, who blames Israel for all the evils in the world, should be banned from appearing in Germany, according to government officials, among others. And if the NPD feigns sympathy for the dead in order to create a political atmosphere at the expense of the refugees – ban, of course, what else?
In both cases, the courts gave contra, once because of artistic freedom, once because of freedom of expression. Because a free state also includes the freedom to express oneself in a discriminatory, racist and even anti-Semitic manner. Prohibitions are to be pronounced above all where penal laws are violated.
Musician Waters’ stage show is a freak’s crude arrangement that no one needs to please. But it’s not hate speech, because it can be read – among other things – as political criticism. And while the NPD slogan is vile and exclusionary, it pertains to an aspect of immigration – crime – that has been a political issue for ages. Democracy means discussing it – not banning it.
Moral rigor is poorly suited to executive action, and general suspicion does not justify a ban. So it is not an honorable fight that the authorities have fought in court here and are still fighting in the Waters case. He indicates losses of freedom and the obvious willingness to accept them. Courts correct that. But for how much longer?
