{"id":180711,"date":"2017-01-25T19:06:00","date_gmt":"2017-01-26T00:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2017\/01\/25\/i-think-that-this-is-a-f-you-to-erdogan\/"},"modified":"2017-01-25T19:06:00","modified_gmt":"2017-01-26T00:06:00","slug":"i-think-that-this-is-a-f-you-to-erdogan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/2017\/01\/25\/i-think-that-this-is-a-f-you-to-erdogan\/","title":{"rendered":"I Think That This Is a F%$# You to Erdogan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Germany is revoking a law that made it an offense to insult foreign leaders<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Germany is ditching a law specifically protecting heads of state and government against insults, after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan tried to sue a prominent satirist. Slander and libel laws still apply. <\/p>\n

<\/a> Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cabinet decided on Wednesday to abolish the rarely enforced section of the criminal code by January 1, 2018. <\/p>\n

“The idea of ‘lese majeste’ dates back to a long-gone era, it no longer belongs in our criminal law,” Justice Minister Heiko Maas (pictured above) said. “The regulation is obsolete and unnecessary,” he added. <\/p>\n

Maas said heads of state and government would still be able to defend themselves against slander and defamation<\/a> “but no more or less so than any other person.” <\/p>\n

Insulted foreign leaders will still be able to pursue their own libel and defamation cases. The main difference between the laws was the extent of the sentence, insulting a political leader could carry up to three years in jail while ordinary libel or slander can carry a one-year jail sentence or a fine. <\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is a good thing, terrible law, but this is really about Merkel dissing the Turkish President, and I think that a significant amount of political self-interest is part of the motivation for doing this. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Germany is revoking a law that made it an offense to insult foreign leaders: Germany is ditching a law specifically protecting heads of state and government against insults, after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan tried to sue a prominent satirist. Slander and libel laws still apply. Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cabinet decided on Wednesday to abolish …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[371,394,449,697,374],"class_list":["post-180711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-europe","tag-foreign-relations","tag-legislation","tag-near-east","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180711"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=180711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180711\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=180711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=180711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.panix.com\/~msaroff\/40years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=180711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}