A British man has been fined 600 euros (£500) by German police after telling someone ‘I think you are a racist’.
Arthur Goldberg, 30, is facing prosecution for his remark after objecting to the fine he received back in January 2024.
Insulting someone is a criminal offence in Germany but Arthur reckons he is protected by his freedom of expression.
Arthur told Metro:
‘I didn’t think anywhere in the free world you could be prosecuted for insulting somebody.
‘I don’t want to be constantly scared if I say the wrong thing.’
Arthur, who has lived in Germany for four years now, told an employee of Leipzig University ‘I think you are racist’ during a meeting about applying for a masters programme in September 2022.
Arthur had missed the May application deadline and thought it was discriminatory that German students were still able to apply in September.
Arthur says he made the comment at the end of a ‘tense’ and ‘heated’ exchange with the university employee:
‘I was responding to the policy of the University to have a different deadline for non-German people. I felt I was being discriminated against.
‘It wasn’t targeted towards her individually but the fact she was enforcing a policy which I perceived to be discriminatory, but at the same time you could argue that it was towards her.’
In their defence, Leipzig University say their policy of earlier deadlines for some courses is designed to help international students complete the admission process, and is not discriminatory in any way. They say their employee was ‘offended’ by Arthur’s remark and reported him to the police, who asked Arthur to provide a counter-statement.
Arthur refused to take part in victim-offender mediation and so received a penal order with a 600 euros (£500) fine.
‘I was completely shocked to be fined. In England, we have obviously a much broader freedom of expression.
‘This is a waste of time for the police. I do not consider myself to have broken the law.’
Well, I don’t know that it matters whether he considers himself to have broken the law, because the fact is he did break the law, no matter how ridiculous that law is (and one that can easily be exploited for personal, political, or even financial gain). I’m pretty sure the same law exists in England too (malicious communication) where you can get into legal trouble for causing ‘distress’. It’s just that maybe in England fewer people are bothered to report that sort of thing.
Freelance web designer Arthur is now due to be prosecuted in the local regional court (Amtsgericht) in Leipzig after rejecting the fine. Eventually he’ll be brought into court and have to work the situation out in front of a judge. Arthur and his lawyer plan to argue that he is protected by freedom of expression guarantees in the European Convention on Human Rights:
‘Freedom of expression is necessary in a democratic society.
We are going to argue that this is a violation of my rights.
‘If the Amtsgericht say I’m guilty, then I would go to the regional court, then the Constitutional Court and then the European Court.’
‘It is a bit nerve wracking to go against the German state, which is kind of like a black box. You kind of never know what’s going to come next.
Could be better off just paying the fine at this point tbh, but I guess it’s about the principle too. On the one hand it is terrifying that you can be penalised and prosecuted for calling someone a racist, but it’s also a bit annoying that he felt the need to play the race card on something that blatantly had nothing to do with racism, so he’s kind of brought this onto himself really.
Why didn’t he just attend the mediation meeting and apologise to the victim? She would have probably accepted his apology and dropped the charges and everything would be OK.
Well anyway, good luck to Arthur on his upcoming court appearance. Maybe whatever Metro paid him for this story can go towards his legal costs, if not the fine itself.
For the man fined £59 over cyberbullying charges following the suicide of a Japanese pro wrestler, click HERE.
