The critic of Islam Michael Stürzenberger, who was seriously injured with a knife by an Afghan in Mannheim at the end of May, has been convicted of incitement to hatred.
At the end of May, the well-known critic of Islam Michael Stürzenberger was stabbed with a knife and seriously injured by an Afghan in Mannheim’s market square. The attacker injured other people, including a police officer, who eventually succumbed to his injuries. The suspected Afghan, who is also considered an IS sympathiser, was charged with murder, among other things. Stürzenberger has been warning of the dangers of Islamism for years. But now he has been convicted of incitement to hatred.
The judgement is said to have been handed down on Monday at the Hamburg district court and refers to a rally at which he is said to have denigrated Muslims and migrants, as documented by a left-wing blog on X. Stürzenberger had previously been sentenced to prison in the first instance, but the regional court suspended the sentence on probation. Due to a formal error by the court, an appeal was allowed and the case had to be retried. The public prosecutor’s office had pleaded for 120 daily rates of 40 euros each, the court sentenced Stürzenberger to 120 daily rates of 30 euros each, i.e. a fine of 3,600 euros. Both parties accepted the judgement in the courtroom. It is therefore legally binding.
In the responses, some users were outraged by the judgement: ‘Didn’t an Islamist want to kill him – and thus confirm Stürzenberger’s theories?’ asked one user. ‘The man is almost massacred by a Muslim in this country and convicted of incitement to hatred. You can’t make this stuff up,’ writes another. Yet another user explains that Stürzenberger has proven ‘that he is right’. One user even describes Stürzenberger as a ‘hero in the fight against Islamisation’. His educational work in relation to political Islam is ‘unparalleled’. The fact that he is being covered in ‘ludicrous accusations and judgements’ is ‘ an irony of history’.