A German comedian will appear in court after he was charged for making a joke about the assassination attempt on Donald Trump last year.
Sebastian Hotz could face up to three years in prison for comparing the attempted shooting of the US president at an election campaign rally in 2024 to trying to catch the last bus.
“You sadly just missed it,” he wrote shortly after the shooting on July 13.
Hotz, also known as El Hotzo, doubled down on the joke shortly afterwards, adding: “I find it fantastic when fascists die. Absolutely no one forces you to feel sorry for fascists – you can just not do it without the slightest consequence.”
Donald Trump received a minor injury to his right ear in the assassination attempt last year – Evan Vucci/AP Photo
Hotz was fired from his job with RBB, a public broadcaster, and charged with condoning and rewarding criminal offences.
His trial, scheduled to begin on July 23 at the Tiergarten district court in Berlin, has inflamed critics on both the Left and the Right, who are divided on whether his comments should be protected by free speech.
Gerd Buurmann, a Right-leaning comedian, said: “It is not ok that a satirist is brought to court just because he said something… Everything he said is disgusting, but he must be allowed to say it.”
But others in the public eye praised the decision, saying it showed that “the internet is not a legal free-for-all”.
One of the most prominent critics of the comedian’s comments has been Elon Musk. The Tesla owner tweeted angrily at Olaf Scholz, the then-German chancellor, noting: “Someone wishing death on the leading US presidential candidate and myself is paid to do so by the German government.”
Mr Musk then tagged Mr Scholz on X and asked: “Was ist das? [What is that?]”
The incident is not the first to cause a free speech stir in the world of comedy. In 2016, Jan Böhmermann, a TV host, was charged with breaking an obscure German law against insulting authority figures after a satirical poem about Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, the Turkish president.
He said Mr Erdoğan’s “stiff neck stinks of doner” kebab and he “loves to have sex with goats while oppressing minorities”.
Angela Merkel, the then-chancellor, personally approved the prosecution of the comedian after speaking to Turkish officials.
Böhmermann accused Ms Merkel of “serving me to a neurotic despot for tea and made me become a German Ai Weiwei”, with the case eventually dropped by prosecutors and the lese-majesty law abolished.
