A couple appeared before a court to answer to charges of incitement because the man had established a Facebook group that was “hostile to refugees”. Peter M. founded a secret group called AFB (Anti Refugee Movement) about a year ago on Facebook. As a secret group, people who are not members of it would have been unable to see its content. He and his wife Melanie were administrators of the Facebook group, so both had to attend the court on charges of sedition. The offending Facebook page’s founding statement was read out in the courtroom. Written by Peter M. it read: “The war and economic refugees are flooding our country. They bring terror, fear, sorrow. They rape our women and put our children at risk. Bring an end to it!”.
Judge Lukas Neubeck, presiding over the case, said the fact the group had a picture of a German flag on its Facebook page confirmed for him that AFB is a right wing group.
In the two months following its creation, 900 members had joined the group. Merkur disclosed that soon after, others had stumbled upon the group and reported it to Facebook administrators.
Facebook examined activity posted within the group and could find no problems with it.