Sign into an existing account

Investigators launch raids on misogynistic online agitators
Police across Germany have searched the homes of online agitators because they are said to have posted misogynistic posts. The BKA also has an extreme subculture in its sights.

The Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) and the Frankfurt am Main Public Prosecutor's Office are taking action against misogyny online one day before International Women's Day. Since six o'clock on Thursday morning, police officers have been searching the homes of 45 suspects in eleven federal states.

In addition, officials had already taken action against 37 other suspects in advance. They are accused of “misogynistic postings with criminal relevance,” as the BKA and the public prosecutor’s office explained in a joint press release.

The investigation is therefore concerned with inciting posts, but also with posts "in which women were sexualized, slandered and insulted." Other posts advocated the rape and sexual assault of women or publicly disseminated torture and killing videos, the authorities said.

An important legal basis for the current investigation is a ruling by the Cologne Higher Regional Court from 2020. The court ruled that general denigrations against women can also constitute criminal incitement.

The background to the campaign is the joint project group “Combating Misogyny on the Internet”, in which officials from the BKA and the Central Office for Combating Internet Crime (ZIT) of the Frankfurt Public Prosecutor's Office who specialize in hate speech work together. The investigators took targeted action against misogynistic hate comments online and, according to SPIEGEL information, investigated and identified hate posters in social networks, but also in special Telegram channels.

The investigators also targeted certain forums of so-called “pick-up artists” and “incels”. Both are male-dominated subcultures in which misogyny is particularly widespread. (Read more about the incel movement, which also celebrates violence and terror against women, here.)

Six months probation
The project group is intensively committed to prosecuting misogyny on the internet, said BKA President Holger Münch: “We consciously go into the spaces of hate, identify acts and perpetrators, bring them out of anonymity and hold them accountable. «

According to SPIEGEL information, there has already been a conviction as a result of the investigation. The accused, who is said to have posted numerous misogynistic posts, was sentenced to six months in prison on probation. The verdict is not yet legally binding.

Senior public prosecutor Benjamin Krause from the ZIT emphasized that perpetrators should know that systematic misogyny on the Internet is also being systematically pursued. “Many of the perpetrators publicly and blatantly rant online,” Krause told SPIEGEL. This makes identification sometimes easy. According to Krause, the accused include not only men, but also some women.

https://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/web/bundeskriminalamt-razzien-gegen-frauenfeindliche-online-hetzer-a-5f59b59f-93c4-49c9-af90-02424deedbea