Germany: Judges Association wants EU-wide action against Telegram

In view of the networking of radical opponents of the Corona measures on the Telegram messenger service, the German Association of Judges (DRB) is calling on the federal government to tackle the problem in a European way.

Berlin - "The rule of law is called upon to counter growing radicalization in parts of social networks more resolutely," said DRB federal managing director Sven Rebehn to the newspapers of the Funke Mediengruppe (Wednesday editions). After Telegram has so far refused to cooperate under the Network Enforcement Act, the federal government should try to increase the pressure on the company through joint action by all EU countries, he said. "The EU's highly advanced digital services law, which aims to regulate the handling of criminal content on the Internet across Europe, offers a possible lever for this."

In order to better enforce laws against hatred and agitation online, the Association of Judges also demanded hundreds of new positions for public prosecutors and judges nationwide. "With the new obligation to report certain crimes to the Federal Criminal Police Office for social networks, which will come into force in February 2022, the public prosecutor's offices are cautiously estimated to have around 150,000 new proceedings each year," said Rebehn. In order to cope with this, nationwide "several hundred additional public prosecutors and criminal judges" are needed.

It is also important to further advance the specialization in the public prosecutor's offices through central offices against hate crime and specialist departments.

Source: Der Newsticker

Photo: Dado Rubic/Reuters