EUROPEAN COURT OF HUMAN RIGHTS
COUNCIL OF EUROPE
67075 STRASBOURG CEDEX
FRANCE
Oct. 14, 2016
RE. Addendum in context of our complaint filed under No. 35285/16. New criminal complaint submitted against me under a false name resulting in second confiscation of all IT equipment, body search etc. The ultimate goal is to suppress a blogger by financial attrition to the point where he can no longer pay the stipulated fines and is sent to jail.
Honorable Judges,
My daughter and I would like to call on you and ask for your help. We are being continuously harassed by the German government agency Jobcenter Munich (in the following JC) and the Federal Employment Agency with unrelenting criminal complaints. The latest was an online criminal complaint sent by email on May 7, 2015 to the Bavarian Police from the IP address 217.253.91.237
under a false name according to the police report!
This was followed in
October 2015 with three police ARMED with FIREGUNS (two men, one woman) coming to our apartment around 7:40 AM and confiscating ALL our IT equipment including router, USB sticks, ext. HD, cables and including my smartphone. One police man dashed into the room of my daughter without knocking. My daughter had already left for school. They took photos of our apartment and of the house.
These are Nazi methods!
I was frisked and it was obvious that the female officer had been tasked to bodysearch my daughter and that they would have confiscated her smartphone as well.
The charge sheet of
Munich Judge Pabst reads "publication of images of Merkel in Nazi uniform, Himmler and others between May 8, 2015 or some time before".
My daughter sent an
Urgent Motion to the Constitutional Court to get our equipment released. This was denied!
My daughter and I are 99% sure based on convincing circumstancial evidence, that the sender is either from the JC, the Federal Employment Agency Munich or a goon.
An IP address lookup established as location "80999 Munich". Due South of this location in about 2 km distance as the crow flies the Jobcenter Pasing is located and about 3 km NE is the home of a staff member of the Jobcenter head office. (Geo location is not 100% precise)
Two written requests with the Court in Munich to grant disclosure of the name behind this IP address were not answered.
The prosecutor's charges were based on two images.
- One was the image of Himmler which was the subject matter of the trial pertaining to the case on which we sent a complaint to the ECHR and part of my open letter to prosecutor Steinkraus-Koch in my response to his charges pertaining to that case and titled ''Is prosecutor Steinkraus-Koch aware of the endless Nazi pictures in the German media?" Anybody who is able to read and understand the German language can in no way find an indorsement of fascism in my response. It is rather a critique of an excessive preoccupation and obsession with Naziism in the German media.
- The second picture is a photoshopped caricature of the CEO of Yahoo Marissa Mayer clad in a Nazi uniform with swastika and still to be found on the Internet. On the caricature is printed "Work from home?" and below "Nine". It is a reference to her No-At-Home-Work Policy she implemented in 2013. The "Nine" is a double entendre of the German word "Nein (No)" and the nine to five job. The picture is an obvious joke unless one lives deep in the forests of Bavaria.
I came to the court hearing in May 2016 with my daughter for two reasons: I had asked the court to call her as witness and secondly, because I knew Judge Birkhofer-Hofmann to be cunning and confrontational and I wanted my daughter to have a first-hand experience of how a court in notorious Bavaria operates.
The written
judgment from July 19, 2016 does not in any way reflect the actual course of the trial. It merely states I invoked the right to free speech.
What I presented in court and what is nowhere mentioned in the judgment was in fact:
- I intended to table a Concern of bias of Judge Birkhofer-Hoffmann right at the start of the trial. This was denied by Judge Birkhofer-Hoffmann saying I could do this later during the trial. I could finally table it half way through the trial.
- I read passages from page 8 and 9 of our complaint submitted to the ECHR and filed under No. 35285/16.
- I cited arguments from decisions of the ECHR like CASE OF VAJNAI v. HUNGARY (Application no. 33629/06), CASE OF HORVÁTH AND VAJNAI v. HUNGARY (Application nos. 55795/11 and 55798/11), Case FRATANOLÓ v. HUNGARY.
- I pointed to Protocol No. 7, ARTICLE 4 Right not to be tried or punished twice. (1)
- I referred to Case Rachdad v. France when asking for a Court order to issue the name and address of the holder of the IP address 217.253.91.237.
- I showed among others one photo of Hitler with swastika that is featured on the youth website Bento of the publishing company Der Spiegel as an example how Hitler is used to discredit the German political party AfD. The court was not interested to see it.
- Judge B-H refused my daughter to attend the trial because I "had called her as a witness. She has to stay outside the court room until she is called in as a witness". Judge B-H gave me the option to release her as witness in which case she could attend the trial. However, the policeman I had called as witness was allowed to stay thoughout. I complied grudgingly, but even then Judge B-H would not call my daughter in. Only when I protested in a very raised voice did the judge give in!
I later wrote a
letter to Judge B-H enquiring about the legal basis for her decision to refuse attendance of my daughter. No response.
It is important to know that Judge B-H was also the judge in Case 2 which is the subject matter of our submitted complaint. In my opinion this constitutes
a "double circumstance" similar to the Case Ferrantelli and Santangelo v. Italy.
After receipt of the written verdict, I asked the court to see the protocol of the trial because I am sensing a coverup. No response.
On Aug. 3, 2016 I wrote a letter to the Munich Court asking for a trial de novo by furnishing solid evidence and relevant decisions of the ECHR. No response to this day!
The fine amounts to € 2.900,- plus court fees and thus the aggregate fine of all three cases against us now amounts to € 7,346.86 plus the expenditures for lawyers, mailings, copy costs and IT equipment! Free speech gets a little bit expensive in Germany.
The chronological flow of legal charges pressed against me is as follows:
Incident 1
In 2012 I started a business in home decor to become independent from Hartz IV social support, ran into a financial bottleneck due to immediate financial cuts by the Munich Jobcenter (JC) that caused any investment/product development to stall. My daughter and I were under severe financial strain. Despite repeated requests no remedy was available and any communication refused by the JC. I started to write a blog (http://meinjobcenter.blogspot.com) about my experiences with the JC including an
open email to the BMAS (German Ministry of Labor).
This resulted into a Cease and Desist letter sent to me by the Federal Employment Agency's Mr Manfred Jäger and the JC respectively, demanding to delete that blog post or face a fine of € 10,000 (ten thousand). I refused and nothing followed, or so I thought. Our criminal complaint for coercion was denied because a) the request of take down was justified and b) the intent of a threat of a financial fine can not be established!
Case 1
During that time in 2012 the EU put austerity measures against Greece into effect and there were severe protests in Greece. All major media companies in Germany published the then well-known caricature of
Merkel dressed in a Nazi uniform with swastika (see last page). So did I on my blog with a link to an article on RT.com about demonstrations in Athens.
In March 2013 our Mac computer was confiscated for altogether 25 months and I was charged based § 86 a STGB (display of forbidden Nazi insignia).
The court proceedings went as follows:
- In a pre-trial letter Judge Grain questioned my sanity and alluded to the possibility of having me assessed. The implied suggestion was to plead guilty and face a lenient sentence.
- My court-appointed "lawyer" (Mrs Aglaia Muth, Munich) encouraged me to concur.
- After my "lawyer" had seen the case files she told me she tends to agree with the judge.
- In the first trial in Feb. 2014 my "lawyer" did not say a single word in my defense. In the protocol it says "Defense lawyer of the accused pleaded: Punishment at the court's discretion.The accused shall be given the opportunity to draw his important data from the computer before its impoundment."
- After the judge's final statement I turned to her: 'So I get my computer back?' Her response was: 'No, because you are appealing'.
- She refused to disclose the initial criminal complaint with police!
- In the appeals hearing she sat again completely disengaged. Upon being questioned by Judge Bassler, she said 'It may be possible that such Merkel-Nazi images had appeared in the German media but she could not recall exactly.'
- In the protocol of the appeals hearing it says: "The defense lawyer puts the penalty at the discretion of the court."
- All defense documents were prepared by me. There does not exist a single written page of my "defense lawyer"!
- After I lost the final appeals, "defense lawyer" Muth mailed me the final verdict without writing city and post code on the envelope (!!!) so that I received it 14 days later! I had missed the deadline to submit a constitutional complaint due to attorney malpractice.
I complained with the
Attorneys Chamber Munich (RAK München) about attorney Muth and her fees for services not in accordance with professional duties. The RAK München was not interested and so I filed a complaint with the Mediator for Attorneys in Berlin ('Schlichtungsstelle für Rechtsanwälte) which replied that Lawyer Muth did not agree to a mediation. In other words, an attorney gets paid despite obvious malpractice. In lay terms I would call her performance blatant fraud.
The total fine amounts to € 2,707.86 (€ 1,465.50 and € 1,242.36 for a "lawyer" without any professional ethics).
The court kept my computer confiscated from March 2013 until April 2015, clearly contravening decisions of various courts in Germany about the duration of computer confiscations.
The Munich court and my court appointed "lawyer" adamantly refused to grant access to the criminal complaint letter. Even a letter from my daughter with the request to divulge the name of the complainant was two times refused by prosecutor Peter Preuss citing a "legitimate interest of protection" for the complainant. It later turned out the Chief of the Employment Agency in the city of Ingolstadt Mr. Jäger was afforded this "legitimate interest of protection".
After an intensive search on the Internet, I finally discovered the decisions of the ECHR in the cases 'Foucher v. France', 'The Fortum Corporation v. Finland' and 'SUOMINEN v. FINLAND'. Only after I referred to these cases, the court in Munich finally relented after more than three years of dodging and in May 2016 I was given access to the case file which mysteriously did not include the whole correspondence of Mr Jäger. A total of 19 pages were missing.
After two requests with the Munich court I still have not seen those files. Despite my request to hand over said documents, Mr. Jäger chose to remain silent and I finally turned to the Minister of Labor Ms Nahles because the Federal Employment Agency is a federal corporation under public law with self-government, which is subject to legal supervision by the Federal Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs (§ 393 Abs. 1 SGB III). No response from her as with several other emails sent to her before. In Oct. 2016 I finally filed a criminal complaint against the Minister.
Minister Nahles seems to be averse communicating with shudras of the Hartz IV caste and rather entertains the opinion that Hartz IV recipients are legal fair game. The minister displays and conveys a strange understanding of democracy.
In a
letter dated Aug. 7, 2016 I requested a trial de novo because of a violation of Art. 6, 1 and 3 of the Convention and gave detailed reasons. To this date I received no reply.
Upon my consideration to take a lawyer in this case, I received this advice frohm one lawyer in Germany who handles cases against the Jobcenters:
"I would advise against the intended criminal (?) - Proceedings against the JC - GF, especially when it will cost money. I do not think you can find a judge who will sentence any of the two officials".
Case 2
This case has been submitted to the ECHR by my lawyer Dr. Neumann in July 2016 and is filed under
No. 35285/16.
I would like to add some points which have not been mentioned in our complaint.
For the appeals hearing I brought my daughter along, so she could witness Judge Bassler of the Landgericht Munich. The same judge who had tried me in Case 1! I do believe this constitutes a "double coincidence" as the ECHR had established in 'CASE OF FERRANTELLI AND SANTANGELO v. ITALY' (Application no. 19874/92).
- She saw how Judge Bassler interrupted me when I set out to give clear evidence how widespread and continued pictures of Nazi leaders with swastikas are presented in the German media and German television. The jurymen were not supposed to hear or see this.
- The judge falsely claimed an article in Der Spiegel about Greece (Das Vierte Reich - The Fourth Reich) would analyse the Nazi involvement in a critical fashion. The article does nothing in that respect and is to the contrary a whitewash of German EU policy against Greece.
- My daughter witnessed how Judge Bassler called the police officer, who had confiscated our computer in 2013, as witness and asked him if the blog post with pictures and the quote of Himmler was still online. Judge Bassler did this in order to influence the jury and to present me as dangerous. There was no reason to call him.
- She then asked him hypocritically what I had responded to the invitation of the police for a questioning in that case and failed to mention, that I had asked police in my email reply why they failed to mention § 163a STPO (which states that there is no obligation to come to a questioning) and that I pointed to the Miranda Rights in the USA, where this is obligatory to be mentioned!
Finally, I would like to add that I was represented in the appeals hearing by attorney
Dr. Aiko Petersen from Munich. He had agreed in Jan. 2015 to represent me at the court hearing in May 2015. During those four months he showed no interest to discuss the case.
Right after the appeals trial in May 2015 I told him in the presence of my daughter that I would love to know who had filed the criminal complaint against me. He did not respond. Months later, when I complained about him with the 'Schlichtungsstelle der Rechtsanwaltschaft' (Mediation) in Berlin, I learned that he had seen the case files! I believe this contravenes Art. 6 of the Convention. He had even proffered his services for the final appeals for a fee of € 416.
Coda
All criminal complaints submitted to the court by me and my daughter have been rejected!
The Jobcenter Munich together with the Munich court have one goal: they want to get my critical blog purged from the internet. In all court hearings the repeated question was if the respective blog posts were still online.
My experience with the Munich court after so far three trials, cases which in a country like the USA would have been thrown out of court by a judge right away, is that this is not a court one would expect in a democratic country, but a Kangaroo Court. The Munich court operates under the premise that Hartz IV recipients are stupid anyway and can and will be pressured into submission. Its ultimate goal is to suppress a blogger by financial attrition to the point where he can no longer pay the stipulated fines and is sent to jail.
It is a court that is aided by colluding lawyers like Aglaia Muth and Dr. Aiko Petersen, devoid of any professional ethics and in cahoots with a neoliberal government agency that is charged with pressing people into low-paying jobs in order to guarantee Germany's only business model, to dominate a continent via an export-oriented economy.
My daughter and I greatly appreciate you took the time to read our concise portrayal.
Sincerely,
Xxx
Xxx
____________
(1) Decision Case Sergey Zolotukhin v. Russia [GC] - 14939/03 Judgment 10.2.2009 [GC] - Article 4 of Protocol No. 7.
All statements presented here can be proven with documents.
This is an image from the German media
This is the image from my blog post.
"Unfuckable lard-arse" is a quote made by the then Italian PM Berlusconi and which made headlines around the world.
It is a little difficult to understand why the swastikas on my posted image contravene the law while on the other images they do not. It is even more surprising, why no complaint was filed by Mr. Jäger about the same images in the German media which have a much higher viewer base than my blog could ever generate.
