The founder of the German anti-Islam protest movement Pegida has been hit with a €9,600 (£7,600) fine for a Facebook post branding refugees “cattle”, “scum” and “trash”.
A Dresden court on Tuesday ruled that Lutz Bachmann’s posts counted as racial incitement since they had stoked hatred against refugees on a public forum.
The state prosecutor had called for a seven-month prison sentence, while defence lawyer Katja Reichelt had argued for an acquittal for the 43-year-old, claiming that there was no proof that the Facebook account had been public.
The defence team had also claimed there was no proof that the posts had not been written by an impersonator, although a video played in court appeared to show Bachmann owning up to the comments: “Some screenshots have emerged, which were partly altered and shortened, in which I used a few words that we’ve all used, I’m sure, in our local pub.”
Bachmann already has a criminal record for a series of offences including theft, dealing drugs and drunk-driving.
Pegida, which stands for Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West, have been organising weekly protest marches against the German government’s refugee policy in Dresden and other cities since September 2014.
After drawing more than 10,000 protesters at one point last year, the number of attendees has dropped off more recently.
Bachmann, a trained chef, had resigned from the Pegida leadership in January 2015 after the emergence of a series of photographs that appeared to show him impersonating Hitler, but had continued to speak at the group’s rallies and has since been reinstated as one of the organisation’s chairmen.
