Calling Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU) as “Pinocchio” on Facebook has no criminal consequences. The Heilbronn public prosecutor’s office has discontinued the proceedings and declared that it was a permissible criticism of power covered by freedom of expression. For the same reasons, another case based on the same statement was ended, the authority said.
Heilbronn police examined criminal Facebook comments about Merz’s visit
During Merz’s visit to Heilbronn in October, users commented on a local police Facebook post almost 400 times, the police and public prosecutor’s office said. The public prosecutor’s office had to check whether 38 contributions were punishable – including the sentence “Pinocchio comes to HN”. According to the information, not all cases have been decided yet.
The Facebook post from the Heilbronn police headquarters was about a flight ban that had been imposed during the Chancellor’s visit.
The children’s book character Pinocchio first appeared in an 1883 novel by Italian author Carlo Collodi. In 1940, Disney made an animated film out of it. Pinocchio is known for his nose growing every time he tells a lie.
dpa/jcst
