6 December 2025
Defamation cases against MPs are on the rise in Germany
More than 4,400 cases of public insult, defamation and slander were filed against German politicians last year. sunday world Informed.
The newspaper cited figures from Germany’s national serious crime investigation body, the Federal Criminal Police Office.
In 2023, there were significantly fewer violations at 2,598 and in 2022 at 1,404, representing an almost three-fold increase in cases over the past two years.
The surge comes as German politics remains fractured, driven by the popularity of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party.
The AfD often leads or lags behind Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s centre-right CDU/CSU bloc in the polls and its supporters are accused of targeting politicians from rival parties with false claims.
Section 188 of the Criminal Code protects politicians from such violations on their reputations, with violations punishable by a fine or up to five years in prison.
The AfD faction in the Bundestag, Germany’s parliament, recently called for the section to be scrapped, despite the party legislature filing hundreds of criminal complaints under the measure.
Section 188 was expanded in 2021 to include defamation and slander as well as “insult” when directed at “persons in political life” in a manner that is likely to substantially impair their public activities.
The AfD, which campaigns on an anti-immigration, anti-elite platform, is blamed by centrists for normalizing aggression.