Comedian Dieter Nuhr has failed in a court battle to stop a Muslim critic from calling him a “preacher of hate” because of his jokes about Islam.
Nuhr argued before the state court in Stuttgart that Erhat Toka, a Muslim from Osnabrück, shouldn’t be allowed to call him a hate preacher in online comments.
But a court spokesman said on Tuesday that the words “hate preacher” were covered by freedom of speech, the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung reported.
The court rejected Nuhr’s application for a warning and an injunction against Toka.
But the judges did agree on restrictions against an edited photo that Toka had created featuring Nuhr’s face superimposed on a stop sign, saying that he must stop using it or face a fine.
Toka first came to prominence in late 2014, when his accusations that Nuhr was inciting people and insulting religious communities were publicized.
He published a video clip online showing all of Nuhr’s anti-Islamic jokes edited together and organized a demonstration outside the comedian’s show in Osnabrück.