A court on Wednesday upheld a fine against the founder of Germany’s anti-Islam movement Pegida for inciting hatred against foreigners by referring to refugees as “cattle,” “garbage” and a “dirty bunch” on Facebook last year.
The court in Dresden upheld a 9,600-euro (10,200-dollar) fine against Lutz Bachmann - the founder of Pegida, or Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamization of the West - after his lawyer and the prosecution withdrew their appeals as per the judge’s suggestion.
A lower court handed Bachmann the fine in May, but prosecutors filed an appeal to achieve a prison sentence. They considered Bachmann’s posts to be maliciously derisive, inciting hatred against foreigners, disruptive to public order and an attack on the dignity of refugees.
Bachmann’s lawyers had argued that someone else posted the offensive comments from the defendant’s account, and were pushing for acquittal.
Bachmann was not in court on Wednesday. He has been living on the Spanish island of Teneriffe, off the coast of northern Africa, for several months.
Pegida is bitterly opposed to Chancellor Angela Merkel’s open-door refugee policy and conducts weekly rallies in opposition to what its members perceive as the Islamization of German society by Muslim immigrants.
Bachmann regularly uses social media to convey Pegida’s main messages: refugees are “criminal invaders” and that the “lying press” is colluding with the government to promote a romanticized version of multiculturalism.
The Pegida leader was on probation when he made the comments. He has a criminal record that includes aggravated theft, dealing cocaine, drink driving and failure to pay child support.