Angela Merkel has made a controversial decision to allow the prosecution of a German comedian who’s been accused of violating an obscure libel law by Turkish strongman Recep Tayyip Erdogan—but Merkel says she’ll be pushing to eliminate the law in question and the comedian is expected to be punished by, at most, being required to pay a fine.
The backstory here, ironically, is that German comedian Jan Böhmermann is in trouble for doing a bit that itself mocked Erdogan for being a whiny little crybaby. (Also, relations between Germany and Turkey are currently very tense because of the refugee crisis.) From the Guardian:
The scene was broadcast shortly after it emerged that Turkey had demanded the deletion of a satirical song from a German comedy show, extra3, and Böhmermann’s poem was deliberately framed as a test of the boundaries of satire.
Throughout his reading, the comedian is advised by another comedian impersonating a media lawyer, who tells him this poem is precisely the sort of thing that does not qualify as satire and is therefore illegal.
Erdogan then made a formal complaint to Germany about Böhmermann, citing Article 103 of the country’s criminal code, which prohibits “insulting a foreign head of state or a member of a foreign government in Germany who is acting in an official capacity.” The law is an anachronism that dates back to the time when insulting another country’s king was punishable by a life sentence in prison, and Merkel is now advocating that it be taken off the books. For the time being, the New York Times says it’s “highly unlikely [Böhmermann] would go to jail as the court is likely to rule that his poem was permitted as freedom of expression.” And the Guardian says even if Böhmermann is convicted he would “likely be asked to pay a small fine or make a donation to charity.”