Hate-motivated insults a crime under new German law

The German government on Wednesday passed a law that makes hate-motivated insults a crime punishable with a fine or up to two years in prison.

German Minister of Justice Christine Lambrecht said the new law was meant to protect Jews, Muslims, gay people and people with disabilities, among other groups, The Associated Press reports.

The law extends to hate messages sent by text, email or letters.

“It is our responsibility to protect every single person in our society from hostility and exclusion,” Lambrecht said. “Members of Jewish or Muslim communities are being taunted and disparaged.”

The measure still needs parliamentary approval, the AP notes. Prior legislation did not allow for insults to be punished because insults are personal, not public.

Hate crimes and attacks on minorities have grown in the past few years, the AP reports, becoming commonplace through social media.

The German government said last week that hate crimes against LGBTQ people increased by 36 percent last year, Reuters reports. A total of 782 hate crimes against LGBTQ people were reported last year. About 150 of the reported incidents were violent.

“Hate crimes against queer people have been on the rise in the past three or four years,” Markus Ulrich, spokesperson for the German LGBTQ group Lesben- und Schwulenverband in Deutschland, told Reuters.

Antisemitic and xenophobic hate crimes rose 15.7 percent and 19.1 percent, respectively. An 8.54 percent rise in politically motivated crimes was also observed