What a Gas Canister and a Hand Grenade Will Cost You on Facebook

Of course you hate refugees. They’re taking your apartment, your job, your women—understandable that a man might get a little heated on Facebook. This was apparently the internal logic of a twenty-five-year-old from Lower Bavaria who decided that rather than sending a refugee center clothing or food or money, he’d offer something more useful: a gas canister and a hand grenade.

I’ve got a gas canister and a hand grenade lying around for that vermin. Free delivery, he wrote in a Facebook group. That one sentence is now costing him a great deal of money. The district court in Passau ruled that the comment constituted incitement to hatred under German law and handed down a fine of 7,500 euros.

So the next time you feel the urge to vent your feelings about people fleeing war and poverty, you have two options. You can scream your thoughts into Facebook and reach deep into your pocket for the privilege, deep enough that it hopefully hurts. Or you can stand in front of a wall and whisper to it, very quietly, how much you hate refugees for taking your apartment and your job and your women—or whatever other nonsense is rattling around in the skulls of the concerned and aggrieved these days.