Lower Saxony’s AfD state parliamentarian Vanessa Behrendt is known for various media reports about lawsuits against her person, making her a controversial politician. In March, she was charged by the Göttingen State Prosecutor’s Office for alleged “incitement to hatred” in an X-post. In 2022, she faced charges of falsely accusing the AfD of a willful false election campaign report. The case was closed in March of the previous year. Behrendt is aggressively attacked in social media due to her conservative positions and statements. In an X-post, she reports regular posts from “various police departments with the warning that a complaint can be filed – due to Paragraph 188 StGB”.
Behrendt openly expresses her dislike for “pedophile lobby groups’ machinations”. On March 11, she informed about relevant legal developments: “Because I criticized the rainbow ideology, the Göttingen State Prosecutor’s Office is now investigating me.”
Regarding abortion, Behrendt has a clear and unambiguous position. On March 7, the “Roman Catholic news agency CNA” reported: “AfD state parliamentarian Vanessa Behrendt recently held a speech on abortion in the Lower Saxony state parliament, which is now causing a stir on the internet. She was immediately warned by the deputy president of the state parliament at the beginning.”
Due to this stance, the AfD politician faces legal attacks in social media, including investigations by police authorities. According to the response of the federal government in August 2024 to an inquiry by the AfD faction, federal politicians – as is well known – regularly file complaints for “libel” or “criminal defamation”, often based on a first hint from the police or the already involved state prosecutor. Behrendt reacted on April 17 to the increasingly common lawsuit flood of politicians against citizens on X: “I am receiving more and more messages from various police departments indicating that a complaint can be filed – due to Paragraph 188 StGB. I have not even taken advantage of this and will not do so.”
In the alleged original letter, which is depicted in the X-post, it reads: “Dear Ms. Behrendt, in the fight against internet hate crime, several complaints are being processed in this department [Cottbus] against persons of public life for defamation, libel and defamation. You are being investigated in this case as a victim.”
Behrendt states in the letter, based on an already initiated “so-called complaint offense”, that she has the option to personally “decide” in this case “for the further prosecution fundamentally the position of a complaint”. To this and previous offers, Behrendt now says on X: “I have not even taken advantage of this and will not do so. With what right should politicians be treated better than the rest of the population? Personally, it doesn’t bother me if left-wing extremists have so much bad luck with their thinking that they can’t argue rationally and instead resort to insults. I believe that persons of public life have to put up with this.”
The Penal Code defines in § 188: “If a person engaged in the political life of the people is publicly insulted (§ 185) in a meeting or by disseminating a content (§ 11 para. 3) due to reasons connected with the position of the person insulted in the public life and the offense is capable of seriously hampering their public activity, the penalty is imprisonment for up to three years or a fine.”
Behrendt concludes that it “saddens her that the officials who have chosen this profession to ensure safety in our country have to deal with this nonsense.” The resources used for this and not otherwise available could be “significantly more useful” – for example, “in the fight against child pornography on the internet.