Europe’s free speech crisis

OPINION:

Americans signaled their desire for change earlier this month. They chose the presidential candidate who promised to restore free speech. Now, the example our country sets over the next four years just might save Europe.

Change is needed across the Atlantic. German police last week raided the home of Stefan Niehoff, a 64-year-old man who called Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck, a member of the Green Party, a “professional idiot.”

A judge issued a search warrant authorizing confiscation of the man’s phones and other electronic devices. Mr. Niehoff faces trial for sharing a funny image on X, even though he wasn’t even the one who created it.

Many of Europe’s former and current monarchies have statutes on the books that criminalize mockery of a head of state. Some, such as Belgium, have these provisions, but they sensibly decline to apply them in modern times.

Germany went to the other extreme. It took the obsolete law and expanded it to cover insults directed at any politician — though in practice the application is selective. This just like the Justice Department under President Biden, which will arrest anti-abortion demonstrators while looking the other way when left-wing activists disrupt church services or vandalize pro-life centers.

The right-of-center Alternative for Germany, or AfD, on Friday mocked Germany’s far-left ruling coalition for its selective decision to ignore violent crime in favor of pursuing thought criminals.

“Policies only an idiot could think up: Knife attackers are allowed 5 attacks. After the 6th, they lose their driving license. This is being seriously discussed in CDU-governed Berlin,” the AfD wrote on X on Friday.

So far, 700 formal “hate crime” complaints have been issued against people insulting Germany’s Green Party politicians, and the AfD is on the naughty list. A leader of the Christian Democrats, or CDU, recently lined up 113 votes in the German Parliament to persuade the courts to ban the AfD outright.

The ruling coalition is scared the AfD’s recent success at the state level will be repeated in national elections in February. It wants AfD knocked off the ballot.

This is reminiscent of how the Biden-Harris administration waited until a few months before the election to file felony charges against Donald Trump in the hopes of derailing the surging Republican candidate’s bid for a second term, along with state efforts to erase Mr. Trump’s name from the ballot.

The Democrats’ gambit failed, and now, the president-elect is in a position to pardon the targets of politicized prosecutions. Douglass Mackey should be at the top of the list, as he was hounded by the Justice Department after he reposted a joke image mocking Hillary Clinton — a “crime” not unlike Mr. Niehoff’s.

Once Mr. Trump has ended the political prosecutions here, he should consider the threats to speech beyond our shores. U.S. taxpayers are subsidizing the defense of illiberal overseas regimes that denigrate the fundamental freedoms of speech and religion.

London has been rounding up thought criminals who post memes that offend the ruling elite. In August, Telegram founder Pavel Durov was arrested in Paris for the offense of facilitating free speech. The European Digital Services Act threatens to impose the European Union’s censorship regime on U.S. companies.

This is where Mr. Trump’s mastery of deal-making comes in. He can issue an ultimatum to European leaders: Respect Western values, or you’re on your own. It wouldn’t take long for these nations to mend their ways.