Showing the middle finger and saying “fuck” to a politician, even the Vice Chancellor, is permitted in Austria provided it is well justified, ruled the Appeals Court in Vienna, citing freedom of expression, as published on Thursday.
The Appeals Court upheld the ruling of a lower court addressed by the leader of the far-right and Vice Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache after he was attacked by a group of the far-left and “publicly insulted” at an event.
In a ruling published on Wednesday, the judges emphasized that “the rejection of a political leader” can be “expressed in a provocative and shocking manner” and that this is a “fundamental element of freedom of expression”.
In a video posted on social media, recorded during the event in October, militants from the far-left organization “Linkswende jetzt” (Left Now) listed a number of reasons why they claimed they had the right to say “fuck Strache” while showing the middle finger.
This group welcomed the ruling on Thursday as a “victory for freedom of expression and media freedom” and stated that now any political speech can contain the phrase “I say fuck to Strache”.
In France, a 57-year-old protester in 2009 was sentenced to pay a fine of 30 years for “insulting the head of state” after he displayed a sign saying “O….i!” while passing by a parade that included then-President Nicolas Sarkozy. However, the European Court of Human Rights ruled in 2013 that France violated the right to freedom of expression with such a ruling.
