Report guest lecture: Dr. Christoph Hebbecker
On May 16, 2025, Dr Christoph Hebbecker from the Attorney General’s Office Cologne gave a lecture as part of the talk series “International Criminal Law” titled “Digital Hate Crime – Investigative Approaches and Current Developments from the Perspective of Law Enforcement Authorities”. His lecture was also held in cooperation with the Feminist Law Clinic as part of the lecture series “Feminism & Law”.
Dr Hebbecker began by introducing the “Central Office and Contact Point for Cybercrime North Rhine-Westphalia (ZAC NRW)” and then outlined the relevant criminal offenses, such as Sections 86 and 86a (dissemination or use of unconstitutional symbols), Section 130 (incitement of masses), Section 140 (approval of offenses), and Sections 185 et seq. (insults) of the German Criminal Code, whose prosecution is dealt with by Division 3 of the ZAC on digital hate crime. He reported on the initiatives “Wer hetzt, verliert!” (“Who Incites, loses”) and “Verfolgen statt nur Löschen” (“Prosecuting Instead of Just Deleting”), working in cooperation with Bundesliga football clubs and media groups to prosecute hate crime more effectively. Dr Hebbecker identified the reporting process as a key challenge in prosecuting expression-related offenses and discussed possible digital solutions and the obstacles to their implementation in practice.
Using striking practical examples, Dr Hebbecker refuted the narrative that the prosecution of such offences constitutes an attack on freedom of expression and emphasised that criminal prosecution in this area is aimed precisely at protecting spaces that are intended to guarantee the exercise of freedom of expression. Dr Hebbecker also illustrated the challenges of identifying defendants in the digital space based on requests for information directed at international big tech companies. Finally, Dr Hebbecker addressed current legislative reforms at both the European (Digital Services Act) and national (Digital Services Act Implementation Act – Digitale-Dienste-Gesetz) level. While he generally assessed these efforts positively, he critically noted that the new reporting obligations of online platforms were weakened in comparison to previous national legislation (Netzwerkdurchsetzungsgesetz).
Paul Matthies