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CJ Hopkins, author, satirist, and playwright, will be re-tried for thought crime in Berlin on Monday 30 September at 10:30am in Room 145a of the Kammergericht, located at Elßholzstraße 30-33.
The trial might as well be in Room 101.
In this handy fact sheet, CJ gives the timeline of his experience being prosecuted by the German government for two tweets he sent in 2022 criticising the country’s lockdown and mask mandate policies. Those tweets had images of his book cover attached, the centrepiece of which is a medical mask beneath which a swastika is faintly visible.
As a result, he was charged with disseminating propaganda in support of a National Socialist organisation, a bizarre allegation given the context.
In January 2024, he was acquitted. The judge made it clear that the charges were baseless: "[W]hen taking into account the text associated with the use of the mask, it can easily be seen that the connection to National Socialism is made in an emphatically negative sense."
Inexplicably, the prosecution appealed the verdict, forcing CJ to go through a second trial.
If his acquittal is confirmed, CJ should be free. If, however, the acquittal is overturned, the case will be kicked back down to the lower court for yet another trial, a “death loop” which could continue indefinitely.
CJ and his lawyer, the litigator and criminal defence attorney Friedemann Däblitz, join me to discuss the case, the procedure of being dragged through the courts by a government with unlimited resources, and the global crackdown on free speech and dissent of which this case is a part.
With the support of his readers and subscribers, CJ has been able to stay the course and, with Friedemann’s help, argue the case where it truly matters: in open court.
It remains to be seen whether justice will be done.
You can find CJ on Substack, X, or at his websites here and here.
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Episode 122: CJ Hopkins and Friedemann Däblitz on Justice, Thought Crime, and State Power