Germany starts enforcing new counterterrorism law
Germany's counterterrorism law came into effect on April 2.
The law, which was passed by the
German parliament last summer, was approved by German President Frank-Walter
Steinmeier only this week.
Social media sites will have to
adapt themselves to the articles of the new law as of February 2022. They will
do this by removing content that incites violence, threats, and rape. The same
sites will also have to remove hate speech from them.
Social media sites will have to
also notify German authorities about those posting comments that encourage the
aforementioned crimes.
Terrorists' return
Germans live under a perpetual
fear from the return of terrorists to Germany, according to a new study.
The study, conducted by the
European Center for Counterterrorism and Intelligence Studies, says Germans
consider the return of those terrorists a direct threat to their country as
well as to the rest of Europe.
Around 1,050 German nationals had
travelled to Syria and Iraq to join the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS),
the study says.
Around 330 of these German
nationals already returned home between 2014 and 2015, it adds.
The study says a German team is on
a secret mission outside Germany now to collect information about German
citizens who are within the ranks of ISIS now.
Training mosque imams
The German Ministry of the
Interior has already started training mosque imams in the light of the new
counterterrorism law.
Mosque imams in the northwestern
German city of Osnabrück have already received training.
Around 30 imams from the city participated in the training which was delivered in the German language.
