6.  The applicant was born in 1951 and lives in Weinheim. He is a campaigner against abortion and operates an anti-abortion website.
7.  In December 2007 there was an on-going public debate on developments in human embryonic stem-cell research. As part of the debate the Catholic Bishop F. voiced criticism of human embryonic stem-cell research and a group of scientists at the University of Bonn responded to that criticism. On 13 December 2007 Bishop F. issued a press release repudiating allegations that his earlier comments had implied a degree of similarity between the scientists carrying out embryonic stem-cell research and the Nazis who had performed experiments on humans. He emphasised that he had had absolutely no intention of casting such defamatory aspersions upon the scientists, but reasserted his belief that there was an urgent need for such vitally important ethical issues to be debated critically. He claimed that he had never wished to imply that there had been any link between stem-cell research and the ideological and historical context of the crimes committed by the dehumanising Nazi system, which should not be relativised through comparison.
8.  On 18 December 2007, the applicant issued a press release for his initiative Never Again! (Nie Wieder! e.V) with the title:
“Dogs which have been hit bark! Stem-cell research in Germany” (Getroffene Hunde bellen! Stammzellenforschung in Deutschland)
The press release was published on the Internet and handed out as leaflets. It read:
“The initiative Never Again! [Nie Wieder! e.V.] and the Austrian Christian Social Working Group [Christlich Soziale Arbeitsgemeinschaft Österreichs] wish to make known their opposition to the press release issued by the University of Bonn on 13 December 2007, which bears the signatures of eighteen well-known professors and in which the professors express their outrage at the comments made by Bishop F. [name abbreviated by the Court] comparing modern-day stem-cell research to the experiments on human beings carried out by the Nazis.
The professors appear to have forgotten that these experiments were performed in Nazi times by willing doctors and scientists. These doctors and scientists, who were clearly in bondage to the rogue State and subservient to it, also carried out their research solely ‘for the good of the people’.
The research performed during the Nazi regime took place at a later stage of human life.
The present-day research takes place at an earlier stage of human life.
Do the professors want to determine humans’ right to life on the basis of how useful they are? The principle of human dignity does not apply only after a particular phase of growth has been completed, and people should not be allowed to experiment at will during this phase.
The professors can spin it any way they want. Aggravated murder [Mord] will always be aggravated murder, regardless of the stage of life at which the human being is destroyed. The fact that others were responsible for performing these contract killings does not provide moral justification for working with this ‘human material’.
The comments made by Bishop F. [name abbreviated by the Court], which were presumably addressed directly to Prof. Dr B. [name abbreviated by the Court], were absolutely accurate.
Prof. Dr B uses embryos – people – for research purposes at the University of Bonn that were murdered in Israel and then sold to Germany for significant sums of money.
During Nazi times, German scientists performed research experiments on Jews and then murdered them.
Nowadays, the unborn children of people who follow the religion of Moses – the Jews – are murdered and sold to the ‘Christian’ country of Germany for research purposes, all with the blessing of both Israel and Germany!
The comparison drawn by Bishop F. was entirely justified!
The crimes against democracy being committed in the here and now must be denounced in the strongest possible terms and brought to people’s attention.
The time has finally arrived to overcome the spirit of Auschwitz!!”
9.  On 12 November 2008 the Weinheim District Court convicted the applicant of insult and sentenced him to a penalty of thirty daily fines of 15 euros (EUR) each. In its judgment the court acknowledged the applicant’s right to freedom of expression and to impart to others his beliefs that the fusion of an egg and a sperm represented the beginning of human life and that research using imported stem cells from terminated embryos involved the destruction of human life. It also emphasised that the applicant had the fundamental liberty to exercise his freedom of expression by imparting his opinion strikingly and pointedly, including in the form of abusive criticism addressed at well-known researchers referred to by name. However, the court found that, when viewed in its entirety, the press release had exceeded the permissible bounds of abusive criticism. The court based this decision on the fact that the implication that the scientists had been guilty not just of committing murder but of doing so for deeply despicable motives had been a central theme running through the press release and had escalated in the phrase “The time has finally arrived to overcome the spirit of Auschwitz”. It concluded that the applicant had intended to imply that the scientists carrying out stem-cell research had been prompted by the same criminal, sadistic and dehumanising motives as those responsible for performing unimaginably cruel mass experiments on humans, such as Mengele in Auschwitz. Given Prof. Dr B.’s position as a doctor and scientist, this implication had been severely insulting.
10.  On 26 March 2009 the Mannheim Regional Court rejected the applicant’s appeal. Similarly to the District Court, the Regional Court acknowledged the applicant’s right to freedom of expression and that his press release had contributed to a debate of great public interest. It further held that the majority of the statements in the press release had been value judgments and that therefore the press release had to be classified as a value judgment and not as a statement of fact. Nonetheless, the court stated that freedom of expression was not granted unconditionally and could be subject to restrictions with a view to protecting, inter alia, the right to personal honour. When examining contributions to a debate of public interest, however, there had to be a presumption in favour of freedom of speech. The Regional Court further found that the criterion for abusive criticism had not been met. Criticism which was excessive or even aggressive in nature was not necessarily abusive. The relevant criterion was whether the main purpose of the criticism had been to defame an individual rather than to debate the relevant issue. The court concluded that this was not applicable in the case at hand, since the applicant’s past behaviour and the content of the press release showed that the focus had been on “the issue” rather than the individual doctor against whom allegations had been made. The court therefore found that the right to freedom of expression had to be balanced with the legally protected personality rights of Prof. Dr B. and emphasised that freedom of expression granted equal protection to all statements of opinion, regardless of whether they were useful, useless, correct, incorrect, emotional, rational or even polemical or insulting. The Regional Court took into account that the press release had represented the applicant’s contribution to the formation of public opinion, but believed that referring to Prof. Dr B. by name had been equivalent to linking his professional conduct to the atrocities committed by the Nazis. It concluded that this had represented a serious infringement of his personality rights, which had also been unnecessary since the applicant could have contributed to the debate without referring to the professor by name.
11.  On 15 February 2010 the Court of Appeal rejected an appeal on points of law by the applicant as unfounded and on 6 July 2010 the Federal Constitutional Court refused to admit a constitutional complaint lodged by the applicant without providing reasons (1 BvR 827/10).