The Long Arm of the German Government
Oliver Janich - in Jail Philippines
2026-09-12 11.43
Here is an interesting (actually terrifying) case that any German should know who believes they can freely express their opinion on German politics while living in the Philippines.
German police can turn a mere accusation against you into a long prison sentence in the Philippines without legal process whatsoever. This is bad as it is, but it gets worse when you consider that the actual case involved the exercise of free speech on the Internet.
It’s too complex to fully explain here. Fact is, if you miss the deadline for objecting to a penalty imposed by the government, or if you simply protest your innocence, the German police can claim (falsely, I might add) that you use your passport to evade the law, and the Philippines will put you in prison and keep you there until you admit your guilt or there has been a final decision by a German court.
In other words, if you have the audacity to defend yourself, which can take years, or you refuse to plead guilty, you will stay in jail until it is over.
That means, even if you exercise your right of free speech, the German government can (and will) put you into a Filipino jail until you admit your guilt and pay up.
The German constitutional court has rejected this practice, but that does not change the fact that Oliver Janich spent six month in jail. Furthermore, there is no guarantee that it won’t happen again as lower courts in Germany frequently ignore the constitution or the constitutional court, especially with regard to free speech.
I grew up in East Germany where everybody knew if you manage to escape the communist regime, you are safe from the Staatssicherheit. Today, there is no free West anymore to which you can escape.
P.S. I have not read anything by Oliver Janich, or if I did I did not realize it was from him, nor do I know his political stance. And, I do not think it matters. Even if he violated the law, I am of the opinion that German criminal law and its interpretation by the courts has hollowed out the constitutional guarantee of free speech to an extent that has made it mostly meaningless. They even introduced higher penalties for insulting (some might say criticizing) politicians, which reminds one of lèse-majesté which we thought had vanished into history.