in World News German YouTuber imprisoned for ‘hate speech’ sends message to Trump, Vance, Musk
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The content creator detailed the charges against him and thanked the U.S. vice president for his defense of free speech.
(LifeSiteNews) — A German YouTuber and satirist who has been imprisoned for months due to “hate speech” sent a message to Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and JD Vance.
The video message by the YouTuber known under his pseudonym Shlomo Finkelstein was recorded in prison and published by German conservative influencer Naomi Seibt on X.
🚨🇩🇪 PRlSONER FOR SATIRE LEAKS MESSAGE TO THE WORLD – #FreeShlomo
6 months ago, our friend Aron aka Shlomo was sentenced to pr!son for political satire.
Today, he breaks his silence.
Inspired by @elonmusk and JD Vance, Shlomo gathered the courage to send us an audio message. pic.twitter.com/WwazxKkWdG
— Naomi Seibt (@SeibtNaomi) March 2, 2025
The German content creator was initially sentenced to three years in prison on probation in 2020 for several “hate speech” crimes. According to court documents, Finkelstein violated two of his probation requirements. He was required to pay a fine of 600 euros [$650] and immediately inform authorities if he changed his residence. However, he was not living at his registered address at the time and had not received the letters. Therefore, on March 4, 2022, the Cologne District Court decided to convert the suspended sentence into a prison sentence.
Finkelstein was eventually arrested on August 13, 2024, and has been in jail ever since.
In his video message, the YouTuber detailed the charges, which can also be seen in official court documents. One of his crimes was playing a few seconds of the politically incorrect song “What the Black Says” by American comedian Rucka Rucka Ali on his YouTube channel. This charge alone led to a six-month prison sentence.
Moreover, “They also took a clip in which I made fun of leftists who smear right-wingers as Nazis out of context and charged me with the use of extremist symbols” because he used a historical image of Joseph Goebbels wearing a Swastika on his arm.
The other charges concerned “hate speech” against Islam and Muslims, including Koran burnings shown in his videos.
Finkelstein said that he “felt compelled” to make these statements in defense of free speech “after the murders of Charlie Hebdo cartoonists in 2015.”
“Lastly, they charged me with antisemitic hate speech because I have represented myself with a stereotypically Jewish-looking caricature as an avatar.”