Germany: wearing a FCK CPS T-shirt not illegal

Cross cultural implications of clothing: legal status of a  FCK CPS T-shirt in Germany.

If you like edgy, provocative, or just dumb statements on your clothing, Germany may turn out to be fraught with legal challenges.

The sort of stunt pulled by this Florida man with his F*ck the police T-shirt in court won't fly here.

In fact, the question whether you can legally wear a  FCK CPS T-shirt in Germany anywhere near a police officer recently went all the way up to Germany's constitutional court and back down to the district court again.

An outline of the story goes like this: a woman wears a FCK CPS T-shirt and is prosecuted for insulting an officer. She claims freedom of speech but all courts up until the final one, Germany's equivalent to the supreme court, side with the prosecution.

The constitutional court nixes the conviction with the argument that FCK CPS as a generic statement not targeted at an individual officer or a specific group of people is free speech.

The court sends the case back to the lowest court for adjudication based on this principle. 

For your free T-shirt speech in Germany, this means you are good as long as it cannot be interpreted as targeted against specific people. Since an interpretation by definition means there is room for discussion, you may want to exercise caution. Wearing this or a similar T-shirt and walking up to an officer while pointing at the vestment is probably a bad idea.

The legality of dress as such is a nice little ditty but what really stood out for us and went unmentioned in all German reporting is that the T-shirt actually read FCK CPS, yes in plain English, not some German slogan we ingeniously translated for you.

That's where the cultural dimension comes in.

As an ignorant foreigner, the blogster finds is remarkable that non-standard English is read and understood by German prosecutors and deemed actionable.

People around here wear English language Ts and sweats all the time, and you will come across ample examples that demonstrate they have no idea what a slogan means.

What if the lady had claimed ignorance?

Would it be wise to make a statement like the above in a language few people understand?

No, you cannot use Arabic.

Even the Arabic equivalent of Have a wonderful day my fellow humans does not keep you safe.

Japanese or Chinese, on the other hand, might work. I very much remember an amply chested female co-worker wearing a Japanese slogan sweat shirt without having a clue of the meaning of the Japanese glyphs (a fancy word for writing).

The dictionary consulted by the blogster said "Gravity takes its toll".

The blogster does not recall seeing the co-worker in that sweat shirt afterwards.

Note: this post does not constitute legal advice.