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issued by the Registrar of the Court   ECHR 411 (2012)   08.11.2012   German courts’ injunction against animal rights organisation’s   poster campaign evoking the Holocaust was legitimate   In today’s Chamber judgment in the case of Peta Deutschland v. Germany   (application no. 43481/09), which is not final1, the European Court of Human Rights   held, unanimously, that there had been:   no violation of Article 10 (freedom of expression) of the European Convention on   Human Rights.   The case concerned a civil injunction which prevented the animal rights organisation   PETA from publishing a poster campaign featuring photos of concentration camp inmates   along with pictures of animals kept in mass stocks.   The Court held in particular that a reference to the Holocaust had to be seen in the   specific context of the German past. In that light, the Court accepted that the German   courts had given relevant and sufficient reasons for granting the civil injunction.   Principal facts   The applicant association, PETA Deutschland, is the German branch of the animal rights   organisation PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals).   In March 2004, the organisation planned to launch an advertising campaign entitled “The   Holocaust on your plate”, which had been carried out in a similar way in the United   States. It intended to publish a number of posters each of which bore a photograph of   concentration camp inmates along with a picture of animals kept in mass stocks,   accompanied by a short text. For example, the posters showed a photo of piled up   human bodies alongside a photograph of a pile of slaughtered pigs under the heading   “final humiliation” and a photo of rows of inmates lying on bunk beds alongside rows of   chicken in laying batteries under the heading “if animals are concerned, everybody   becomes a Nazi”.   The president and the two vice-presidents of the Central Jewish Council in Germany at   the time filed a request to be granted a court injunction ordering PETA to refrain from   publishing seven specific posters, on the Internet or by displaying them in public. The   plaintiffs had survived the Holocaust as children and one of them had lost her family   through the Holocaust. They submitted that the intended campaign was offensive and   violated their human dignity as well as the personality rights of the family members one   of them had lost. On 18 March 2004, the Berlin Regional Court granted the interim   injunction, and confirmed that injunction on 22 April 2004. It held in particular that there   was no indication that PETA’s primary aim was to debase victims of the Holocaust, as the   posters intended to criticise the conditions under which animals were kept. That   Under Articles 43 and 44 of the Convention, this Chamber judgment is not final. During the three-month   period following its delivery, any party may request that the case be referred to the Grand Chamber of the   Court. If such a request is made, a panel of five judges considers whether the case deserves further   examination. In that event, the Grand Chamber will hear the case and deliver a final judgment. If the referral   request is refused, the Chamber judgment will become final on that day.   Once a judgment becomes final, it is transmitted to the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe for   supervision of its execution. Further information about the execution process can be found here:   www.coe.int/t/dghl/monitoring/execution   expression of opinion related to questions of public interest and would thus generally   enjoy a higher degree of protection when weighing the competing interests. However, it   had to be taken into account that concentration camp inmates and Holocaust victims had   been put on the same level as animals, a comparison which appeared arbitrary in the   light of the image of man conveyed by the German Basic Law, which put human dignity   in its centre. The Regional Court confirmed the injunction in the main proceedings in   December 2004, and the Court of Appeal confirmed that decision in November 2005.   On 20 February 2009, the Federal Constitutional Court rejected PETA’s constitutional   complaint (file nos. 1 BvR 2266/04 and 1 BvR 2620/05). While expressing doubts as to   whether the intended campaign violated the human dignity of either the people depicted   or of the plaintiffs, that court did not find it necessary to decide on that question. It was   sufficient that the lower courts had based their decisions on the assumption that the   Basic Law drew a clear distinction between human life and dignity on the one hand and   the interests of animal protection on the other, and that the campaign banalised the fate   of the victims of the Holocaust.   Complaints, procedure and composition of the Court   PETA Deutschland complained that the injunction preventing it from publishing the   poster campaign violated its rights under article 10.   The application was lodged with the European Court of Human Rights on 12 August   2009.   Judgment was given by a Chamber of seven judges, composed as follows:   Dean Spielmann (Luxembourg), President,   Mark Villiger (Liechtenstein),   Karel Jungwiert (Czech Republic),   Boštjan M. Zupančič (Slovenia),   Ann Power-Forde (Ireland),   Angelika Nußberger (Germany),   André Potocki (France),   and also Claudia Westerdiek, Section Registrar.   Decision of the Court   Article 10   It was undisputed between the parties that the injunction had interfered with PETA’s   right to freedom of expression under Article 10. The interference had a legal basis under   German law and it had pursued the legitimate aim of protecting the plaintiffs’ personality   rights and thus “the reputation or rights of others” for the purpose of Article 10.   As regards the question of whether the interference was “necessary in a democratic   society” within the meaning of Article 10, the Court observed at the outset that PETA’s   intended poster campaign, relating to animal and environmental protection, was   undeniably in the public interest. Accordingly, only weighty reasons could justify such   interference. The German courts had carefully examined the question of whether the   requested injunction would violate the organisation’s right to freedom of expression.   While holding that the intended campaign did not aim to debase the depicted   concentration camp inmates, the courts had considered that the campaign confronted   the plaintiffs with their suffering and their fate of persecution in the interest of animal   protection. They had found that this “instrumentalisation” of their suffering violated their   personality rights in their capacity as Jews living in Germany and as survivors of the   Holocaust.   The Court considered that the facts of the case could not be detached from the historical   and social context in which the expression of opinion took place. A reference to the   Holocaust had to be seen in the specific context of the German past. The Court accepted   the German Government’s stance that they deemed themselves under a special   obligation towards the Jews living in Germany. In that light, the Court found that the   German courts had given relevant and sufficient reasons for granting the civil injunction.   That finding was not called into question by the fact that courts in other jurisdictions   might address similar issues in a different way.   Furthermore, as regards the severity of the sanction, the proceedings had not concerned   any criminal sanctions, but only a civil injunction preventing PETA from publishing seven   specific posters. Finally, PETA had not established that it did not have other means at its   disposal to draw public attention to the issue of animal protection.   The Court concluded that there had been no violation of Article 10.   Separate opinion   Judge Zupančič expressed a concurring opinion joined by Judge Spielmann, which is   annexed to the judgment.   The judgment is available only in English.   This press release is a document produced by the Registry. It does not bind the Court.   Decisions, judgments and further information about the Court can be found on   www.echr.coe.int. To receive the Court’s press releases, please subscribe here:   www.echr.coe.int/RSS/en.   Press contacts   [email protected]e.int | tel: +33 3 90 21 42 08   Nina Salomon (tel: + 33 3 90 21 49 79)   Tracey Turner-Tretz (tel: + 33 3 88 41 35 30)   Céline Menu-Lange (tel: + 33 3 90 21 58 77)   Denis Lambert (tel: + 33 3 90 21 41 09)   The European Court of Human Rights was set up in Strasbourg by the Council of   Europe Member States in 1959 to deal with alleged violations of the 1950 European   Convention on Human Rights.   3