Bavarian authorities raided and questioned 17 suspects Tuesday morning on charges of inciting anti-Semitic hatred and other crimes using social media.

In particular, the Bavarian authorities are targeting 15 men and 2 women between the ages of 18 and 62 from various cities in Bavaria, who, according to the Bavarian Ministry of the Interior, are allegedly suspected of inciting “hatred against Jews in a criminal manner.”

According to German media, Bavarian policemen proceeded to confiscate many items, mainly mobile phones and laptops, while the investigations revealed that the specific people were using symbols prohibited by the German Constitution. The suspects include German nationals and three persons of Turkish, Iraqi and Ghanaian origin.

It is shocking, among other things, that one of the arrested is actually a student, who was sending anti-Semitic messages such as “Burn the Jews” to his classmates via WhatsApp. Another arrested person, a German citizen with a Turkish passport, allegedly constantly made anti-Semitic posts, e.g. that the Jews “should be slaughtered and exterminated”, which he even shared along with the slogan “Free Palestine” after the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel on October 7.

Among those arrested, the case of a 56-year-old Holocaust denier stands out, who allegedly incited hatred through numerous posts.

For the Munich prosecutor’s office, these arrests send a double message: that the German authorities mean it when they say that anti-Semitic crimes are prosecuted consistently, and secondly that they will do everything to protect Jewish life. For his part, according to the German news agency, the Christian Socialist Minister of the Interior of Bavaria, Joachim Hermann, stated that “inciting anti-Semitic hatred is not a minor criminal offense but can be a precursor to more serious criminal acts.”