NIX v. GERMANY DECISION 13 that constituted propaganda for the respective organisations or their ideology. In Vajnai v. Hungary (no. 33629/06, ECHR 2008) the Court considered that it could not be imputed that the fact that a person used a symbol that could stand for totalitarian notions but also for other meanings indicated that he or she used the symbol to identify with totalitarian ideas. Rather, the context was to guide the assessment. 40. In that regard, he submitted that the domestic courts had not taken all the circumstances of the case into account and had thus failed to consider that his blog post had constituted a protest against discrimination against children with a migrant background and the working methods of the employment office, which he considered to resemble those employed by the Nazis. Notably, the domestic courts had not taken into account the fact that he had posted in a critical manner about capitalism and about the dealings between the employment office and his daughter several times, but had looked at the post of 23 March 2014 in isolation. Nor had they taken into account the fact that the authorities had admitted that there was no legal basis for the employment office to demand a copy of his daughter’s latest school report and that there had been various reports in the media indicating that children of persons receiving social welfare payments and children with a migrant background were discriminated against in schools and by employment offices. His blog post had been intended to contribute to a debate of public interest about such discrimination and institutional racism. 41. Furthermore, it had to be taken into account that he had not used the swastika as such, but had rather used a historic picture of Himmler. Had he used a picture of Himmler that had not shown him wearing a swastika, this would not have been criminally sanctioned. Likewise, it was not understandable why the domestic courts had made reference to him not having distanced himself from the quoted statement given the fact that reproducing the statement as such had not been prohibited. In any event, the domestic courts had been wrong to consider that he had not addressed the statement in his blog post. He had contrasted Himmler’s statement with that of the staff member of the employment office to illustrate the fact that professional success could nowadays be achieved only if children and young adults – especially those with foreign roots – cooperated with the employment offices, just as they had been required to cooperate with the SS during the Nazi era. 42. Article 10 of the Convention, in so far as relevant, reads as follows: “1. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers. ... 2. The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or

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