Credit: The Local
Several German cabinet ministers condemned the Islamophobic film, with Interior Minister Hans-Peter Friedrich saying that legal avenues would be explored to try and stop a screening planned by populist far-right party Pro Deutschland.
Pro-Deutschland said they were planning to screen the film in a Berlin cinema in November.
But politicians from the centre-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the Green Party have spoken out against banning the film produced in the US, with excerpts spread on the internet.
“A simple foreign policy deference to other countries is not enough to limit basic rights,” SPD domestic policy spokesman Dieter Wiefelspütz told the taz newspaper. He said bans should only be the last resort.
Green Party whip Volker Beck said that he saw no legal justification for a ban. “Based on what I’ve seen, the film is tasteless idiocy, but without criminal content.”