Online reports – Society – How “Teacher H.” appeared as an Internet desperado

© Screenshot from YouTube

“Things are getting uncomfortable”: Tschanun hint on YouTube

After his dismissal, the Basel orientation school teacher started an unprecedented and hopeless online war

From Peter Knechtli

NHe is not stupid. His texts published on the Internet may be completely unacceptable in terms of content, but they are carefully arranged in terms of form, and the photos are neatly edited. He was a German, history and music teacher at the orientation school in the Brunnmatt school in Basel. Confidants who still stand by him today describe him as a “loveable, interested person” and a talented musician. But his dismissal in 2008 and the events leading up to it must have left such a bad mark on teacher G. that he lost his way and systematically took revenge on everyone, seeing them as a system of conspiracy directed against him. There was no sign of loveability at all.

“L“Dear H.” (his pseudonym) saw himself as a victim of bullying and began to wage a bullying war from his own home in a suburb of Basel-Landschaft. Over the course of seven years, he attacked an increasing number of people in a defamatory manner on countless blogs and other online platforms such as Facebook and YouTube under the protection of anonymity and using names such as “Hans Muster.” Until the IT specialists of the public prosecutor's office caught on to him and identified him as the originator of the internet bullying.

NThe real human form of “Anonymous”, who had previously hidden himself for years in a skillful but cowardly manner, sat in the courtroom.

“This case is the most spectacular
Example of online bullying in Switzerland.

DFor example, the business card that “Teacher H.” gave him during his appearance gave him a miserable report. He put himself in the spotlight in the waiting room with inappropriate remarks, always laughed a little too loudly, and addressed journalists informally. In the courtroom, he ranted against his public defender (“a dummy”, “completely overwhelmed”), the public prosecutor, the presiding judge, the IT investigator and the legal representative of government councilor Christoph Eymann (“judicial crime”). Here, a style and content is established that corresponds perfectly with that of the comments on his online platforms.

DThe convicted person not only lacks a sense of wrongdoing, but also a sense of justice. The applicable law, in particular the protection of personal rights, seemed to have no effect on him. For years he slandered innocent citizens, he published a series of defamatory statements, he copied numerous copyrighted photos from the Internet, he consistently called the people he wanted to get back at by their full names.

F“Teacher H.” claimed for himself not only the pure truth, but also, above all, the ambush. In a grotesque misunderstanding of the actual circumstances, he styled himself as a martyr and elevated his written collection of meanness to the right to “freedom of expression.”

Da the former “teacher H.” fundamentally did not understand something about our legal system, and it is to be hoped that he did not instruct the children entrusted to him in the same way. No, stalking, whether via the Internet or otherwise, is not a fundamental right. It is contempt for the law or “online jihadism,” as the public prosecutor rightly called it with hardly surpassable clarity.

DAs a medium run by amateurs, blogs are – and this has long been foreseeable – extremely vulnerable to a new form of criminal activity. Those who do not have sufficient sense of responsibility quickly see them as a suitable, risk-free tool for taking revenge on any person for real or perceived injustice under the cover of virtual darkness.

Bas “Teacher H.”, which was carried out over a period of seven years, is the most spectacular case of online bullying in Switzerland to date. What is remarkable is the length of time over which the perpetrator was able to shamelessly drag dozens of people through the mud without being disturbed. This is of course the result of the fact that it is extremely difficult to identify actors who damage reputations on the Internet – probably not least a result of the “erosion of the awareness of the rule of law” and the devaluation of the “rule of law”, as Zurich constitutional and administrative law professor Alain Griffel complains in the latest “Zeit”.

“As systematic as he is of the reputation of his.”
Target persons damaged, thus unavoidable
he ruined his own future.

DIE providers should be forced to unambiguously personalize blog operators, prohibit encryption techniques and disclose the names of administrators to those suspected of deliberately defamatory statements in order to enable legal recourse. The Internet is still apparently too young to quickly put an end to online warriors who are out to damage the reputation of individuals or companies. Not all providers are cooperative with law enforcement authorities in justified cases.

GWhat is particularly special about the case of “Teacher H.” is the fact that the public prosecutor Eva Eichenberger and the presiding judge in the case, Lucius Hagemann, who had nothing to do with the story of the teacher's dismissal, were also victims of his attacks. When they enter their names in Google, they are confronted with the “Teacher H.” blog “Behördenmobbing” (Mobbing by Authorities). They are thus authentically experiencing exactly the kind of unsavory treatment that dozens of other people have been exposed to for years.

DThe man who has now been convicted may have deliberately set out to discredit the judicial officials dealing with his case in order to subsequently accuse them of bias and thus virtually paralyze the judiciary. His requests for bias fell on deaf ears – but back to the person: on his blog he described the President of the Court of Appeal, Gabriella Matefi, who was also involved in the case of “Teacher H.”, as a “biased twister of the law”.

EIt is not our job to decide how pathological the case of “H.” is. But there is obviously no sign of a favorable prognosis at the moment. When the teacher himself brings the former head of the Zurich building police, Günther Tschanun, who shot four employees out of a feeling of bullying, into the picture, things get uncomfortable.

“L“Dear H.” had to expect that he would be put in preventive detention. Why, one keeps asking, did he consciously choose a path that only has one end: behind bars. As systematically and stubbornly as he worked to damage the reputation of his targets, he inevitably ruined his own future and possibly new criminal proceedings. Preventive detention has already begun, and two years in prison still lie ahead.

IIn his cell and later when he is serving his prison sentence, when the verdict becomes final, “Teacher H.” will sorely miss his free online connection. Perhaps the bullying blogger will use the time without internet to seriously and self-critically reflect on his role and his part in the debacle. There was never any point in publishing his accusations. But it can be an opportunity for like-minded criminals to remember what consequences underhanded offenders can expect. The internet is and will not remain – despite all the possibilities for hiding – a lawless space.

12 February 2015

Further links:

“An administrator has all the possibilities”

As a hobby, I am the administrator of a blog site where anyone can start a blog. An administrator has all the options: He can check the IP address of every login and demand precise identification when registering. He can also use general rules that every user must accept to determine which content is not tolerated (racism, calls for violence, defamatory statements, violation of personal rights, spam, etc.). If violations occur, the IP address can then be put on a blacklist and the corresponding entries deleted immediately.

It is incomprehensible that this did not work in this case. I can only imagine that it was a blog site outside Switzerland – with all the international networking and globalization, it would be extremely difficult. However, I think it took too long for the public prosecutor's office to catch the stalker. I saw these blog entries several years ago and it must have been immediately clear to someone directly affected WHO was hiding behind the various pseudonyms. I do not want to comment on the person himself, a man who is obviously seriously mentally ill. However, the text shows that if the authorities and specialists had intervened earlier, he would probably have caused himself less harm than is the case now – not to mention the horrible experiences that his victims would have been spared.

Lars MazzucchelliSissach