Thousands of demonstrators have been protesting across Germany for a week in support of actress Collien Fernandes, who accuses her ex-husband of having distributed false pornographic content featuring her, a “me too” moment accelerating the debate on online violence.
Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfurt… Support rallies are multiplying in the country, notably at the call of the Vulver collective, which deplores the “glaring gaps” in the legal protection of women online.
A bill on the dissemination of false videos generated by artificial intelligence (deepfakes) was already in preparation, but the publication in mid-March of an investigation by the weekly Spiegel into the Fernandes affair underlined the urgency of the situation.
To the point that on March 20, the spokesperson for the Ministry of Justice, Eike Hosemann, promised a law on digital violence “in a very short time”.
The 44-year-old actress, also a model and television presenter, accuses her ex-husband, actor and presenter Christian Ulmen, 50, of having created false profiles on social networks to contact men, particularly those around her, and broadcasting false pornographic videos representing her.
Actions that led the actress to suffer online harassment for years.
Some German media see this case as the digital counterpart of the Gisèle Pelicot affair, named after the Frenchwoman who became a world figure in the fight against sexual violence for having publicly testified to rapes committed by dozens of men recruited by her ex-husband.
Paradise for abusers
German prosecutors announced on Friday that an investigation was underway into Mr. Ulmen based on an “initial suspicion” based on information provided by his ex-wife in the Spiegel article. At this stage, only the accusation of harassment is retained, but other offenses could be added.
An initial complaint filed in 2024 against X was closed in June, due to lack of clues to identify the author.
According to Ms Fernandes, the legal framework for prosecutions of this type remains limited in Germany, a country which she describes as a “paradise for attackers”.
She also filed a complaint in Spain, the couple’s former place of residence where the legislation on violence against women is stricter.
Germany now hopes to fill its “legal gaps” with its bill against digital violence, assured last week the Minister of Justice, Stefanie Hubig, while deploring the “delay of the penal code on technological developments”.
The director of the professional association of German judges, Sven Rebehn, pointed out a lack of personnel.
In any case, the scandal mobilizes people in the streets. Some 17,000 demonstrators marched on March 26 in Hamburg (north) to put pressure on the government.
Merz blames migrants
Collien Fernandes, who had initially planned not to participate because of death threats, finally went up on the stage dressed in a large coat and jogging pants covering a bulletproof vest “because men, and only men, want to kill me,” she said, on the verge of tears, cheered by the crowd who came to support her.
The demonstrators are also “on the side of the victims who do not have such a strong voice and who have no publicity,” Luna Sahling, a spokesperson for the Young Greens, who organized another demonstration on Sunday in Munich (south), told AFP.
“We want to show that we need real laws that make women particularly aware of this digital violence,” she added.
Asked on March 25 by a member of parliament during a session of questions to the government on what it intended to do to protect women against violence, conservative Chancellor Friedrich Merz spoke of an “explosion of violence in our society, both in the physical and digital space”.
But he shocked by asserting that a “considerable part of this violence comes from immigrant communities”, with the chancellor trying to counter the rise of the far right with an increasingly tough speech on migrants.
A “scandalous populist lie,” denounced Lydia Dietrich, director of the women’s aid association in Munich, during the rally in support of Collien Fernandes in the Bavarian capital.
