A parish priest, dressed in his normal clerical clothing, was verbally attacked in a supermarket in Werl by a man who called him a "pig" and an "infidel" as he shook the priest's shopping cart. The priest called the police, but they told him they wouldn't respond. Publicly insulting a person in Germany can be a criminal offense.
The priest wrote about the incident in his parish bulletin: “In the early afternoon on Saturday I was at the checkout till in Lidl after making some purchases. I was dressed in my typical everyday priest garments, meaning I was recognisable as a priest.
The supermarket was very full and, if I saw correctly, all of the checkout tills were open. There were 3 more customers in front of me and another customer behind me. Directly in front of me was a woman, of suspected (?) ethnic origin, with a long, beige-brown coat and a dark-brown headscarf.
She had just put her goods on the checkout belt. Suddenly a man who was apparently the woman’s husband came up. When he saw me he started to insult me in his native language. It was clear that they were insults!
I didn’t react to this in any way. Then the man grabbed my shopping trolley and started to shake and push it back and forth while he continued with the insults. I felt obliged to react and said to him in a normal polite tone that he could speak calmly to me in German, as I understood it very well.
He switched right away and insulted me as follows: “You infidel!” – “You pig!” – Immediately I called the police without comment. They said they were not responsible. No one around me said anything.” Read more about the German public insult laws here. Sources: Rundblick-Unna and Propstei Werl bulletin