Local German immigration authorities will be able to more easily deport immigrants who have been deemed to express support for terrorism under a draft bill approved by the Cabinet on Wednesday.
According to the draft, deportation will be possible if someone is considered to have approved of a single terrorist offence. A criminal conviction would not be necessary required to deport an individual.
Expressing approval could include not only the posting of such content on social media networks, but also the marking of a post by "liking" it on platforms such as YouTube, Instagram or TikTok.
Germany's coalition government has framed the changes as a reaction to hateful posts made online following the October 7 attacks in Israel and a deadly knife attack on an anti-Islam rally in Mannheim, in which a policeman was killed.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz had announced plans to tighten the law in a government statement following the attack in Mannheim.
Interior Minister Nancy Faeser, who put forward the changes, argued that the government is "taking tough action against Islamist and anti-Semitic hate crime online."
Critics in the opposition decried the draft as an effect to clamp down on free speech and likened the measures to tactics employed by authoritarian regimes.
