I'm sad to see this un-informed and one sided reply on a well written opinion being moderated as informative. Having a hard time understanding what is informative.
> This is an issue about freedom of speech versus the right to privacy. The murder is a simple fact, but it's something that happened almost 20 years ago.
> The identity of the murderers isn't just a fact, it's a public fact, part of the public record, established in a public trial.
Public trials, public records are public because of certain laws make them public (simply ignoring to check if it was a public trial in this specific case). In order to be able to have public trials, there is the need for additional rules. In Germany the people (being a democratic country) have decided to provide some kind of protection to offenders. So, when claiming information is public one must honor as well the limitations set that made this information public.
> But I just wanted to point out that just because something is a simple fact, does not mean that it's OK to publish it on the public Internet.
> The question is not whether this fact may or may not be published; it has been published and is part of the public record. The question is whether government has the right to retroactively rewrite public databases, public records, and public facts.
Wrong. The question is whether the subjects have to right to request said information to be removed from public records that were illegally added to such public records. Note, in Germany the government has nothing to do with this at all; they wrote those laws in the past. It is now up to a judge to decide which law/right to uphold.
As op said, there are different approaches to prison. Some countries see it as punishment, others as a correction tool where wrong behavior is adjusted. Study both approaches carefully and you'll see they are worlds apart.