Munich uni cancels talk by UN’s Palestine specialist Albanese

Repression of truth about Israel’s genocide continues in Germany – and the UK

The University of Munich has cancelled a planned talk by the United Nations Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese, on the topic of ‘Colonialism, Human Rights and International Law’. Albanese, an expert in international law, has been outspoken on the subject of Israel’s genocide and continual war crimes and crimes against humanity in occupied Palestine. She announced the cancellation in an X post:

Albanese ‘quote tweeted’ a post by X user @Olafsson, who posted the organisers’ announcement of the university’s decision and compared it to its cancellation of a talk by Jewish Israeli dissenter Ilan Pappé last November, supposedly because of ‘antisemitism’:

Germany also last year arrested and deported Palestinian-British surgeon Ghassan Abu Sittah when he flew to Berlin to give a talk. Sittah was then pursued by the ‘UK Lawyers for Israel’ group after his return, which tried and failed to have him struck off the medical register.

Albanese’s talk, at least currently, is set to go ahead at an alternative venue. The cancellation is the latest in the serial repression of pro-Palestinian speech, protest and dissent by Israel – as the German authorities clearly have no shame about suppressing even the most distinguished and credentialed speakers if they concur that Israel is a rogue genocidal state, it remains to be seen whether the talk will be allowed to proceed even at an independent venue.

Germany has been condemned by human rights groups for its violence against peaceful anti-genocide protesters, including and even especially anti-Zionist Jews, and its intelligence services were last year exposed to be monitoring pro-Palestine media.

These tactics have been mirrored and even exceeded by the UK government and its enforcement in an escalating ‘lawfare’ war on freedom of speech and the right to protest, under the authoritarian Keir Starmer‘s new regime, particularly to protect Israel and its supporters. The UK Establishment has abused anti-terror laws to raid, harass, intimidate, arrest and even prosecute a string of anti-genocide journalists and activists, many of them Jewish, in an attempt to deter resistance to Israel’s genocide and the UK’s collusion in it.

Since Starmer’s fascist-aided accession, dozens of journalists and peaceful UK protesters have been arrested, while the UK courts, according to UN rapporteur for environmental defenders, Michel Forst, have been acting as a “purely punitive and repressive” arm of the state. On 18 January, the Metropolitan Police were exposed creating a trap for peaceful pro-Palestine marchers, falsely accusing them of forcing their way through police lines when abundant video evidence shows that the protesters were invited and allowed through the lines to lay wreaths in memory of murdered children, then ‘kettled’ and arrested – some violently – for supposedly refusing to disperse.

Several anti-genocide activists and writers have now been charged under anti-terror laws despite posing no threat and advocating against violence as the Starmer regime seeks to intimidate and silence resistance and free speech.

Similar tactics are now being used by other western governments. Last week, Electronic Intifada journalist Ali Abunimah was violently abducted off the street, detained for two days and then deported by Swiss authorities after flying into Zurich for a scheduled talk.

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