German government ‘stoops to new low’ in fascist repression of information on Israel’s genocide in Gaza and its occupation of Palestine
German authorities threatened three separate venues with permanent closure if they hosted discussions with United Nations Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories Francesca Albanese, an outspoken critic of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, Israeli architect and anti-genocide activist Eyal Weizman and other leading human rights figures this week. One venue, the Junge Welt newspaper, outed the threat. The next day, solidarity centre bUm Berlin received the same threat.
The state also sent police to an online showing of the event at the Freie Universität Berlin, where they threatened students with arrest if they watched the livestream, as local author Wael Eskander explained:
Democracy in Europe organisation DiEM25 condemned the German state’s repression of anti-genocide and pro-Palestinian speech in a statement published to its website ahead of the organised talks:
In a deeply concerning escalation, the organisers of ‘Reclaiming the Discourse: Palestine, Justice, and Truth’ – an event featuring UN Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese – are facing ruthless attacks on their fundamental rights to freedom of speech, assembly, and expression.
The venue, Kühlhaus Berlin, faced immense pressure from German politicians and the Berlin police to cancel the event. This is not only a disgrace but a direct assault on the rule of law and the core principles of democracy. It also represents an attack on businesses coerced into submission through mafia-like tactics, where intimidation has reached alarming extremes.
In this critical moment, Junge Welt has offered us refuge, and the event will now be held at Torstraße 6, 10119 Berlin. Due to limited capacity, with only 200 attendees allowed, the event will no longer feature an in-house livestream. Instead, the livestream will be available exclusively on our YouTube channel. Those with a livestream ticket are not able to enter the event, but instead can watch the broadcast. The change also means that there will be fewer available seats than originally planned, from 400 seats to 200.
German authorities, already responsible for canceling two events featuring Francesca Albanese, are now escalating their efforts to silence her voice even further. Now, Berlin authorities are ratcheting up their efforts to quash this crucial conversation, putting the organisers and panelists under extreme pressure and threatening disruption through overwhelming riot police presence, similar to the experience of the Palestine Congress 2024.
In light of this grave situation, we are urgently calling on media outlets, legal experts, and human rights organizations to step in as observers and monitor and report on the dismantling of the rule of law and fundamental rights.
We expect unlawful police interference against those who speak out against the genocide in Gaza and challenge German complicity. The right to free speech is under brutal siege, and as journalists, legal experts, and human rights organizations sworn to defend the constitution and fundamental rights, we demand that you fulfill your duty to report boldly and extensively on Germany’s complicity in the genocide in Gaza and its authoritarian slide.
The world must stand witness as we defend democracy and human rights in Germany.
The group also called on Germany’s Die Linke (‘The left’) party, which holds seats in Germany’s Bundestag and in half of its state legislatures, to take a stand against censorship and to back the discussions:
Die Linke, if you are too afraid to support a Congress for Palestinians and Jews to discuss the future of the Middle East, will you at least support the right of the UN and Amnesty International to talk about this in Berlin? Resist the authoritarian drift, condemn police violence, support the organisers and demand justice.
Germany’s fascism and racism toward Palestinians and their supporters against Israel’s genocide, which include police violence and arbitrary arrests, is being mimicked and mirrored by the government of avowed Zionist Keir Starmer and its police enforcers, who are waging a similar ‘lawfare’ war on anti-genocide journalists and activists – and by the UK Israel lobby, which along with the Israeli government has this week launched an attack on the BBC to demand it delete its documentary about the suffering of Palestinian children and young people, despite the programme’s continued echoing on Israeli propaganda points. Similar moves are now also being made by Austria, Switzerland and others as the fascist tactics spread.
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So the neoliberal German govt is using fascist tactics and it’s “deadly” nemesis, the AfD, is, we are told at every opportunity, also fascist. I’m confused! Does that mean Germany’s in the grip of a severe identity crisis? Or on the verge of some kind of civil war?
Tune in on Sunday for their election results! If the AfD win, expect calls across Europe for the results to be annulled in the interests of “saving democracy”. Then all hell will break loose on the streets of Germany…
Boy, the West is fucked!
Right on cue arrives the latest from eugyppius, a German blogger always worth consulting on German affairs.
https://www.eugyppius.com/p/there-is-no-room-for-firewalls-us
I doubt this is what Vance was referring to when he spoke of Europe preventing ‘free speech’. This is outrageous.
He might not have realised it, (in which case Duh!), but this is EXACTLY the tendancy he was talking about.
Just a quick ‘hello’ to all those who still insist the eu and its members are democratic, and that we should never have gotten out.
Imagine just how much further to the authoritarian right that bloc would be today, if keefs uk was part of it.
Oh! Silly me – keefs a democratic socialist isn’t he? Said so himself…
It’s called postmodernism, Toffee. Everyone who wants to be anyone is not simply self-defining themselves and what they “are” but also self-defining their own reality and, for advanced practitioners, the reality of everyone else not one of them.
As we consistently witness BTL on this site from time to time.
The current Zeitgeist is, apparently, that:
“Far-right” is the new “extreme Left”. Whilst “fascism” seems to be “anti-fascism”. “Democracy” is “annulment of/protection from elections” (ask the Ukrainians, Romanians and maybe the Georgians); “neo-Nazis” are “legitimate Government”; “losing” is “winning”; “allegations” equate to “guilt”; “Martial Law”, and the “banning of the media and political parties” is “freedom and liberty”; the “Sovereign Individual” is the new “collectivism”; the “hierarchy of oppression” is the new “class consciousness”; “sex” is “oppression”; “genocide” is “self-defence”; and “criticism” is a “hate crime” which ranks above murdering God, destroying the Universe and dropping bombs on those with a [checks notes] “funny Tinge”.
Calling attention to the already admitted disappearance by theft of billions of dollars is being “Putin’s Puppet”; declared denials of being party to a conflict are not a legitimate reason not be involved in negotiations about – even though you are really up to your neck it (how in hell does that make any sense – never mind how does anyone from Brussels articulate such doublespeak with a straight face?); the losing side in a conflict seeks war reparations from its subcontractor; truth is fake news; blatant outright lies are fact; and theft is property – or at least a real-estate opportunity.
What I can’t understand is why no one else has sussed out that psychotropic drugs are being disseminated into the atmosphere?