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Police ban pro-Palestinian congress in Berlin

Police interrupted and cancelled a controversial pro-Palestinian conference in Berlin less than an hour after it started on Friday, citing concerns about anti-Semitic statements.

Published: 13 April 2024 09:15 CEST
Police officers stand guard in front of the entrance to the venue of the so-called Palestine Conference in Berlin,
Police officers stand guard in front of the entrance to the venue of the so-called Palestine Conference in Berlin, Germany on April 12, 2024. Police later cancelled the pro-Palestinian conference, citing concerns about anti-Semitic statements. (Photo by JOHN MACDOUGALL / AFP)

Officers initially halted the congress because one of the speakers was subject to a ban on political activity in Germany, police wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Police did not give the name of the speaker, but participants in the congress wrote on X that it was Palestinian researcher Salman Abu Sitta.

Police then later wrote on X that they had banned the remainder of the conference, which was due to last until Sunday.

“There is a risk that a speaker who has already made anti-Semitic or violence-glorifying public statements in the past will be invited to speak again,” they said.

The conference had been heavily criticised before it began and did not disclose its location until Friday morning due to security concerns.

Berlin police on Friday said they had dispatched 930 officers, including reinforcements from other regions of Germany, to secure the event.

On the congress website, the organisers denounce “Israeli apartheid and genocide” and accuse Germany of “being complicit”.

Kai Wegner, the mayor of Berlin, said on X he found it “intolerable” that the congress was taking place in Berlin.

“Berlin does not tolerate anti-Semitism, hatred and incitement against Jews,” he wrote.

The organisers on Friday wrote in a Telegram post that Ghassan Abu Sittah, a Palestinian doctor specialising in plastic and reconstructive surgery, had been denied entry into Germany to attend the conference.

The outbreak of the war in Gaza has roiled Germany, where Berlin’s staunch backing for Israel has prompted protests that pro-Palestinian voices are being marginalised.

The conflict erupted after an unprecedented attack on Israel by Hamas gunmen on October 7 in which around 1,160 people were killed, mostly civilians, according to Israeli official figures.

Israel afterwards vowed to eradicate Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip. More than 33,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed as a result, according to the Gaza health ministry.

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CRIME

German far-right politician fined €13,000 for using Nazi slogan

A German court has convicted one of the country's most controversial far-right politicians, Björn Höcke, of deliberately using a banned Nazi slogan at a rally.

Published: 15 May 2024 08:43 CEST
German far-right politician fined €13,000 for using Nazi slogan

The court fined Höcke, 52, of the far-right AfD party, €13,000 for using the phrase “Alles fuer Deutschland” (“Everything for Germany”) during a 2021 campaign rally.

Once a motto of the so-called Sturmabteilung paramilitary group that played a key role in Adolf Hitler’s rise to power, the phrase is illegal in modern-day Germany, along with the Nazi salute and other slogans and symbols from that era.

The former high school history teacher claimed not to have been aware that the phrase had been used by the Nazis, telling the court he was “completely not guilty”.

Höcke said he thought the phrase was an “everyday saying”.

But prosecutors argued that Höcke used the phrase in full knowledge of its “origin and meaning”.

They had sought a six-month suspended sentence plus two years’ probation, and a payment of €10,000 to a charitable organisation.

Writing on X, formerly Twitter, after the trial, Höcke said the “ability to dissent is in jeopardy”.

“If this verdict stands, free speech will be dead in Germany,” he added.

Höcke, the leader of the AfD in Thuringia, is gunning to become Germany’s first far-right state premier when the state holds regional elections in September.

With the court ordering only a fine rather than a jail term, the verdict is not thought to threaten his candidacy at the elections.

‘AfD scandals’

The trial is one of several controversies the AfD is battling ahead of European Parliament elections in June and regional elections in the autumn in Thuringia, Brandenburg and Saxony.

Founded in 2013, the anti-Islam and anti-immigration AfD saw a surge in popularity last year – its 10th anniversary – seizing on concerns over rising migration, high inflation and a stumbling economy.

But its support has wavered since the start of 2024, as it contends with scandals including allegations that senior party members were paid to spread pro-Russian views on a Moscow-financed news website.

Considered an extremist by German intelligence services, Höcke is one of the AfD’s most controversial personalities.

He has called Berlin’s Holocaust monument a “memorial of shame” and urged a “180-degree shift” in the country’s culture of remembrance.

Höcke was convicted of using the banned slogan at an election rally in Merseburg in the state of Saxony-Anhalt in the run-up to Germany’s 2021 federal election.

READ ALSO: How worried should Germany be about the far-right AfD after mass deportation scandal?

He had also been due to stand trial on a second charge of shouting “Everything for…” and inciting the audience to reply “Germany” at an AfD meeting in Thuringia in December.

However, the court decided to separate the proceedings for the second charge, announced earlier this month, because the defence had not had enough time to prepare.

Prosecutor Benedikt Bernzen on Friday underlined the reach of Höcke’s statement, saying that a video of it had been clicked on 21,000 times on the Facebook page of AfD Sachsen-Anhalt alone.

Höcke’s defence lawyer Philip Müller argued the rally was an “insignificant campaign event” and that the offending statement was only brought to the public’s notice by the trial.

Germany’s domestic security agency has labelled the AfD in Thuringia a “confirmed” extremist organisation, along with the party’s regional branches in Saxony and Saxony-Anhalt.

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