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Month: July 2025

20 July 2001: Police murder of Carlo Giuliani brings the anti-capitalism movement to Europe

This week in working class history


15/07/2025

In July 2001, the G8 organised a summit in Genoa, Italy. The G8 (originally the G6) had been meeting since 1976, but something new was in the air. 20 months previously, trade unionists and environmentalists had united in Seattle to disrupt the WTO Ministerial Conference. In September 2001, 12,000 demonstrated outside the IMF / World Bank summit in Prague. In June 2001, 25,000 protested the EU summit in Gothenburg. The growing anti-globalisation movement now mobilised to Genoa.

A series of demonstrations were planned. The first demo – for refugees – on Thursday 18th July attracted an unexpected 50,000 people. The next day, angry demonstrators marched on the fortress that was holding the summit. Riot police – under the orders of deputy prime minister Gianfranco Fini, a former member of Italy’s Fascist party  – fired at the demo. They shot 23-year-old Carlo Giuliani dead, then reversed over his body with a police jeep.

What happened next was crucial. Fausto Bertinotti, leader of Rifondazione Comunista, a new left party with 11 seats in the Italian parliament, was interviewed on TV. Instead of the usual platitudes you hear from politicians, he called on everyone watching TV to cancel all their plans for the following day and to demonstrate against the G8 in Carlo’s memory.

The next day was electric. Three hundred thousand people shouted “Assassini” (murderers) at the tooled-up police. We fought through tear gas but did not back down. We were also supported by the local population, who hung banners from their balconies, cheered the passing demonstration, and threw down bottles of water (essential on a sweltering day).

The next day, the police took their revenge, raiding the headquarters of the Genoa Social Forum, seriously injuring several activists and forcing them to chant “Long Live Mussolini”. The floors of the Armando Diaz school were running with blood. But the anti-capitalist movement had arrived in Europe. Over the next decade, every G8 summit has been met by mass demonstrations, and Social Forums have met to discuss how we can make the movement’s slogan “Another World is Possible” a reality.

Every accusation is a confession

About Western media and human shields


14/07/2025

Widespread destruction in Gaza following Israeli airstrikes, showing a collapsed urban area with piles of rubble, twisted metal, and remnants of buildings. A partially standing, severely damaged multi-story building is visible to the left, surrounded by debris and dust, while modern high-rises appear intact in the distant background under a blue sky.

They say that in war, ink flows first. There is likely no person in Europe who hasn’t been exposed to Israel’s accusation that Hamas uses civilians as human shields by operating command centres under hospitals, universities, and other civilian infrastructure. Nearly all of this infrastructure has been destroyed in Gaza, but the blame never falls on Israel. 

However, the Zionist narrative is collapsing, along with its propaganda promoted by Western media outlets to justify this live-streamed genocide. Western media outlets consistently distort the portrayal of the Israeli assault on Gaza, referring to it as a ‘war’ or ‘conflict’, but never naming it for what it is. The Israeli military (IDF) has killed indiscriminately with the support of Western media, which repeats the false accusations of supposed crimes committed by Hamas—the same crimes the IDF itself commits. 

Every accusation is a confession. This sentence captures the narrative distortion of this media war, and how these stories, used over and over again, amplify the lies of the Israeli government, which continues to imagine itself as the ‘only democracy in the Middle East’ with the ‘most moral army in the world’.

There is a saying in Spanish, ‘Lies have short legs.’ The genocide in Gaza has exposed the various lies that Israel has uttered to justify its killings. To expose one of the main lies and justifications, we will focus on an accusation that the Western media has frequently repeated: the use of human shields.

Since the beginning of the attack on Gaza in October 2023, Israel and the Western media have propagated the accusation that Hamas are using civilians as ‘human shields’, attempting to place the responsibility for Palestinian deaths not on the IDF, but on Hamas. The consequences of this have been the unaccountability for whatever the government of Israel does. We should not undermine or ignore the ignominious role of Western media outlets. By echoing that the blame lies with the Palestinian adversary, it contributes to Israel’s state of impunity. No ‘human shield’ has ever prevented Israel from attacking the civilian population; quite the opposite.

This reality is underscored by the IDF’s use of an artificial intelligence programme to exterminate members of Hamas and their families while they are at home. The programme, called ‘Where’s Daddy?’, provides the IDF with information about members of this organisation when they are at home with their families. So when an entire building is bombed, killing dozens or hundreds of civilians, it seems like a necessary evil, entirely justified to put an end to Hamas’ terrorism. Following these bombings, Israel denies responsibility and blames Hamas for the civilian casualties. Unsurprisingly, the same playbook was used in Iran and Lebanon to kill civilians. Meanwhile, these claims are recited over and over again in the Western media, exonerating the perpetrators.

These killings have become commonplace, as Palestinian writer Mohammed El-Kurd observes in his book Perfect Victims and the Politics of Appeal: ‘We die a lot. We die in fleeting headlines, in between breaths. Our death is so quotidian that journalists report it as they´re reporting the weather: Cloudy skies, light showers, and 3,000 Palestinians dead in the past ten days.’ (p. 13)

We will not go into detail about the racist bias behind the dehumanisation of the Palestinian people, which ultimately means that their deaths do not deserve the same attention as others, but focus on the reality that the ultimate goal of the current Israeli government is ethnic cleansing, and that it has not hesitated to commit genocide to achieve that end. It is undoubtedly a convenient method—steering public opinion in a particular direction. Some call it ‘driving the narrative’; Israel calls it ‘hasbara’.

It has now been two years of ongoing extermination of Palestinians in Gaza. Over time it has become increasingly challenging to continue blaming the victims. However, in the West, both the media and politicians try at all costs to avoid holding Israel accountable for its obvious war crimes, with a few moral condemnations here and there, devoid of any effectiveness. This shows that the ruling class in the US and Europe has no genuine interest in stopping this genocide.

Undoubtedly, the story of human shields has been one of the most powerful narratives. Still, the narrative doesn’t hold up, especially in light of the countless deaths caused by the sophisticated Israeli machine, specialised in killing civilians. However, there is an interesting twist when it comes to these false accusations.

The use of human shields seems to be a recurring practice by the IDF itself, according to Israeli media outlet Haaretz in a report published last year. Images of Palestinians tied to tanks and military vehicles as they drove through the West Bank have circulated on social media. Another article in the New York Times (a media outlet that can hardly be accused of any ‘pro-Hamas’ bias) seems to take these practices for granted; the text is unambiguously titled ‘How Israel’s Army Uses Palestinians as Human Shields in Gaza.’ It tells the story of Mohammed Shubeir:

‘After Israeli soldiers found Mohammed Shubeir hiding with his family in early March, they detained him for roughly 10 days before releasing him without charge, he said.

‘During that time, Mr. Shubeir said, the soldiers used him as a human shield.

‘Mr. Shubeir, then 17, said he was forced to walk handcuffed through the empty ruins of his hometown, Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, searching for explosives set by Hamas. To avoid being blown up themselves, the soldiers made him go ahead, Mr. Shubeir said.’

There are several similar cases documented and published in the Israeli press, but (oh surprise!) little was reported by the Western media. An article published in February 2025 exposed the case of an 80-year-old man who, after being used as a human shield, was killed along with his wife by the IDF.

The dissident group Breaking the Silence collects testimonies confessing war crimes committed by Israeli soldiers. In an interview, executive director of the group and former IDF soldier, Nadav Weiman, claims that these practices have become more frequent since 7 October 2023, with several cases already reported. He notes, ‘It is something that the IDF is using more and more and in other areas during this war.’

In the West, despite ample evidence that the IDF uses these practices, which openly violate all kinds of human rights and international law, the version of the Israeli hasbara continues to be amplified by the media. The Western press continues to show more outrage at artists who publicly oppose the genocide than at the genocide itself. (The real scandal is in the words, not in the actions.) In this way, the media consistently demonstrates their clear pro-genocidal bias. The case of a group of BBC journalists accusing the media outlet of promoting an openly anti-Palestinian and pro-Israeli view is only the tip of the iceberg. 

The case of the ‘human shields’ has been one of the most effective propaganda tools for protecting Israel from its immense culpability and war crimes carried out with complete impunity. It will be tough to speak of ‘ignorance’ on the part of Western politicians and media regarding these crimes, whose active participation in constructing the frame to justify the unjustifiable reveals their plain complicity.

The visibility of the genocide remains to have no effect on those who could stop the massacres of the Palestinian people. But, despite all the horror, bloodshed and violence, one small hope remains—the Zionist narrative is running out of all its ‘slogans’ to evade responsibility. 

It is time for the people of Europe to face up to the symbolic and political burden of their inaction in allowing the media and politics to continue shielding the perpetrators. It is necessary to end the impunity of this regime and unmask its countless financiers, propagandists, collaborators, and bystanders. Because sooner or later the prediction of writer Omar El Akkad will come true: ‘One day, everyone will have always been against this.’

“There’s a broad majority of the European people who understand that the EU […] has the power to stop the genocide” 

Interview with Catarina Martins, co-chair of the European Left Alliance (ELA) 


13/07/2025

Hi Catarina, thank you for talking to us. Let’s start by telling our readers about yourself and your background. 

Hi, very pleased to talk to you. I was the national coordinator of Bloco de Esquerda (Left Bloc) for about 11 years—from 2012 to 2023—and I was also a Portuguese Member of Parliament from 2009 to 2023. My professional background is in theatre—I directed for theatre, and I was also an actress. I started to work with Bloco because I was an activist for precarious workers in the culture sector, but also for culture itself—for its presence in our democracy and in our lives. I’ve also done some work with poverty and with people who were excluded from everything—that’s where I met most people from Bloco. I was elected as an independent candidate, and later, I decided to officially join Bloco de Esquerda. After I left the party’s leadership in 2023, we had a discussion and felt that I should run for the European Parliament. I was elected an MEP (Member of European Parliament) in 2024.  

People are often quite distant from European parliamentary politics. Can you briefly explain what the difference between a European political party (or Europarty) and a European political group is? What distinguishes them in terms of their purpose and how they act? 

This is very important because I’ve read all sorts of things—that we are splitting from The Left, which is our parliamentary group. This is not the case. In the European Parliament, there are parliamentary groups; the one Bloco de Esquerda inserted itself into was called GUE/NGL (European United Left/Nordic Green Left). It’s now called The Left, but it’s stayed the same since the beginning. We are very happy there. This parliamentary group has different lefts, but we work together, despite not agreeing on everything. We are a confederal group, meaning we don’t all vote the same way on everything, but we have common principles. I don’t think the left can afford to not work together. 

Within GUE/NGL, there were always different groups—parties that were in a European party, parties that weren’t; and we also had subgroups, like the Nordics—so it’s a group of different lefts. It has two parties from Portugal: Bloco de Esquerda and the Portuguese Communist Party. Within the European Union, for some parliamentary groups, their party and their parliamentary group are the same, which isn’t the case for others. For us, it was never the same. So what we formed was not a new parliamentary group, but a new European party. 

You are one of the co-chairs, alongside Malin Björk, of the European Left Alliance for the People and the Planet—ELA for short—that was founded in August 2024, after the last European elections. What is ELA?

In 2018, Bloco de Esquerda formed a political platform with Podemos and La France insoumise, called Now the People (NTP), because we didn’t feel represented by the European party we were in. In NTP, we have always considered that struggles for workers’ rights, for an alternative to capitalism, for public services, for the public control of infrastructure and so on, have to be done at the same time, and with a clear environmental agenda. We don’t feel that this is a contradiction—in fact, we feel that one agenda makes the other stronger, alongside a feminist and antiracist agenda. When we fight capitalism, we fight patriarchy and we fight racism and colonialism. For these parties, it was always important to have political platforms with this kind of approach, and we didn’t have that in the European Left. At first, we tried for the European Left to be the house for everyone, to make it so that Podemos and La France insoumise and the Nordics could feel welcomed, but that was not possible—the European Left was never interested in that path. So, over time, we started to work on that platform (NTP), and ELA is the result of that long political process. 

Why is it the case that it wasn’t possible to accommodate Podemos and La France insoumise? One possible comment is that this is splitting the left more. 

We are not splitting, because we are in the same parliamentary group. We are creating a new way to articulate our struggles. The European Left always had an approach of trying to have common political declarations, even when the national circumstances did not allow for it. What we need to understand is that the left forces in Europe don’t always need to have the same propositions. Sometimes, what a national circumstance or a geographical one demands is different. I’m happy that Podemos is an ELA founder, but EH Bildu is also a member. We are proving that we can have different parties, even when they “compete” in the same elections, so to speak. 

We needed a practical element of articulating struggles and learning. I believe that ELA has a concrete, practical approach to how we can learn from each other. Our discussions are a lot about the kinds of tools we can use and what campaigns can bring us together, rather than debates. While debates are interesting and the left should have them, we cannot let them paralyse us. Sometimes we felt that the European Left was quite paralysed by that and lacked this practical approach. For us, a European party should mainly make us articulate concrete steps, learn from each other, be a tool for common struggles and help each other, rather than a space that tries to define the political path of each national party. We need to have the tools to think together, which is why we decided to create a think tank. A European party is not a national party; it should not do the same as a national party does. 

Another difference is that ELA only allows parties with seats in a national parliament or with elected European deputies to be members. That is different from the European Left, whose membership is open to any left parties, even if they don’t stand in elections, as well as individuals. Is there a reason why ELA chose this membership framework? 

It’s important that the parties that are in ELA are parties that want to dispute elections, and that have a responsibility towards how they present themselves to the people. We don’t want to risk becoming a very closed field of thought that doesn’t enter into dialogue with the people. If one party loses representation, it doesn’t have to leave ELA—we have a buffer, so they are still a part and have all their rights. However, for the kind of party we are creating, the responsibility of disputing social relevance and political relevance in the institutions was important. 

ELA held its first Congress last month, in Porto, on 13 and 14 June, under the motto “for a stronger left against the far right”. What are your highlights from that? What were the major decisions and orientations adopted? 

We know that the far right is quite organised and articulated—also because they have funding from oligarchs. We should also be well articulated, and learn from each other how best to campaign andto use all the tools at our disposal. Part of the decisions we took was to have a working programme that allows us to have precisely that kind of change of ideas on a very concrete level. 

The other thing we decided on was to create a think tank because we also need that kind of reflection; it’s also to collect data, to conduct more research. Not only to debate the big questions that the left has today, but also to know more about what is going on, and what the debates happening in each country are, because we are in a situation where the far right determines the terms of the debate, and we need to change that. That is our main goal with ELA: to change the political agenda. We cannot always be discussing the far-right agenda; we need to have a cultural battle, to make debates on left terms. Collecting data is an important part of it. 

We have also decided on our first campaign together, which will be to collect one million signatures for a European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI), which states that the European Union cannot have any commercial or association agreements with a country that violates international law. That means we want sanctions on Israel, and we want the end of the association agreement. I think it’s important that we do this because while the EU is evaluating the association agreement with Israel, it doesn’t mean anything—the agreement should not exist in the first place, because Israel has never complied with international law. That the agreement persists when we have a genocide is something we cannot understand, so this is taking the voice of the people to the institutions. At the same time, it’s a concrete way for the parties to work together and put all those practical tools and learnings to use on the ground. 

That is very important. In the last year and a half, we have witnessed massive mobilisation all over the world, condemning Israel’s government actions, including people in Europe pressuring their governments and demanding an end to their complicity. However, we failed to stop the genocide. It seems that governments no longer seem to care about public support, or they don’t need public support to continue doing what they’ve been doing. So what can we do? 

That is why we have chosen this. The parties of ELA, despite having different positions on some decisions, all agree that it’s only natural that the European Union has sanctions on Russia, because Russia invaded Ukraine. So how can we explain that we have an association agreement with Israel? It’s not acceptable. Different international studies show that public opinion reflects widespread shock at what is going on, and wants to end the genocide and wants sanctions to Israel. Something central in our programme and the Congress was the idea: “from the streets to the Parliament”. That’s what we do, that’s what the left needs to do. This European Citizens’ Initiative is that: we want the voices of the streets in the European institutions. We are convinced that there’s a broad majority of the European people who understand that the EU, being one of the major partners of Israel, actually has the power to stop the genocide, if it imposes sanctions.  

On ELA’s political platform, feminism is one of the main pillars. We have seen feminism being misused and even co-opted for neoliberal gains in different areas. One example would be Annalena Baerbock, Germany’s Foreign Minister, who is associated with a so-called feminist foreign policy, while defending Israel’s killings of Palestinian civilians. What does it mean to have a left, feminist european programme? 

For us, fighting capitalism comes along with fighting patriarchy, we need to do it together. Feminism is key in fighting the far right because it has to do with equality, with respect for everyone, and with carework. Feminism is crucial in imagining other futures: imagining an alternative world from this neoliberal world, from its hatred and war. Feminism is not only about individual rights; it’s about forging an alternate society.

In terms of popular participation, Italy recently had a referendum, which included a question on easing citizenship requirements for migrants; however, it failed since only 30% of eligible people voted, and a third of them voted against making citizenship more accessible. How do we build support and solidarity with migrant workers when citizens seem so happy to sacrifice them?

We have never produced as much as we produce now, and in the last 25 years, we have had a huge change in our technological competence. However, in this century, innovation is not social progress—on the contrary. For many years, innovation marginally served the workers, even if it was not well distributed. But now, it’s against the workers. People feel that their lives are getting worse, there are impossible rhythms of work, impossible working hours, the wages are not enough, and the new generations don’t think their lives can get better. That creates a lot of resentment, and the neoliberals and the far-right know how to use that resentment. In fact, it was not the far-right that started it, it was neoliberalism, and the far-right grows because of neoliberalism, and gives people a simple explanation: your salary is low because there’s an immigrant that is willing to work for a low salary, you don’t have a home because immigrants get available homes, and other things like that, which are not true. The left needs to be able to put the conversation in other terms and determine the debate in new ways, explaining that it’s not the immigrants who are taking jobs, but rather that we have never had as much inequality in the world as we have today. And we need to learn to say this in different ways. That’s why we want ELA to articulate concrete ways to do things. 

At the same time, we need new ways of organising workers, that immigrant workers can be a part of. There’s a part of the left that sometimes seems to go along with the right-wing criticism of the left, saying that defending immigrants, or being antiracist, or being feminist, doesn’t help our struggle with workers. Is there any place or any activity where we can have workers’ struggles without women or without migrants? No, it’s impossible. We need other ways for people to feel represented, and that’s the work of the left, but not only of the left parties—this is also the work of the unions. We need to integrate migrant workers into the workers’ rights struggles in Europe. We have good examples of that, and we already know how to do it in some sectors. But it’s still too little, we need to do it better, and we need to do it all over. 

The far right is growing in European countries. In some cases, the left is struggling, on one side, to keep parliamentary representation, and on the other, grassroots mobilisation; sometimes both. How can we regain ground? 

We need both. We cannot give up on the institutions. We can say that the democracies that we have are quite limited—and they are—and they are not the democracies that we would stand for. But not using what we have is a silly mistake. When we see how fast Orbán dismantled the democratic rules in Hungary, when we see what Trump is doing, can we really leave the institutions up to them? I don’t think so. They are a tool and we need them. Of course, we also need to have grassroots movements, and we shouldn’t see them as opposites. We need to be everywhere. We are in a new, dangerous moment in our history, not only European but internationally, with fascism on the rise. Faced with that, the answer can’t be to be scared and run, but to foster the resistance. Grassroots movements don’t have to be instrumentalised for institutional activity, the same way that our institutional activity cannot be determined only by what the movements are saying at each time. 

The left, being anticapitalist and progressive is under attack, because we represent everything that is under attack right now. Wanting an alternative to capitalism makes us the target for neoliberals, for the centre, for the far right. Stating that everyone is equal and that everyone needs to be free—at a point in time where fascism is on the rise, when you see how non-white, LGBTQIA+ people, and women are being targeted—the present moment is really important. We know that this anti-conservative and progressive agenda is key in fighting fascism. That is what mobilises people. I see the younger generation—where there’s a real polarisation—but we also have so many young people who understand this, and that gives us hope. 

How can people get involved with ELA? 

ELA is a party of parties, but we are trying to have initiatives and be open to discussions. We will have a youth camp in Poland at the beginning of September. In our Congress in Porto, it wasn’t only parties participating: we opened it up to social movements and to people from outside Europe. That gives us hope and energy. Lots of things can be created from that. So, for anyone interested, you are welcome to our initiatives. 

A Berlin double standard

Berlin authorities are affording neo-Nazis speech rights that are denied to supporters of Palestine


Over the past twenty months in Berlin, human rights demonstrators have been routinely brutalized, their events cancelled or severely curtailed, their speech banned. 

The list is well-known: the court order that the 2025 Nakba Day protest stay in one place; the cancellation of events with Francesca Albanese; the “Palestine Congress”; the violent dissolution of a protest camp at the Freie Universität Berlin; the eviction of students at the Humboldt University at the behest of the mayor; instances of police violence at numerous demonstrations; the Fördergeld affair; and the criminalization of some speech in support of Palestinians’ human rights. 

A comparison with the neo-Nazi demonstrations honoring Adolf Hitler’s deputy Rudolf Hess in 2017 and 2018 as well as the repeated display of mock Judenstern patches at pandemic denier assemblies illustrates the Berlin authorities’ inconsistencies in banning protests as well as in enforcing laws against racist and antisemitic incitement and insulting the dignity of victims of Nazism. 

Most blatant has been the inconsistent adherence to the Federal Constitutional Court’s own principle that if multiple interpretations of a statement are conceivable, then legal assessment must be based upon the interpretation most favorable to the speaker. This principle has been confirmed in many rulings. 

The discrepancy reveals a double standard: Neo-Nazi demonstrations are protected under the principle that permitting universally condemned speech proves the state’s commitment to upholding the right to free speech, while the broad coalition of those protesting the Gaza genocide have had their rights repeatedly violated in the name of Staatsräson.

German police forces are allowed to ban assemblies if they determine that the event poses a threat to public safety or that laws are likely to be broken. The decision is often grounded in the police’s assessment that the event’s participants will break the law against racist incitement (Volksverhetzung), which bans racist statements as well as other statements and actions that attack the human dignity of others. The law against incitement specifically bans denigrating the victims of Nazism. The law that enables police to ban events, often referred to as Gefahrenprognose (risk assessment), also specifically mentions demonstrations that might denigrate the dignity of the victims of National Socialism.

Yet on August 19, 2017, neo-Nazis organized a march in Berlin to honor Hitler’s deputy Rudolf Hess. They registered the event in Spandau, not far from the site of the Allied prison for war criminals where Hess died by suicide on August 17, 1987. Berlin’s interior minister at the time, Andreas Geisel, stated that: “I would have liked to ban [the demonstration], and we carefully looked into doing so, but we concluded that assholes also have constitutionally protected democratic freedoms.” Although they were not allowed to “glorify” Rudolf Hess during the demonstration, the neo-Nazis carried a large banner with a quote from a statement Hess made at the Nuremberg Trials: “Ich bereue nichts” (I regret nothing). Beneath the quote stood the words “Nationale Sozialisten Berlin.” A thousand police officers from Berlin and around Germany protected the march. Many people successfully organized to block the route, forcing the neo-Nazis to return to a square near the Spandau train station.

In a parliamentary inquiry after the event, representatives from Die Linke asked the Berlin Interior Ministry why they did not view the banner as “glorifying” Hess. The Interior Ministry responded that the police department’s lawyers present at the event determined that the banner was not in violation of the laws against incitement. The representatives also asked why the march was not banned for potentially violating laws against denigrating the victims of National Socialism. The Interior Ministry responded that the march could only be forbidden if there was a high likelihood that participants would violate these laws, which the police did not consider to be the case.

In August 2018, neo-Nazis again organized a “Hess March,” and Andreas Geisel again regretted that there was nothing he could do. In fact the Federal Constitutional Court’s 2009 approval of a ban of a demonstration honoring Hess at his grave in Wunsiedel created judicial precedent. But the Berlin Interior Ministry stated that they could not conclude that the 2018 march was primarily focused on honoring Hess as a symbol of Nazism, because the official registration for the demonstration stated it sought to propagate the conspiracy theory that Hess was murdered.

For the 2018 march, the neo-Nazis devised a strategy to avoid the previous year’s outcome. They registered identical demonstrations in Spandau and in Friedrichshain to create uncertainty about where the demonstration would actually occur. A small group appeared in Spandau—including a known Holocaust denier apparently driven there by the police—while the majority went to Friedrichshain. The police protected them as they walked from Alexanderplatz to the Platz der Vereinten Nationen. One man showed up with a Hitler-like mustache and haircut. Some people reported that neo-Nazis shouted racist and antisemitic insults at bystanders along their route. The Jewish Forum published a video of neo-Nazis making antisemitic statements and performing Nazi salutes. The neo-Nazis were even permitted to carry flags of the German Empire, a known substitute for the swastika flag. Despite the ban on wearing uniforms, they all wore the same dress—white button-up shirts and black pants. Again, when representatives in the Abgeordnetenhaus asked Berlin’s government about this, its officials demurred. 

In 2018, the 2,300 police officers—more than double the number of 2017—were better prepared to force the march through Friedrichshain to its endpoint in neighboring Lichtenberg. They physically removed people who attempted to block it from proceeding. Responding to the attempts to block the march and to alleged instances of people throwing glass bottles at the neo-Nazis, the official Berlin Police account tweeted: “Our officers protect every assembly against disruptions, regardless of its topic. This guarantees the basic right to freedom of assembly.”

Although they were still not allowed to “glorify” Rudolf Hess, the neo-Nazis again carried the banner reading “Ich bereue nichts.” In a parliamentary inquiry, the same three Linke representatives again asked the Interior Ministry why the banner did not qualify as “glorifying” Hess. The administration responded that, read within the totality of circumstances, the statement did not violate laws against incitement. The reason was that, following the aforementioned principle laid down by Germany’s constitutional court, it can be interpreted in numerous ways. This is despite the fact that the police stated they were aware that the full quote from Hess reads: “I am happy to know that I did my duty towards my people—my duty as a German, as a National Socialist, as a faithful follower of the Führer. I regret nothing!” The full context of the statement and the refusal to cancel the march because of it demonstrates the extreme degree to which the Berlin Police’s lawyers wanted to adhere to the principle of interpreting speech in a way most favorable to the speaker.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, anti-vaccine critics of Germany’s public health measures held numerous rallies in Berlin. Beginning with the earliest demonstrations in May 2020, demonstrators regularly wore mock Judenstern patches with the word “Jude” replaced with “ungeimpft” (unvaccinated). This act of Holocaust relativization repeatedly occurred at the demonstrations up through 2022. Opinions on whether it broke the laws on incitement and denigrating the victims of Nazism diverged in a Germany-wide debate. Only in 2022 did the Berlin Police direct officers to cite people for wearing the mock Judenstern. Although the Berlin Police did try to ban some of the pandemic denier demonstrations, they did so on the grounds that participants had repeatedly violated the emergency public health laws in effect at the time, not because participants had minimized Nazi crimes and disrespected their victims.

The authorities’ willingness to point to multiple possible interpretations when reading a statement clearly intended to glorify Rudolf Hess and to tolerate mockeries of the Judenstern stands in stark contrast to the sensitivity towards speech and events in support of Palestinians’ right to exist. While a statement’s multiple meanings was called upon in 2018 to allow the public display of a statement made by a Nazi criminal that clearly glorifies National Socialism, the police used force to break up a protest encampment at the Freie Universität shortly after it began because the university’s president believed “this kind of protest is not dialogue oriented.” The Berlin Police have banned the Arabic language at demonstrations. They showed up in numbers at Albanese’s event to surveil her speech. A woman was convicted for a protest chant that the judge claimed “could only be understood as a denial of Israel’s right to exist and an endorsement of the attack,” despite different German courts asserting that the chant has multiple interpretations and thus cannot be per se banned. These cases indicate that the Federal Constitutional Court’s presumption in favor of expression is inconsistently applied in Berlin.

Other aspects of the forgiving treatment of neo-Nazis also stand in contrast to the treatment of speech in support of Palestinians’ rights. While police helped the 2018 Hess March reach its planned destination, demonstrators against the Gaza genocide have faced significant police brutality. While pandemic deniers clearly relativized the Holocaust (a form of Holocaust denial) by comparing it with pandemic health measures, the Palestine Conference was ultimately cancelled because police feared that speakers would make antisemitic statements or statements that “glorify violence or deny the Holocaust” (though no such statements had been made), a decision that Berlin’s interior minister, Iris Spranger, defended. While Andreas Geisel regretted that the German constitution forbade him from banning the Hess Marches, mayor Kai Wegner demanded that the FU Berlin cancel an event with Francesca Albanese.

The Berlin authorities’ inconsistent application of laws and restrictions on assembly between the pro-Palestine demonstrations, on the one hand, and the neo-Nazi and pandemic denier demonstrations, on the other, is remarkable. 

The Berlin Police and the Berlin state government hesitated to prosecute explicit instances of antisemitism and Holocaust denial in the form of glorifications of Rudolf Hess and mockery of the Judenstern. But they have elected to ban or call for the ban of events protesting the genocide against Palestinians in Gaza—at least some of which have been co-organized by coalitions that include Jewish groups—out of fear that antisemitic statements might be made. 

The rise of antisemitic crimes since the Hamas massacre of October 7, 2023 as well as acts of antisemitism at pro-Palestine demonstrations are unacceptable and have rightfully been condemned. Unacceptable, too, is the rise of antisemitic crimes that has been recorded in Germany since 2018, which have primarily been committed by right-wing extremists. 

But when it comes to banning events based on their potential for harboring antisemitic speech, the history outlined above illustrates that Berlin authorities follow a double standard. While they have been willing to extend significant latitude to right-wing extremists and ethnic German pandemic deniers, events featuring speech in support of Palestinians’ rights have been cancelled or brutalized. The discrepancy leaves Berlin’s government open to criticism that the ban of some pro-Palestinian events represents an instance of German authorities’ focusing on migrant groups’ alleged antisemitism while ignoring ethnic German antisemitism and racism.

Esra Özyürek’s analysis of the “export-import theory of Muslim antisemitism in Germany” in her book Subcontractors of Guilt helps situate the discrepancy in a broader historical context. In her research on educational programs to fight antisemitism among migrant youth, Özyürek cites a program funded by the Federal Ministry of Family Affairs that drew a distinction between “historical” antisemitism and “contemporary” antisemitism. While German youth were seen to be “prone to ‘historical’ antisemitism,” “Muslim migrants are seen to be predisposed to ‘contemporary’ antisemitism” (79). “Bewilderingly,” Özyürek notes, “temporalizing the antisemitism of right-wing non-immigrant residents of Germany as ‘historical’ meant that the antisemitic and anti-immigrant crimes carried out by this group in Germany at the time were suddenly deemed anachronistic and outmoded historical errors.” Meanwhile, “temporalizing antisemitism among immigrants as ‘contemporary’ made them the primary and most present and future danger” (79–80). The distinction is rooted in the larger project of holding immigrants responsible for having “imported antisemitism to the continent,” which “successfully obscures non-immigrant European and German antisemitism” (101). It “offloads the general German social problem of antisemitism onto the Middle Eastern–background minority and further stigmatizes them as the most unrepentant antisemites who need additional education and disciplining” (3).

The logic of “historical” versus “contemporary” antisemitism and the stigmatization of immigrants in general, and Palestinians and their supporters in particular, continues to find expression in Berlin today. While neo-Nazis are written off as a few bad apples, speech promoting Palestinian rights and criticizing Israel’s conduct in Gaza is viewed as a systemic issue. The consequences are deleterious. As respected jurists have noted, the crackdown on speech for Palestinian rights has hollowed out constitutional rights and international law more generally. The history detailed here shows that the double standard critiqued by Özyürek continues to find expression in Berlin today.

Political ban on Dr. Ghassan Abu Sittah

Germany’s Misuse of Migration Law for Authoritarian Purposes Must Stop


11/07/2025

ELSC and ICJP (International Centre of Justice for Palestinians – a legal organisation based in London, working to uphold international law and defend the rights of Palestinians) aim to challenge the ban imposed by German authorities on political activity and public speaking of Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah in April 2024.

The European Legal Support Center (ELSC) has previously succeeded in overturning the ban on Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah’s entry to the Schengen-area, now the ELSC with support from the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) is challenging the ban on his public speaking in Germany which was imposed in April 2024.  

On 12 April 2024 the Berlin Immigration Office has banned Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah from participating, whether in person or online, at the “Palästina Kongress” which was planned to take place on the same day in Berlin. The ban also included participating or publicly speaking at any other events in relation to Palestine and the Gaza genocide. The Immigration Office threatened a prison sentence of up to one year for non-compliance. 

Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah is a multi-award-winning Plastic and Reconstructive surgeon. He arrived in Gaza on 9 October 2023 to volunteer with Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). He remained in Gaza for 43 days, working at al-Ahli, al-Shifa, al-Awda hospitals. The Palästina Kongress organisers had invited him to share his testimony on the Gaza genocide. 
 
Justifying the ban, German authorities argued it was necessary because Abu-Sittah had publicly stated that Israel is attacking hospitals and committing genocide against the Palestinian people and that these statements threaten the German “free democratic basic order” and aren’t compatible with the “German reason of state (Staatsräson) to protect Israel”. This comes despite the International Court of Justice (ICJ) January 2024 finding that Israels’ acts in Gaza constitute a plausible genocide.  
 
The German Federal Police has also placed a Schengen-Information-System entry for Abu-Sittah, which has prevented him from entering Germany, France and the Netherlands. 
Immediately after the ban was placed, the ELSC supported by the ICJP took legal action against the decision arguing that: 

  • Abu-Sittah’s freedom of expression was violated; 
  • The statements he is accused of by the German authorities reflect his lived experience as a trauma surgeon at Palestinian hospitals in Gaza and are corroborated by United Nations reports. 

Following ELSC’s urgent appeal, the Administrative Court Potsdam ruled- in May 2024- that the Schengen ban has no legal basis and had to be revoked immediately. This effectively ended the Schengen-area travel ban imposed on Abu-Sittah by the German authorities.  

Now we will challenge the ban on public speaking in Germany in the upcoming trial at the Administrative Court Berlin. The trial will be ruled by a chamber decision (Kammerentscheidung), a judicial process including three judges rather than one. This process is assigned to trials that the German judiciary deems as having high public interest. 

This trial should be understood in the context of the crack-down on the Palästina Kongress in Berlin, where Abu-Sittah was supposed to speak. Palästina Kongress was planned as an assembly of Palestinian, Jewish, German and international voices calling for an end to Israel’s genocide in Gaza and Germany’s complicity in the genocide. It was ultimately prevented from taking place in an illegal attack by German authorities with heavy police presence. Germany’s Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser (SPD) had openly pressured the Berlin police to “crack down hard” on the Congress, and Berlin’s Mayor Kai Wegener (CDU) declared: “It is intolerable that a so-called Palestine Congress will take place in Berlin”. 

ELSC Lawyer Alexander Gorski said: “Abu-Sittah’s participation as well as the Palästina Kongress itself were already banned by the German authorities. However, what we aim to achieve in court is a precedential ruling which prevents the German authorities from misusing sections of German migration law for authoritarian political purposes. We were successful in overturning the Schengen ban on Ghassan Abu-Sittah and I am optimistic that we can overturn the ban on political activities too.” 

An ICJP spokesperson said: “Dr. Ghassan Abu Sittah continues to face harassment across the UK and Europe.  The ICJP will continue to defend him wherever this happens, so he can carry on doing his life-saving work in Gaza and Lebanon. It is draconian that this case even needs to be heard before a court, but we will fight to ensure that his free speech is upheld. It is cowardice from any state to ban someone from engaging in political activity simply because they highlight states’ complicity in Israeli war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.” 

The repression of Palestine solidarity in Germany and across Europe is systematic and increasingly institutionalised. German state and non-state institutions conflate legitimate criticism of the Israeli state with antisemitism and/or support for terrorism and as such, use allegations of antisemitism to silence expressions of solidarity with the Palestinian people and their struggle for liberation. The ELSC’s Monitor and Research (M&R) Department documents and analyses the growing restrictions that are silencing civil society organisations and activists defending Palestinian rights across Europe and has recently presented the first publicly available database exposing anti-Palestinian repression in Germany.