Since October 7th, 2023, demonstrations, events and even online expressions of solidarity with Palestine have been ruthlessly repressed in the city of Berlin. On the streets, the police are brutally attacking and arresting people demonstrating against the genocide in Gaza. The police justify the charges and mass arrests on the grounds that criminal acts were committed. These criminal acts that give rise to the disproportionate police action are almost entirely the result of certain slogans being chanted, mainly ‘From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will Be Free’ or some of its variations. Police have also excused their own actions by declaring the phrases ‘Intifada’ and ‘Zionists are fascists, they kill children and civilians’ as well as ‘Child murderer Netanyahu’ and ‘Child murderer Israel’ to be illegal. Ignoring the fact that the latter slogans are simply descriptions of Netanyahu’s and Israel’s actions, and that a court case on ‘Zionists are fascists’ has already affirmed the legality of the phrase, the police continue to arrest people who chant them.
Particularly egregious is the continued criminalisation of ‘From the River to the Sea’. Even with seven cases won, each on their initial trials, in the city of Berlin, and with different sSections of the pProsecutor’s oOffice seeing no evidence of criminality in the slogan, the police and the state attorney’s office continue to act outside the law and persecute people who shout the phrase, or write this international cry for the freedom of the Palestinian people on their social media.
This has led a group of lawyers in solidarity to write an open letter to the Berlin police chief and the state attorney’s office, calling for an immediate end to the criminalisation of ‘From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will Be Free’.
International solidarity is needed from lawyers outside of Germany—in support of with their colleagues who have signed this letter, and, above all, with their clients in Germany. International pressure must be exerted on Germany, and especially on Berlin, to reflect on the authoritarian, violent and lawless image it is presenting to the world.
This is their letter:
Dear Ms Slowik Meisel, President of the Berlin Police; Dear Mr Raupach, Chief Public Prosecutor in Berlin; Dear Mr Kühn, Head of Department,
We, a group of lawyers defending individuals accused of using the slogan ‘From the River to the Sea’, or who are interested in the legal and social debate surrounding this issue, are writing this open letter to demand an immediate end to the criminal prosecution of this slogan.
On July 30th, 2025, Division 286 of the Tiergarten District Court once again acquitted an activist who had repeatedly used the slogan ‘Ffrom the River to the Sea, Palestine Will Be Free’ on the grounds that it was not a criminal offence. At a rally in front of the courthouse on the occasion of the same trial, news of the acquittal spreads and one person shouted the slogan. She was immediately arrested and taken to a detention centre for identification. How is this procedure compatible with the binding nature of the law for the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the police as laid down in Article 20(3) of the German Basic Law?
Since October 2023, Germany’s public prosecutors, led by the Berlin Public Prosecutor’s Office, have initiated a large number of criminal proceedings for shouting, displaying or publishing the slogan ‘Ffrom the River to the Sea, Palestine Will Be Free’ (or variations thereof). There are probably several thousand proceedings being conducted in Berlin and the rest of Germany.
As a result of these proceedings, people have been and continue to be arrested at demonstrations and subjected to identification procedures, penalty orders, and fines. Homes have been raided, hard drives and mobile phones have been confiscated, naturalisation and residence permits have been suspended, and demonstrations have been banned or broken up. In most cases, arrests at demonstrations are made using direct force, resulting in physical injury and deprivation of liberty for several hours.
In recent weeks, the Tiergarten District Court has repeatedly ruled, after extensive examination of the evidence, that the slogan ‘Ffrom the River to the Sea’ is not a symbol of Hamas. The accused persons, who had mostly used the slogan with the tagline ‘Palestine Will Be Free’ during public rallies against Israeli actions in the Gaza Strip, were therefore acquitted on factual grounds (see Tiergarten District Court, judgements of July 23rd, 2025 – 222 Cs 1135/24; of July 9th, 2025 – 235 Cs 1055/24 – Annex 1; of June 20th, 2025 – 255 Cs 1/25 – Annex 2; and of May 21st, 2025, – 238 Cs 1148/24 – Appendix 3). Following this, other divisions of the Tiergarten Local Court have now also refused to allow the Berlin Public Prosecutor’s Office to bring charges to trial in their decisions of July 21st, 2025 (394 Ds 3/25 – Appendix 4) and July 25th, 2025 (235 Ds 1077/24). This was followed by the aforementioned judgment of July 30th, 2025 (286 Ds 46/25).
The Tiergarten District Court proceeded very thoroughly in this matter. It had obtained an expert opinion from an expert at the Berlin State Criminal Police Office (LKA) on the history of the slogan and its current use. On this basis, it concluded in all cases that the assumption of the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the Federal Ministry of the Interior that the slogan was a symbol of Hamas was completely unfounded.
This also renders obsolete the ruling of the Berlin Regional Court of 8th November 2024, which the Berlin Public Prosecutor’s Office regularly refers to. At that time, the expert opinion of the Berlin State Criminal Police Office obtained by the Tiergarten Local Court was not yet known. Furthermore, this ruling contains a serious deficiency in its reasoning at the decisive point.
The Regional Court’s assumption that Hamas had adopted the slogan through practice is not empirically substantiated in the ruling (see the detailed discussion of the ruling by Brockhaus, Roberthttps://verfassungsblog.de/mehrdeutige-wortfolge-pauschale-kriminalisierung/).
In contrast, the expert opinion consulted by the Tiergarten District Court systematically analysed all apparent uses of the slogan since the organisation was founded and concluded that regular use of the slogan by Hamas as a distinguishing mark cannot be established.
The findings of the expert opinion and the Tiergarten District Court are clear: the use of the slogan is diverse and its meaning is multifaceted. Regular use that would allow it to be classified as a symbol of Hamas has been empirically refuted. Incidentally, no other country in the world has yet come up with the idea of prosecuting the slogan as a symbol of Hamas. Accordingly, another chamber of the Berlin Regional Court has now also expressed clear doubts about the criminality of the slogan (decision of April 23rd, 2025, 504 Qs 75/25).
However, the instructions given to the Berlin police remain unchanged, even though there are no longer grounds for the initial suspicion. Massive criminal prosecution and violent arrests continue – as if the recent rulings of the Tiergarten District Court had never been handed down. When will the point be reached at which this practice can be classified as persecution of innocent persons within the meaning of Section 344 of the German Criminal Code?
We therefore demand an immediate end to the persecution of people who use this protest slogan. A corresponding instruction must be issued without delay and made public for clarification. Pending charges and applications for penalty orders must be withdrawn. At the same time, we strongly reject the media smear campaign that is now being waged against the judge who handed down the acquittal on July 30th, 2025. The verdict was reached on the basis of objective and constitutional criteria. In this regard, too, a clarifying statement from the Berlin law enforcement authorities would be welcome.
Berlin, 5th of August, 2025
Lawyer Ahmed Abed
Lawyer Rina Ajeti
Lawyer Maja Beisenherz
Lawyer Yeelen Binh
Lawyer Dr Karoline Boerwick
Lawyer Michael Brenner
Lawyer Mathes Breuer
Lawyer Robert Brockhaus
Lawyer Ammar Bustami
Lawyer Christina Clemm
Lawyer Nevin Duran
Lawyer Benjamin Düsberg
Lawyer Christine Engels
Lawyer Jasmin El-Hussein
Lawyer Claus Förster
Lawyer Alexander Górski
Lawyer Jessica Grimm
Lawyer David Hölscher
Lawyer Julian Hölzel
Lawyer Nasrin Karimi
Lawyer Carolin Kaufmann
Lawyer Tilman Kohls
Lawyer Ulrich Kraft
Lawyer Tobias Krenzel
Lawyer Dr. Vivian Kube
Lawyer Anja Lederer
Lawyer Claudia Lichter
Lawyer Lilian Löwenbrück
Lawyer Roland Meister
Lawyer Nina Ogilvie
Lawyer Yaşar Ohle
Lawyer Nina Onèr
Lawyer Viktor Riad
Lawyer Loui Rickert
Lawyer Eike Richter
Lawyer Hannah Rainer
Lawyer Haress Sakhi
Lawyer Nadija Samour
Lawyer Yolanda Scheytt
Lawyer Niklas Schlindwein
Lawyer David Schumann
Lawyer Matthias Schuster
Lawyer Tuğba Sezer
Lawyer Monika Maria Sommer
Lawyer Michaela Streibelt
Lawyer Yener Sözen
Lawyer Dr. Lukas Theune
Lawyer Ada Tünnemann
Lawyer Dr. Eckart Wähner
Lawyer Ingrid Yeboah
Lawyer Dirk Zimmermann
