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The Berlin police are acting lawlessly and lying about it

Even courts are ruling that the Berlin police are acting illegally


22/07/2025

For 21 months, the pro-Palestinian movement in Berlin has been subjected to violent and systematic attacks by the police acting on orders from the state. Demonstrations, rallies and events are brutally suppressed by an excessive number of riot police acting above the law.

This week, the paralegal actions of the police and the state have been made clear in two court verdicts, the first against the city of Berlin on behalf of Palestinian-British doctor Gassan Abu Sitta. This doctor, who worked in Gaza in October 2023, was banned from entering Germany to prevent him from participating in the Palestine Congress in April 2024, where he was to speak as a direct witness to the genocide. This congress, which was to last a weekend, was also raided by the police on the orders of Berlin Mayor Kay Wegner (CDU) after a single speech by Palestinian-American journalist Hebh Jamal, for whom the German state has been making life impossible ever since. This week, a Berlin court ruled that the ban on Dr Abu Sitta entering the country was illegal, more than a year after the event took place. It remains to be determined whether the dissolution of a congress that sought to discuss the genocide and Germany’s role in it was also illegal.

On Wednesday 16th July 2025, a Berlin court also ruled that the actions of the police were illegal. Under orders from German Chancellor Merz (CDU), the police yesterday forced the pro-Palestinian camp set up in front of the Reichstag and the German Chancellery building to move to another location where they would not disturb the chancellor. The protest camp appealed the decision in court and won. Today they will be back where the chancellor can hear them:  “Israel is doing our dirty work”. 

Likewise, using as an excuse the German Interior Ministry’s statement in November 2023 that the phrase From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will Be Free is a Hamas slogan, every time this slogan is heard the police charge fiercely against those who shout it and anyone in the vicinity, whom they then accuse of resisting authority, alongside exercising contempt and insulting them, which are quite serious crimes in authoritarian German society. They also attack peaceful demonstrators for chanting other slogans such as Zionists are fascists, they kill children and civilians or even Free Palestine. Thousands of people have been brutally arrested for alleged crimes related to these slogans and the situations that arise when the police enter demonstrations in hordes of 10 to 15 officers. The use of this tactic of criminalising the pro-Palestinian movement has resulted in some 9,000 cases related to solidarity with Palestine being investigated in Berlin alone, many of which will end up in court. The police continue to carry out these arrests despite the fact that in multiple cases the courts have found that both From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will Be Free and Zionists are fascists, they kill children and civilians are not crimes of incitement to hatred.

One of the 4 latest wins in court regarding From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will Be Free was very telling. The expert on the Middle East from criminal police was yet again invited to give her testimony of the history and use of the slogan. She could find seven examples since Hamas was founded that could be attributed to them, including the geographical description of where Palestine is in their foundational charter, and some minor examples such as an alleged election poster that had spelling mistakes. The rest of the examples brought forward, including the very first use of the slogan, were either made by zionists, or used worldwide for decades by millions of people as a symbol of Palestine solidarity. Pro-Palestinians have been using it to fight for the rights of all people from the river Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea of a secular state. The sentence of the judge in this case was very stark in favour of stopping the absurd criminalisation of a political movement by the German state apparatus, and offered a stark warning to the prosecutor’s office to stop this criminalisation trend that backs up the criminal court system.

The excessive actions of the police, their tactics of criminalisation and lies are culminating in their actions during and after the rally for the 77th anniversary of the Nakba in Berlin. After doing everything possible to prevent the demonstrators from marching, they were surrounded by hundreds of riot police, who charged in groups of 15, attacking the demonstrators, leaving a trail of seriously injured people and making 88 arrests at a rally of about 1,000 people. In a clear example of reversing the victim and the perpetrator, a police officer who was injured by his own brutality in beating protesters and by a riot they themselves created has been portrayed as a victim of rabid protesters. The German press and politicians have been calling for weeks for greater restrictions on pro-Palestinian demonstrations, and the state attorney general’s office is investigating the case. A video of the event analysed by Forensis clearly shows that it was the actions of this police officer and his colleagues that resulted in his injuries. However, today the police, on the orders of the state prosecutor’s office, carried out raids on the homes of five activists and confiscated their electronic devices. They ignored all the evidence showing that it was the demonstrators who were brutalised.

The fact is that if the Berlin police believe they are above the law, it is because they are. To date, none of the beatings that have left hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters in hospital have been punished in the slightest, while the protesters who were attacked face fines and even prison sentences for “resisting” the police. The lies told by members of the police in court, where videos prove that their version is far from reality, also go unpunished. The courts simply ignore them and sometimes believe them despite what the videos and other witnesses show.

This system of paralegal criminalisation is useful for a government and state complicit in the genocide in Palestine, which has demonstrated on more than one occasion that its “Staatsräson” is above human rights and basic morality.

Interviewed by theleftberln.com, lawyer Benjamin Düsberg said: “regardless of the fact that more and more courts are beginning to understand that these slogans are legal, Berlin prosecutor and police are still arresting and criminalizing people for it. They do not give up and will probably try to get a new ‘expert opinion’ in support of their claims. So, we need a landmark decision of higher courts to stop the prosecutor. But I am sure we will get it because the truth is on our side.”

Benjamin continued: “In Germany police officers almost never are indicted or charged for their violent acts. “The legal  system in Germany acts like a ‘cover up- machine’ for the institution of the police,” Biplap Basu, the great human rights advocate once said. It is true – there is basically immunity for police violence in Germany.”

Never Again means Never Again anywhere

Berlin is a city that remembers


18/07/2025

Berlin is a city that remembers.

You feel it under your shoes.

Little brass plates with names.

You don’t even have to look for them—

you just stumble over memory on your way to buy bread.

It mourns out loud, this place.

Walls whisper names.

Museums stay quiet in a way that says more than words ever could.

They leave rooms empty—on purpose—

because absence says more than any exhibit.

Here, they don’t hide the past.

They carve it into stone.

Bake it into the buildings.

Kids don’t just learn facts and dates—they learn what it felt like.

What it meant. What it cost.

They say:

Never Again.

Firm.

Like a vow they’ve practiced until it became muscle memory.

But lately… it just sounds like an echo.

Because something’s happening again.

Right now.

And no one wants to name it.

Not in galleries.

Not in schools.

Not even out on the streets—

the same streets that built their identity on remembering.

Something’s burning.

Far, but not far enough.

Homes are flattening.

Children are dying.

Mothers are screaming into clouds of dust.

And most of the world walks past

with their headphones in.

Berlin remembers.

But what’s the point of memory

if it doesn’t make you do something?

We’re good at grief once it’s over.

We light candles for the past.

We make speeches about ghosts.

But we go quiet when it’s the living.

When the horror feels too now.

We say Never Again—

until the victims don’t look like us.

Until it’s messy.

Until the grief feels like a political risk.

Until saying something might cost us followers, or friends, or funding.

But here’s the thing:

History isn’t over.

You’re standing inside it.

If you stay quiet now,

you won’t be remembered for your good intentions.

You’ll be remembered for your silence.

Berlin taught me that.

Berlin showed me

what happens when you don’t say anything

until it’s too late to matter.

So I’m not looking away.

Not this time.

Not again.

Let the city remember.

Let us respond.

Because memory means nothing

if it doesn’t light something up inside you

right now.

Red Flag: A German newspaper finally notices that Berlin cops lie

In his weekly column, Nathaniel Flakin is amazed Süddeutsche did more than copy-pasting police statements


16/07/2025

A group of police with helmets and heavy-duty jackets stand between the camera and a group of protestors. The closes police holds their hand in front of the camera, as if to say "don't film me"

For almost two years, social media and bourgeois media in Germany have reported from parallel universes, one a bizarro mirror of the other.

In the Instagram and Tiktok universe, people get an endless sequence of horrific images: heavily armed cops assaulting peaceful demonstrators at Palestine solidarity protests almost every day. This has drawn the attention of Amnesty International, the Human Rights Commissioner of the Council of Europe, and other international organizations.

Meanwhile, people who get their news from a German newspaper or the Berliner Fenster in the subway hear the exact opposite: every time, big capitalist media apparatuses report that police were attacked by demonstrators. There is never a shred of evidence for this. But most so-called journalists in Germany see it as their duty to transcribe whatever police say.

A particularly dramatic example was the coverage of the Nakba demonstration in Kreuzberg on May 15. The police had tried to ban it, but a court had allowed a rally. Over 1,000 people showed up, surrounded by hordes of cops. As countless videos documented, these black-uniformed thugs proceeded to beat any demonstrator within reach.

By the evening, the police had made a particularly dramatic claim. “We have a seriously injured officer who was dragged into the crowd and literally trampled,” in the words of a spokesman. A cop was admitted to the hospital with a hand fracture and a spinal bruise. Every major outlet repeated this version, from the far-right tabloid BILD to the supposedly serious Tagesspiegel to the avowedly liberal Süddeutsche. None of them relied on reporters on the scene—none asked the cops for evidence.

Politicians took up the narrative. Berlin’s mayor Kai Wegner (CDU) (who loves antisemites, by the way) referred to a “cowardly, brutal act of violence.” Neukölln mayor Martin Hikel called  this “attempted murder.” Alexander Dobrindt (CSU), now the interior minister, said in parliament that this happens “every day.”

Almost two months later, a big German newspaper finally got around to checking the facts. Or rather, the Süddeutsche had Forensis, the Berlin branch of Forensic Architecture, do it for them. And while the video scenes are chaotic, it’s absolutely clear that Officer 24111 was not dragged into the crowd or knocked over at any point. His hand appears to be injured after punching a demonstrator in the face—in other words, he might have broken it on someone’s face.

Why did he subsequently collapse and require medical attention? The video offers no clues. I can offer some speculation. Before these violent frenzies, Berlin cops often have been observed to display tics that are commonly associated with the use of stimulants like cocaine or amphetamines: twitching, jumping, and of course extreme aggression. While my policy is to never talk to police, I have occasionally talked to people who know police personally, and I hear that steroid abuse is rampant. Just last year several cops were investigated for using cocaine which they had confiscated.

Is it possible that 24111 collapsed from overexertion after mixing different drugs? Was this the “attempted murder”?

I predict that we will never know for sure. I doubt that either cops or prosecutors will ever offer an explanation—the case will be quietly dropped sometime next year. Not a single politician will apologize for spreading fake news. No major media outlet will issue a correction. Even Süddeutsche has neglected to correct their original false reporting.

Now, most major outlets have reported on the debunking—yet there is no hint of critical self-reflection. The video analyzed by Forensis did not just suddenly pop up—it was available on social media immediately, and any semi-serious reporter could have tried to find the truth before publishing a report. Heck, I was on vacation in a distant land, and even I could find video evidence while sitting at the beach!

I also predict this will also not lead to a reckoning among bourgeois journalists. Policing is the only profession whose members lie so consistently and so blatantly that we require them to film themselves. Yet most people who call themselves journalists are happy to repeat whatever cops say. In a sense, I get it—that is far easier than doing actual journalistic work.

Red Flag is a weekly column on Berlin politics that Nathaniel Flakin has been writing since 2020. After moving through different homes, it now appears at The Left Berlin.

München OEZ Erinnern

Our Names, Our Voices, Remembring is Resistance


We, München OEZ erinnern!, are an initiative of relatives, survivors and supporters who want to recall and remember the attack on 22 July 2016 at the Olympia-Einkaufszentrum (OEZ) in Munich.

The names of the nine victims must not be forgotten. Armela Segashi, Can Leyla, Dijamant Zabërgja, Guiliano Kollmann, Hüseyin Dayıcık, Roberto Rafael, Sabine S., Selçuk Kılıç and Sevda Dağ. It must no longer be concealed that the offence was a case of right-wing terror, anti-Muslim racism and antiziganism.


We want to and will fight for this together. We want to help ensure that the victims are not only remembered on the anniversary, but that they and their stories are part of the public consciousness. We want the relatives’ demands for appropriate remembrance and a space for dialogue and reappraisal to become a reality. We want to stand together against racism and right-wing terror. We want Munich to take this attack seriously and draw consequences. We want this attack to be recognised and named as right-wing terror throughout Germany.

We want to counter the contempt for humanity of right-wing terror and racism with a practice of solidarity. To this end, we are working together with around 25 victims’ initiatives in the Solidarity Network for Victims of Right-Wing, Racist and Anti-Semitic Violence.

We are therefore delighted that our comrades and friends from “Berlin erinnert München OEZ!” are once again organising a commemorative event on 22 July at 5 pm on O-Platz.

‘Exterminate all the brutes’

On Israel doing the dirty work for us all


15/07/2025

Chancellor Friedrich Merz described Israel’s war of aggression on Iran as “the dirty work Israel is doing for us all.” The phrase “dirty work” is egregiously racist, arguably towards both Iranians and Israelis. The phrase is also a troubling echo of Nazi Germany’s rhetoric and devotion to work that just needs be done, however dirty. There has been backlash against the Chancellor’s choice of words, including a lawsuit in Berlin.

Scarcely discussed is the fact that those were not Merz’s own words, but words that the Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen (ZDF) commentator Diana Zimmerman – visibly beside herself for having received audience with the Chancellor against the backdrop of “the very very nice view of the Rocky Mountains” – literally put in Merz’s mouth:

Zimmerman: “Isn’t it very tempting [verlockend] that the Israelis are now doing the dirty work [Drecksarbeit]?”

And, of course, Merz ran with it:

Merz: “Ms. Zimmerman, I am grateful to you for the phrase ‘dirty work’. This is indeed dirty work that Israel is doing for us all.”

Zimmerman’s role in Germany’s latest episode of celebrating violence and war has been completely ignored. Criticism has been entirely focused on Merz, suggesting it is mainly to score party-political points. Merz is being criticized as a matter of form: Yes, we know it is a dirty job — it’s a nasty one! But it’s bad form to put it like that, it’s unbecoming of the chancellor, etcetera, etcetera. It is reminiscent of the American liberals criticizing Trump for saying out loud the things they all privately think and act according to.

“Exterminate all the brutes!” is the enigmatic scribbling by Kurtz, one of the central figures in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, on the last page of his report for the fictional International Society for the Suppression of Savage Customs. Conrad’s masterpiece is the story of sailor Marlow’s journey to find and return Kurtz, a conqueror and ivory trader of almost mythical status in the Congo. Almost a century after the publication of Heart of Darkness, the Swedish historian Sven Lindqvist published his monumental study of genocide and extermination, under that very title: ”Exterminate All the Brutes”. Heavily influenced by Conrad, one of Lindqvist’s main points is that European atrocities in the Congo and elsewhere in Africa were general knowledge at the time:

“Officially, it was, of course, denied. But man to man, everyone knew. That is why [Conrad] has no need to count up the crimes Kurtz committed. He has no need to describe them. He has no need to produce evidence. For no one doubted it.

Conrad was able to assume quite calmly that [the] readers silently knew quite enough to understand the story and in their own imaginations develop details the novel only implied. This knowledge is a fundamental prerequisite of the book.”

The same knowledge is a fundamental prerequisite of the perfectly choreographed exchange between Zimmerman and Merz. Everybody knows about the genocidal war machine called Israel and its dirty work. That is why Zimmerman uses the word as a matter of fact and Merz does not hesitate to expand on it.

The unanimous, unconditional support of the German establishment –  across the spectrum and including the media – for Israel’s warmongering and genocide is hardly any surprise to anybody with their heads out of the sand. Public and diplomatic pressure has seemingly forced Germany to minimally soften the tone of its support. Nevertheless, the normalization and broadening of blatantly and aggressively racist rhetoric, including the exchange between Zimmerman and Merz, indicates Germany has no intention of loosening its grip on what it perceives a historic opportunity for taking a “new role in Europe and new responsibility in the world”. “Germany is back“, said Merz after his electoral victory. The full extent of that return and the dirty work it entails is only beginning to dawn on us all.