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Freedom of Brutality by the German State. 

When it comes to Palestine demos, the German police are out of control


30/09/2025

Over the last few years the German state has increased its levels of repression towards any form of Palestinian solidarity, as well as a disproportionate increase of targeting of Arabic and Muslim voices and persons.  The police act with impunity in their arbitrary violence and scant regard for constitutional laws, often clashing with the high court’s ruling, yet facing zero consequences or accountability for their law breaking. The hostile and often false narratives of political leaders and the complicit media class create a falsified legitimacy for the draconian policing of those supporting Palestine, with ever increasing “new normal” levels of violence becoming established. 

If we examine the European convention of human rights, articles: 8 (Right to Privacy), 10 (Freedom of Expression), and 11 (Freedom of Assembly & Association) are being ignored on a daily basis here in Germany. In early May 2024, the ELSC (European Legal Support Center), presented the first comprehensive Database of anti Palestinian repression in Europe. 2032 (recorded) incidents occurred between 2019 to 2025, of which 736 took place in Germany alone, with nearly half of those transpired in Berlin. Such serious breaches of European law occurred that the Council of Europe’s Commissioner for Human Rights, Michael O’Flaherty, expressed his concern directly to German Interior Minister, Alexander Dobrindt, about the (lack of) Freedom of Expression and Freedom of Peaceful Assembly over protests related to Gaza in Germany.

O’Flaherty noted restrictions on events, symbols, or other forms of expression in this context in Germany, also citing reports of the police using excessive force against demonstrators, including minors.

Berlin has almost twice as many police officers as other EU and German cities, totalling  500-594 officers per 100,000. All the while Germany extols its virtues of being a progressive nation, yet in actuality operates as a state in which a highly militarised and violent police force faces zero accountability for injuring & brutalising its population, whilst disregarding constitutional fundamentals such as right to protest and freedom of opinion, often in the name of freedom of opinion.

One comrade recounts: 

“After a demo in October I ended up being checked for internal bleeding and organ damage in hospital, after being  beaten by multiple police simultaneously. They had started their attacks in the crowd, and I rushed to help someone I saw being kicked on the floor. I was attacked by multiple police officers, my arms were held by two, each using their free hands to punch my ribs, chest, and stomach repeatedly, whilst another held my head back in a pain grip, meaning I couldn’t physically move whilst getting beaten. I was detained, put in a van, and driven to a police station in Potsdam, where we were made to wait outside in the cold winter weather for about 30 minutes, until being processed and released, with no charges. My body was still in so much pain the next day that I went to hospital, where they examined me for organ damage and internal bleeding, using the CT scan, and I proceeded to fall into a state of shock, lasting several hours.

I have since recently returned to a hospital ward post police treatment, after a demo at Checkpoint Charlie, where I was punched several times in the neck and face by one policeman, 34311, smashing my glasses into my eyebrow, requiring stitches, and leaving me with migraines for several days. This same policeman, number 34311, is being charged by a group of lawyers called Advocardo, who specifically target police who do the most damage. They asked me to be a witness in that case, after seeing the video of this attack online.”

This is but one of many examples of the extent of violence, as well as the tactics employed: the “pain grip”, targeted pressuring of sensitive body parts to gain compliance, is directly learnt from the IDF, taught to police and militaries worldwide for extreme crowd control, the distressing result of which is that the restricted airways lead to the victim being rendered completely prone and vulnerable, easily led and subsequently beaten, without any opportunity for bracing for the assault, leading to increased damage inflicted. 

These accounts will be portrayed by the German media as violence toward police, so registered by the police themselves, when it is the complete opposite. Even demonstrators who get carried away are recorded as perpetrators of violence. For example, the now infamous case of the Nakba stomping: the supposed breaking of one officer’s legs was entirely fabricated, and rejected by the courts upon review of video evidence. Yet the police and media sources who reported the falsehood were not held accountable. 

Previous demonstrations impacting far more civil disruption were allowed to play out with minimal police interactions, and certainly no expectation or experience of unwarranted violence. Specifically, during Extinction Rebellion’s early actions, Potsdamer Platz was blocked in entirety from five a.m. to nine p.m., ending when Police (none in riot gear), peacefully removed protestors away into vans for processing. Years later, they escalated the repression of climate protests after it seemed the state became embarrassed by the lack of control over its infrastructure, leading to some scandal in the mainstream media at the heavy handed tactics, seemingly as it was imagery of white Germans being persecuted. 

It is now guaranteed that at any given Palestinian demo, Police are dressed to oppress: full helmets, riot gear, and often sporting specific “self defence gloves” (sand filled for further damage inflicted, courts finding that use of these in extreme beatings could be considered attempted murder). At no point during any protest does it feel the police are there for anything but violence; they project their monopoly of it from the beginning, until enacting it after orders allow them to do so. They are the escalators, they are the instigators, they are the gatekeepers of violence, and everyone knows it. 

Another comrade recounts :

“At the IQP (International Queer Pride), 2024, I was attacked from behind by the police and detained and booked, not formally arrested. I had to be taken to the hospital by ambulance afterwards, my most major injuries were two cracked kneecaps, a deep laceration on my arm that required stitches, and an almost broken arm that I had to keep in a cast for two weeks. 

I still did not receive any charges a year later, so nothing to legally connect and report the attack by the police. “

Longer term realities of expressing opposition to genocide accrue state violence of different kinds, including but not limited to: job and home raids, deportations, targeted detainment and harassment, and online and infiltrating surveillance. One example was two Girls and Young Women shelters in Berlin being shut down, due to “hatred of Israel and antisemitism “. In actuality, staff members marched in support of Palestine, posted “banned” slogans on their private instagram pages, and appeared as speakers at the Palestine Congress, which was banned and shut down by German authorities on the orders of Berlin mayor Kai Wegner, the same man who said, “The Israeli flag will remain hanging on the Red City Hall until the last hostage is free—and nothing will change that”. 

With Netanyahu’s current determination to get those hostages killed, it seems Germany is staying with Israel until it sinks into its future international ostracisation and legal prosecutions for the horror it is unleashing. 

Giovanni Fassina, Director of the ELSC, noted:

“The audacity with which German authorities bend and undermine the law should not surprise us at this point. However, it remains shameful. We have witnessed this time and time again: German authorities are now routinely making up baseless accusations to justify increasingly harsh measures against the Palestine solidarity movement. 

These increases and normalisations of authoritarian behaviour are of grave concern. The recently updated Weapons Act (WaffG) in June 2025  prohibits dangerous weapons being carried in public places, yet it allows the police to detain and search anyone they perceive as a risk. This brings about stop and search tactics,  which unsurprisingly mainly affect young men of ethnic minority groups, as we have seen occur in the UK after similar laws were passed years ago.  We can safely assume that wearing the Keffiyeh, or having any pro Palestine symbols (the ever dangerous watermelon), will allow the police to apply greater acts of intimidation & repression, they must be held accountable for their barbarism.

4 October 1936 – The Battle of Cable Street

This week in working class history


The early 1930s were a time of crisis and a growing Fascist threat. In 1922, Mussolini became the Italian leader. 11 years later, President von Hindenburg appointed Hitler as the German Chancellor. In 1936, General Franco staged a coup in Spain. In 1932, Sir Oswald Mosley formed the British Union of Fascists (BUF or Blackshirts). The BUF had their own paramilitary fighting force, which terrorised Jewish communities, bombing houses and carrying out indiscriminate racist attacks.

In 1934, the Daily Mail, a major mainstream daily newspaper, ran a headline “Hurrah for the Blackshirts.” Mosley was interviewed in The Tatler. In the same week that Franco was appointed head of Spain’s coup government, Mosley announced that the BUF would march through East London, home to half the Jewish population of Britain. After initially hesitating, the Independent Labour Party (ILP), then the Communist Party (CP), called for barricades to defend the area. The Labour Party and the Jewish Board of Deputies told their members to stay away.

Local activists, led by the local ILP and CP branches and Jewish groups, mobilised 100,000 people behind the slogan “They shall not pass”—the same slogan that was being used by anti-fascists in besieged Madrid. Tram drivers used their vehicles to block the intended route of the BUF march. This mass mobilisation prevented 3,000 Blackshirts from marching through the East End, although the fascists were supported by approximately 10,000 police including the entire Metropolitan Police Mounted Division.

As the newspaper The Guardian reported at the time: “In Cable Street a crowd seized materials from a builder’s yard and began to construct a barricade. They used corrugated iron, barrels, coal, and glass to construct a barrier, even pulling up paving-stones. When the police intervened they were greeted with a shower of stones.” They did not pass.

Local Communist activist Phil Piratin reported the effect: “Nothing had changed physically. The poor houses, the mean streets, the ill-conditioned workshops were the same, but the people were changed. Their heads seemed to be held higher, and their shoulders were squarer—and the stories they told! Each one was a ‘hero’—many of them were… The people knew that fascism could be defeated if they organised themselves to do so.” As fascists mobilise in Europe once more, we must learn the lessons of Cable Street.

Photo Gallery: Together for Gaza demonstration and concert – 27th September 2025

Alexanderplatz to the Grosser Stern


Photographs by: Compañera Emiliana, Jan Maas, Brian Janssen, and Ina Ko

Berlin strikes back on behalf of the Palestinian people

Lawyers sue political leaders and CEOs amid ongoing state repression of solidarity


Two people sit at a press conference, with computers and microphones.

Note: This article was written prior to the demonstrations held in Berlin on 27 September.

A week before what are likely to be the largest demonstrations in German history in support of Palestine, a group of lawyers in Berlin are suing members of the current and previous governments, as well as CEOs of major arms companies, for complicity in the genocide in Gaza. On the day the lawsuit was announced, a group of activists observing trials against the pro-Palestinian movement released a devastating report on the state of justice in the city of Berlin.

On Friday, 19 September 2025, a group of lawyers from Berlin, with the support of the European Legal Support Centre (ELSC), the Palestine Institute for Public Diplomacy (PIPD) and Law for Palestine, filed a 100-page lawsuit against 11 political leaders and major German arms companies for their complicity in the genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza.

The charges were filed at the State Attorney’s Office in Karlsruhe (Generalbundesanwaltschaft) against former and current members of the German government and CEOs of arms manufacturers, specifically former Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz, former Federal Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, former Minister for Economic Affairs and Climate Protection Robert Habeck, current Federal Chancellor Friedrich Merz, current Federal Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul and Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy Katherina Reiche, Federal Minister of Defence Boris Pistorius, as well as Dr Jörg Stratmann, CEO of Rolls-Royce Power Systems AG, Michael Humbek, CEO of Dynamit Nobel Defence GmbH, and Dr Alexander Sagel and Susanne Wiegand, current and former CEOs of RENK Group AG.

Germany is clearly a co-perpetrator of the genocide in Gaza, both in words and deeds. All the leaders sued by the group of lawyers have reiterated their complete sectarian devotion to the terrorist state of Israel and defended (almost) all its criminal actions. The German state has voted against or abstained from all votes in the UN or the EU to stop the massacre in Gaza and the occupation of the West Bank, and denies that Israel is committing apartheid. Germany is the only country in the world that, following South Africa’s genocide lawsuit before the International Court of Justice in The Hague, has presented itself as a co-defender of Israel.

Furthermore, as the lawyers explain in their lawsuit, Germany has increased its arms sales to the genocidal state of Israel tenfold since 7 October 2023, making it the second largest exporter of weapons to the Zionist state. Some of the large companies that have benefited from this increase in arms sales are those of the defendants mentioned above. War mercenaries are lining their pockets with money stained with Palestinian blood, with the approval of the German political leadership. This has led to a lawsuit filed by Nicaragua against Germany at the International Court of Justice in The Hague for its complicity in genocide.

Germany also continues to face three other lawsuits filed earlier by lawyers’ associations in the same country on behalf of people who have lost family members in Gaza, for its sale of arms to the genocidal state after the ICJ warned that Israel could be committing genocide in February 2024. A couple of these lawsuits have been dismissed on grounds that would make Kafka turn in his grave. The reasons given by the state’s legal team for dismissing the lawsuits are both Kafkaesque and stupid, such as the dates of arms export licences; you can’t stop what’s already been sent, but we can’t know when they’ll send more and we’re not going to ban it preventively, because the state’s legal team is unable to determine whether the weapons sent to Israel have been used to attack or defend in a textbook genocide.

Meanwhile, within its own territory, Germany criminalises all solidarity with Palestine. Demonstrations and events are being suppressed with increasing brutality. Freedom of assembly, expression and the press are being repressed by an authoritarian and racist state apparatus. This repression is overwhelming the courts with activists calling for an end to the genocide.

It is estimated that in Berlin alone, since 7 October 2023, 11,000 investigations have been opened against pro-Palestinian activists. Many of these investigations, under the mandate of the Berlin government, are going to trial. Hundreds of activists are facing trials for their participation in demonstrations, occupations and their activity on social media. That is why, in April 2024, a group of activists who had been witnessing and documenting racist trials against racialised people and political activists for 10 years split up and created a subgroup that attends trials against solidarity with Palestine.

This group of trial observers shows solidarity with people criminalised by the German government for their political activity against the terrorist state of Israel. Sometimes these same people are accused of spreading terrorist propaganda for shouting or posting on social media, ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’, a slogan that the German government, without evidence, attributes to Hamas. The group of observers also attends the trials to document them, as no public transcripts of what is said in them are kept.

Having attended more than 200 of these trials, these activists have presented a damning report with their conclusions on what they have seen in these proceedings. Among their conclusions are that the German judicial system acts as another arm of German state repression and is carrying out genuine lawfare against political activists. In fact, compared to other highly repressed political movements, such as those on the ‘radical’ left, those fighting for the rights of the Kurdish people, or climate activism, simply based on the numbers of trials held and planned, the authors conclude that the pro-Palestinian movement is the most persecuted in Germany since its reunification. They also conclude that there are clear racist biases in the state’s legal system and among many judges. Racialised people are often forced to attend courses on adapting to German society in addition to their sentence. Trials are largely held in high-security courtrooms, which re-criminalises a person whose only charge may have been trespassing on private property for staging a sit-in at their own university.

The observers themselves face difficulties in their work, with security personnel making them leave all their belongings in lockers outside and not allowing them to bring paper, pens and water into trials that can last up to five hours. For more information, the report translated into several languages can be found here.

This lawfare paid for by citizens, together with the repression of freedom of expression and assembly in the streets and censorship on social media, represents a clear and dangerous setback for democratic freedoms in Germany. A new large demonstration is expected on Saturday, 27 September, also in Berlin, and inshallah the streets will be filled with Palestinian flags and condemnations of genocidal Israel and its accomplice Germany.

Soft digital repression

How digital technology ensures the continuation of capitalist hegemony


28/09/2025

During the recent assault on Gaza, thousands of activists were shocked to find their posts deleted or their accounts restricted simply because they documented the crimes of the Israeli occupation. Many felt powerless and angry, as if their voices were being deliberately silenced. This was not a coincidence or a technical glitch, but a vivid example of what can today be called “soft digital repression.” It is a form of repression that does not necessarily appear as direct bans or visible arrests. Instead it seeps in through invisible algorithms and all-encompassing digital technologies, to reshape  the digital sphere to continue  capitalist hegemony. This raises the question: how does this system work, and how can it be challenged?

Soft digital repression is a system of policies and technical tools that restrict freedom of expression and control the digital sphere by major corporations and powerful states. But in ways that appear neutral and non-confrontational. Instead of open censorship, explicit prohibition, or obvious repressive measures, it relies on gradual concealment techniques. It creates  an environment in which individuals are subject to hidden surveillance—and sometimes even censor themselves.

The term “artificial intelligence” is often used in this context. Yet many practices—such as filter bubbles or the downranking of content—are not necessarily AI in the narrow sense. They are a part of a broader system of digital technologies and algorithms harnessed to serve capital.

How Hidden Censorship Operates: Digital Control and Voluntary Self-Surveillance

Imagine that everything you do in your digital life is monitored: your movements through your phone, private meetings, even your personal messages. This is not science fiction. Major tech corporations, cooperate  with dominant states now. They systematically collect such data to categorize users according to their behavioral patterns and political or ideological leanings. Platforms are  central tools for monitoring tendencies and containing them—whether through disinformation campaigns or by shrinking reach and influence.

It does not stop there. Thanks to carefully designed algorithms, access to leftist and progressive political content is restricted without being deleted. It appears as though only a weak interaction results from audience disinterest.  In fact it is the intentional outcome of reduced visibility. Many have felt this: you write a post, and it reaches no one. Numerous studies have addressed the “filter bubble,” which isolates individuals from alternative content. For example, Facebook leaks, revealed the company deliberately reduced the reach of certain political or rights-based movements, while claiming neutrality.

Over time, many practice what can be called “voluntary self-surveillance”. This is self-censoring out of fear of bans, account closures, or declining reach. This fear changes the very nature of discourse, turning the digital sphere into a pre-shaped space that serves capitalist interests.

Digital Frustration

But repression is not limited to restricting content. There is another weapon, less visible and more effective: digital frustration. Through a constant stream of curated content, algorithms foster a general sense of helplessness and resignation,especially among leftist and progressive communities. Suddenly you are surrounded by messages that socialist experiments have failed and that resistance is futile. Meanwhile, capitalism is highlighted as an eternal force that cannot be defeated.

At the same time, individualism and personal success solutions—from self-improvement to consumption—are promoted as “realistic” alternatives to collective political action. In this way, people are isolated from one another and transformed into consumers rather than activists. This is not an accidental choice, but a deliberate class strategy to undermine the possibility of radical socialist change.

Digital Arrests and Digital Assassination

When censorship or frustration proves insufficient, the system escalates to a more dangerous level: digital arrests. eople suddenly find their accounts suspended for long periods, shadow-banned, or permanently shut down without warning. This is usually justified under pretexts like “violating community standards” or “promoting violence.” Censored content may only have documented capitalist crimes or human rights violations.

In many cases, repression reaches what can be described as “digital assassination”. That is the complete erasure of the digital presence of individuals or organizations. Labor movements, leftist organizations, independent media outlets, and human rights groups have seen their websites closed, archives deleted, or accounts disabled. The most striking example is the targeting of Palestinian content. Hundreds of accounts and posts documenting occupation crimes were deleted, while hate speech and Israeli right-wing propaganda were allowed to continue. This h shifts the digital sphere from a space of free expression to a meticulously monitored arena. One where capital decides what may surface and what must be buried.

What Can Be Done? Leftist and Progressive Alternatives

In the face of this, if soft digital repression seeks to suffocate resistance, the alternative must be to redefine technology itself as a tool of liberation. This can only happen through progressive leftist initiatives that push for transparency, democratic oversight, and strict laws. These laws should criminalize political surveillance and ban the use of algorithms and digital technologies to curtail freedoms.

But it is not only a matter of legislation. We need  to also build cross-border solidarity networks to expose violations and put pressure on capitalist corporations. Non-expert users can take part by boycotting companies that sell surveillance technologies to authoritarian regimes, and placing them on blacklists. Instead open-source software and systems managed by independent bodies should be supported. They should include civil society representatives with  collective oversight, and aim to expose violations and monitor governments, not to surveil citizens.

It is equally important for leftist organizations to develop their own tools. These should range  from encryption technologies and privacy protection to awareness campaigns. They must reveal the hidden workings of algorithms. The struggle here is not merely technical, but is inherently political. Confronting digital capitalism is part of the class struggle itself. It  continues the battles once fought only in factories, farms, and offices, and now extend to the digital sphere.

The example of digital repression against Palestinian content in particular, illustrates the scale of the problem. he most important lesson is that we must develop alternatives which are possible. Transforming digital technology into a tool of liberation, and linking it to a progressive leftist political project, can open new spaces for resistance. The internet was not created to be only a consumer marketplace, it can also be a site of collective internationalist struggle. But this will only be realized if we connect the digital battle to the wider struggle against capitalism and its class hegemony, and restore humanity to the center of digital decision-making.

Further Reading