In April 2024 German police shut down the Palestine Congress in Berlin, described by Consortium News, Mondoweiss, and the New Arab. Incidentally, another article in the New Arab seems to indicate how horribly authoritarian Germany has become recently.
The Consortium News article says
Indeed, according to Le Monde diplomatique, the Congress was organised by a coalition headed by the association Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in the Middle East, and Udi Raz, one of its board members, was arrested.Among those arrested by police at the Congress were Jewish activists.
Anti-Zionist Jewish activists are heavily targeted in Germany, despite Germany’s attempt to justify its support to Israel as “collective guilt” over the holocaust and repenting for its infamous antisemitism.
Yet, according to researcher Emily Dische-Becker, almost a third of those deplatformed, arrested, or otherwise sanctioned for alleged antisemitism are themselves Jewish. Videos from the repression show a Jewish activist being arrested outside of the conference, with police seizing a banner that read “Jew Against Genocide.”
One of the intended speakers at the Congress was Ghassan Abu Sitta, Palestinian-British surgeon and the rector of Glasgow University, who was denied entry into Germany. The German authorities also threatened him with legal action if he dared send his intended speech by video. See this article, which says he was "to give my evidence of the 43 days that I had seen in the hospitals in Gaza, working in both al-Shifa and al-Ahli hospitals". He says "This is exactly what accomplices to a crime do. They bury the evidence and they silence or harass or intimidate the witnesses"
So here are some articles and videos about Dr Abu Sittah's experiences in Gaza
As a consequence (so it is said) of this ban, he was also prevented from entering France and the Netherlands. (I find it difficult to believe that Germany can ban someone from entering other countries - I would think that these other countries have made their own decision to ban him, but if I'm wrong on this, please let me know.) However a court in Germany has overturned this ban - see here.
Dr Abu Sittah was the subject of a complaint by a pro-Israel pressure group, UK Lawyers for Israel, which the General Medical Council referred to a Tribunal, which dismissed the complaint. See the article here.
He was also prevented from speaking at the Palestine Congress, and, apparently, informed that he was banned from making speeches, though apparently the authorities later denied this.
Anyway, here is the speech he had intended to give at the Congress.
Apparently this event was held online on 25-26 July. One guesses that it was organised from within Germany. Ali Abunimah (co-founder of The Electronic Intifada, and mentioned elsewhere in these pages) says in this EI article
As he indicates his video talk is available in the article linked above. It is also available among the full proceedings of the Congress.Authorities in Berlin are threatening me with prison for giving a speech via Zoom to an audience in Germany on that country’s role in Israel’s ongoing holocaust against the Palestinian people in Gaza.
I gave the talk anyway to thousands of people viewing it online, and you can watch it in the video above. It was part of the Palestine Conference in Exile held online on 25-26 July.
About two hours before my scheduled talk on 26 July, I received via a lawyer in Germany a 15-page notice from government authorities in Berlin informing me that I am prohibited from participating in the conference by any means, including online. The penalties include fines and up to one year in prison.
As an aside, it occurs to me that the German authorities are either not too bright, or really desperate, or both. Firstly, when one gives a speech via Zoom, it is not to any particular audience, but to anyone whom the host of the meeting allows in. Secondly, if he were bothered about the prohibition, he could give a speech on his own Youtube channel (or similar) (or the EI's Youtube channel, or the EI's own website), which anyone, including those attending the conference, could watch. Thirdly, [the page shown on Twitter of] the notice sent to him is written in German - not much use in connection with a congress which was conducted in English. And fourthly, hopefully, this would attract more attention to his talk (which is my purpose in producing these webpages).