Two hours after the event started, Berlin police ordered around 250 participants to leave the venue and banned the event altogether.
The „Palestine Congress”, announced by far-left, pro-Palestinian and Hamas sympathisers, was dispersed by police last Friday, April 12, about two hours after it began, and some 250 participants were ordered to leave.
The authorities cited a videotaped speech by Palestinian writer Salman Abu Sitta, who has been banned from political activity in Germany for hate speech against Israel and Jews. Sitta supported the October 7 massacre by Hamas and, as he wrote in January, would have taken part in the attack himself if he had been younger.
The police interrupted Sitta’s broadcasted speech and cut the power. They saw a risk that „antisemitic, violent and Holocaust-denying speeches” would be made „again at the event” and hence banned the rest of the „Palestine Congress”.
While many, including Kai Wegner, the Christian Democrat mayor of Berlin, Federal Interior Minister Nancy Faeser and the president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Josef Schuster, welcomed the police decision to ban the „Palestine Congress” in Berlin, the organisers have strongly criticised the police action, calling it an undermining of democratic rights.
Lawyer Nadija Samour, speaking on behalf of the organisers, said the police had taken a totally disproportionate decision and that lesser measures would have been sufficient. The organisers are considering legal action.
Source: tev.hu
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