Palestine Congress organizers slam German state repression

By Anadolu staff

BERLIN (AA) - Organizers of a cancelled conference on Palestine accused on Saturday the German government of being complicit in "genocide" in Gaza and called to lift its ban on the gathering.

Berlin police stormed the Palestine Congress venue on Friday, shut off the electricity and cancelled the weekend long event, which would have seen speeches from British-Palestinian surgeon Dr. Ghassan Abu Sitteh, who worked for 45 days in Gaza with charity Doctors without Borders at the al-Shifa hospital and former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis.

In a statement released to the press, the organizers said: "The decision is wrong and dangerous. The ban should alarm everyone who stands for democratic freedoms, anti-racism, and human rights. While the German government shamelessly supports genocide in plain view of the world, democratic rights here in Germany are being undermined to silence protests from Jews and Palestinians who demand a ceasefire and raise their voices for an end to the occupation of Palestine."

Lawyer Nadija Samour said: "We weren't given anything in writing about why the event was being cancelled, we had been cooperating with the police through everything, nothing said or done at the venue was illegal. From the very beginning, it was clear that there would be attempts by the police to shut the conference down."

Two members of the Jewish Voice association were also arrested by the police. Spokesperson for the association, Wieland Hoban, told Anadolu that "unfortunately, we are already accustomed to such images of Jewish academics, artists and activists in Germany being arrested for protesting against the ongoing genocide in Gaza."

Responding to the police's allegations that that there was a risk of 'incitement to hatred, anti-Semitic chants, glorification of violence, and violence' at the event, the organizers rejected the accusations saying that "instead of following the principles of the rule of law and punishing these only if a crime has actually been committed, here the presumption of an authority beforehand is enough to enforce a ban on the event."

The organizers reiterated their demands to lift the ban on the Congress, end criminalization and repression of Palestine solidarity movement in Germany, and stop all military, diplomatic and economic support to Israel.​​​​​​​

German is a staunch supporter of Israel, which has killed more than 33,000 people in the Gaza Strip in just more than six months.