Germany has recently taken a chilling new step, signalling its willingness to use political views as grounds to curb migration. Authorities are now moving to deport foreign nationals for participating in pro-Palestine actions. As I reported this week in the Intercept, four people in Berlin – three EU citizens and one US citizen – are set to be deported over their involvement in demonstrations against Israel’s war on Gaza. None of the four have been convicted of a crime, and yet the authorities are seeking to simply throw them out of the country.
The accusations against them include aggravated breach of the peace and obstruction of a police arrest. Reports from last year suggest that one of the actions they were alleged to have been involved in included breaking into a university building and threatening people with objects that could have been used as potential weapons.
But the deportation orders go further. They cite a broader list of alleged behaviours: chanting slogans such as “Free Gaza” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”, joining road blockades (a tactic frequently used by climate activists), and calling a police officer a “fascist”. Read closely, the real charge appears to be something more basic: protest itself.
The article seems to say very little about the 4 people. What it does say is pretty light on facts about what they were involved in. Were they vistors? Students? Do they live in Germany? Do they work there? Have families there? Some factual context would be nice. And how/when were they arrested?
The author of the article links to their own earlier article in the Intercept that goes in detail: https://theintercept.com/2025/03/31/germany-gaza-protesters-deport/
The only event that tied the four cases together was the allegation that the protesters participated in the university occupation, which involved property damage, and alleged obstruction of an arrest — a so-called de-arrest aimed at blocking a fellow protesters’ detention. None of the protesters are accused of any particular acts of vandalism or the de-arrest at the university. Instead, the deportation order cites the suspicion that they took part in a coordinated group action. (The Free University told The Intercept it had no knowledge of the deportation orders.)
Some of the allegations are minor. Two, for example, are accused of calling a police officer “fascist” — insulting an officer, which is a crime. Three are accused of demonstrating with groups chanting slogans like “From the river to the sea, Palestine Will be Free” — which was outlawed last year in Germany — and “free Palestine.” Authorities also claim all four shouted antisemitic or anti-Israel slogans, though none are specified.
Two are accused of grabbing an officers’ or another protesters’ arm in an attempt to stop arrests at the train station sit-in.
O’Brien, one of the Irish citizens, is the only one of the four whose deportation order included a charge – the accusation that he called a police officer a “fascist” – that has been brought before a criminal court in Berlin, where he was acquitted.
All four are accused, without evidence, of supporting Hamas, a group Germany has designated as a terrorist organization.
Thanks. A few follow up questions. First, who is causing the deportation attempt. In the US we know these all come top down from trump. But is the executive branch in germany also in the hands of anti-immigration management? And is that the executive branch? Second, is guilt by association like this a thing for German citizens? And last, are these guys like university students? Or are they like tourist who came to protest or something? Thanks.
Are you asking me to play the role of a search engine for you? 😏
People have commented that there is a lot of misinformation out there on this. The best sources would be german sources probably. But I don’t know which sources in germany (or even the EU) are reliable. I know the US sources are NOT reliable on this subject.
However, the known record of German institutions cracking down on dissident Jewish voices(*) is a very good indicator of what’s going on here. Now, I’m not saying that any of these people are little saints, or that they did nothing questionable, but that there is a systemic bias in Germany against pro-Palestinian activism. Which is the more burning point than counting pennies of the particularities of each individual legal case.
(*) such as Masha Gessen, Nancy Fraser, Yuval Abraham, Omri Boehm and others.
So… me being a yankee… why is that? In the US it has to do with money of course. Selling weapons to Isreal makes a lot of people rich. But also I have been told that a lot of the power people in our democratic party are Jewish or something.
What kind of fascist world are we living in that “insulting a police officer” can be a crime?
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In Germany it is generally a crime to insult anyone.
I think that itself is not bad. What makes it bad is the general tendency of German police to only follow up on that when it affects someone with power (politician, police, etc.). And of course in this case that they punished someone for it while they were not able to prove it in court.
I don’t know, I think that’s pushing too far personally. In Australia it’s against the law to insult someone based off things like race, gender or things of that nature. That is super important IMO. But I could call a cop a pig and get away with it.
Which is almost always the case with such laws. Never enforced unless it’s simple or if it’s a person of influence, solved no matter how complicated within a few days. Solved might even be a bit of a stretch here too though.
Can’t read German. Is the article about how the group they were allegedly with did things? Because the article I linked to says they were targeted by association.
As I mentioned under your other comment quoting this article:
They only describe what was done at the protests in general. I did not see any mention of the police even accusing them of being directly involved in mayor crimes, let alone proving it.
Yes, it is not ok, to vandalize the university and threaten people with axes. And those who did that should be persecuted for it. But it is not ok to “make an example” of someone who just participated in the same protest.
Thats true
Then take your posts down and stop spreading misinfo.
After Reading additional sources it seems very much certain that they were not just some innocent bystanders:
[…] Zu den vermummten Personen sollen Kasia W. aus Polen, Cooper L. aus den USA, Shane O. und Roberta M. aus Irland gehört haben. Die vier beteiligten sich an mehreren propalästinensischen Aktionen.
[…] The masked individuals are said to have included Kasia W. from Poland, Cooper L. from the USA, Shane O. and Roberta M. from Ireland. The four took part in several pro-Palestinian actions.
„The masked individuals“ refers to those with the axes.
(https://www.zeit.de/campus/2025-04/abschiebung-berlin-propaleastina-protest-usa)
Hence, I kindly decline your request. Obviously, I agree that there should be strong evidence for all of this. Lets see if they have any.
Why bother with the half measures.
Just take the mask off and send them to the torture prison in El Salvador with all the other baselessly accused and right denied.
Context for all the people who think this is some illegal bs: The group of protesters invaded a campus building, threatened staff, destroyed IT equipment, vandalised entire rooms and sprayed a hamas symbol on a wall
Yeah no let’s tolerate this <3
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https://de.euronews.com/2025/04/04/vier-palastina-aktivisten-droht-abschiebung-aus-deutschland
Die Freie Universität hatte den Vorfall damals unmittelbar danach als “gewalttätigen Angriff” verurteilt, bei dem 40 maskierte Personen versucht hätten, ein Campus-Gebäude zu stürmen, “Mitarbeiter verbal zu bedrohen und körperliche Gewalt anzuwenden”. Nach Angaben der Universität wurden IT-Geräte zerstört, Räume verwüstet und ein Hamas-Symbol an eine Wand gesprüht
Being a part of a group that does this counts as well.
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So arrest them and charge them with a crime?
Seeking asylum is not a ticket to wreak havoc at no risk
We’re talking about citizens here, Chungus. Citizenship imparts a set of rights and responsibilities. It’s not an easy thing to get. And we’re not supposed to have different tiers of citizenship, where some citizens are more equal than others. Legally speaking, a naturalized citizen is supposed to be indistinguishable from a native born one.
But with actions like this, you are saying that isn’t true. You can immigrate to a country, leave your whole family and life behind, and dedicate yourself fully and passionately to your new home. But it doesn’t matter. You’ll always be a second-class citizen. You will be treated differently by the legal system than a native born citizen. A native citizen won’t be punished with exile for an act of petty vandalism, but you will be.
This shows that Germany has truly abandoned, at a fundamental level, the idea of equal justice under the law. It is once again going down the path of Fascism, where citizens receive different rights based on their ethnicity, religion, and immigration history. Once you start having different tiers of citizenship, with different levels of protection, things get dark very quickly.
And while the injustice starts with immigrants, once you’ve established the precedent that the protections of citizenship can be arbitrarily stripped from people based on political convenience and pressure? It’s a short ride to the gas chambers. This is literally the legal foundation of the Holocaust.
You learned nothing from history, and you are doomed to repeat it.
If you can’t even stay out of severe trouble and be grateful for the asylum you don’t deserve your asylum spot. Many people are waiting to replace you.
If you need more proof the lemmy world admins are utter pieces of shit, notice how the genocide denialism is still on while dissenting voices are being erased.
Hell I even saw somebody straight up saying “there is no genocide”
Or they just let you say what you want here… unlike reddit where you catch a ban for upvoting violence.
Bullshit. They work for the status quo as much as Reddit does. They ban anti genocide voices, calls everyone who disagree with them “Russian troll”, and overall are holding the exact same line. I get banned all the time.
You get banned for using sock puppets and insulting people while using them and saying that nowadays Germany and Israel should stop exist. That’s nothing freedom of speech is for. (c/germany mod here)
Just want to state that, I will not reply to responses.
E: nowadays
All right have a nice day
You edited to add ‘nowadays’.
What a cowardly edit.
How was it okay to back the terrorist group ANC (Nelson Mandela was a convicted terrorist) and call for the fall of the Apartheid South African government in the 80’s, yet not okay to call for the downfall of the Apartheid ethnostate that Nelson Mandela said the concentration camp they created (Gaza) was worse then any of the Bantustans created by Apartheid South Africa?
What Israel is doing is quantitatively worse then Apartheid South Africa. Why was calling for the end of that government okay?
$5 says you’re too much of a coward to answer that question, even if only to yourself.
Denying the existence of any state is a legitimate political opinion, especially when the given state is commiting genocide. You are the one lumping the people with their state by implying wanting the end of the later means willing harm to the former .
I wouldn’t have to take anti censorship measure if you weren’t censoring
So freedom of speech shouldn’t allow people to say that apartheid South Africa shouldn’t exist? That Nazi Germany shouldn’t be allowed to exist?
I can remember when opposing apartheid ethnostates was the correct moral opinion.
What happened?
What makes Israel different?
Or are double standards proof of anti semitism only when they’re negative?
EDIT: No response needed from moral cowards that would have protected apartheid South Africa, Belgium Congo, or Nazi Germany from criticism that they should not be allowed to exist.
You probably won’t read this, but things like this are EXACTLY why freedom of speech exists.
You would have condemned Nat Turner and justified slavery.
There is a line between criticizing a state and arguing for its destruction/dehumanizing their people.
And tbh for my taste that line gets crossed to often in discussions about Israel and Palestine.
Some States do not deserve criticism.
Some States deserve destruction.
The south in the US civil war: deserved to be destroyed.
Nazi Germany: deserved to be destroyed.
All apartheid ethno-states: deserve to be destroyed.
You don’t like that last one? Explain to me why Rhodesia should exist.
It seems to me that people that think arguing for the destruction of apartheid ethnostates is wrong think that way because they are racist against brown people.
I guess it’s less about freedom of speech and more about not giving fascistic governments ammunition to eradicate Lemmy and instances like this one.
I am 100% certain that intelligence agencies are already monitoring this social network. Going against the status quo necessitates restraint regarding certain thoughts.
I’d argue you can still say these things, but you need to word them wisely. We have to remember they have all the power from the medias to the judicial system.
It’s an era in which they can easily manufacture consent to do whatever they want against what is deem a threat.
Probably the only non-evil response.
It fails the ‘all it takes for evil to win is for good men to do nothing’ test.
It fails the ‘If I was in Nazi Germany, I would have resisted’ test.
But I suspect that that isn’t the reason used by Peter_Arbeitslos@feddit.de
I would guess that he would have supported Rhodesia if his government said that to oppose them was racist against white people.
Just scroll down and see how much messages are being erased
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Well, power didn’t get to my head as a discord mod. I hate being called “boss” too.
What?
Decentralization literally fights power centralization. There is no inherent position of power.
Anonymization has no talking point in the discussion of virtual internet power points. Only makes people more true to who they are.
Disinformation is fine, welcome even! But if you’re slightly mean to an obvious troll: insta-gone you are!
- .World mods, being terrible at their jobs
The real umbrella term is tolerance, you embrace it and it covers you, you either fall in line and integrate or you’re out.
Nowhere is set in stone that you have a right to bring the shit that made you flee your country into your host country and escape consequence.
Good riddance, globalism is absolute shit.
I might also add none of the rights you enjoy are set in stone, so maybe when they throw you in a camp you can bring that up to them.
It’s really really cute to see Germans/Europeans/Westerners pretending that antisemitism is an imported problem.
Beyond the thinly veiled xenophobia and eurocentrism, I find it actually ironic how many of you people spout this line of thinking since it shows your complete lack of mental capacity to engage with the reality that many of the people who flee do so as a result of Western involvement in other countries’ governments, and the rest are fighting a system that chooses racism and violence toward the poor over, and over, and over, and over…
tl;Dr: keep shitting on the Global South but don’t be surprised when you’re alone while Putin and Trump come for your children and your children’s children.
You tolerate funding a genocide
fascism in Germany! now I’ve heard everything
How can Germany “deport” an EU citizen? Is there any way for them to block an EU citizen from coming back into Germany?
Yeah, that’s the craziest thing. EU citizenship means you have freedom to be in any EU country. There is no “deporting” a citizen of the EU if you’re a country in the EU.
Yet here we are…
Yeah that is why “deportation” is the wrong word being used… It is an “opinion” piece from one Berlin based journalist, that obviously lacks some legal details or is trying to use a catchy headline. I especially like it when the article says the used “objects that could have been used as potential weapons”. It was fucking AXES they used and obviously the Uni employees were horrified when it happened. Not saying that is right to restrict EU citizens movement in such cases. I’d prefer a proper trial before that happens but they certainly didn’t behave very well.
In case of the US citizen I guess you could call it a deportation/expulsion.
Some translated legal background for you guys: Strictly speaking, in the case of EU citizens, this is not referred to as expulsion/deportation, but as loss of freedom of movement. ‘EU citizens entitled to freedom of movement can lose their right of residence for reasons of public order, security or health,’ according to the website of the Federal Ministry of the Interior.
Particularly stringent conditions apply to the loss of residence on grounds of public order or security. ‘There must be an actual and sufficiently serious threat to public order or security that affects a fundamental interest of society. This threat must be based on the personal behaviour of the EU citizen,’ writes the Federal Ministry of the Interior on its website.
People who do not come from the EU are referred to as deportees. This is the case here for one person. If a person from a third country jeopardises public safety and order, the free democratic basic order or other significant public interests through their stay, they can be expelled.
How can Germany “deport” an EU citizen?
Have a half-dozen men with guns grab the person, shove them into the back of a squad car, drive them to a jail, make them wait in the jail until transport can be arranged, drag them to a plane, force them onto the plane, fly the plane to an Israeli-occupied territory, kick the person out of the plane into the hands of some genocidal Israeli lunatics, and leave.
Is there any way for them to block an EU citizen from coming back into Germany?
Tear up their travel documents, for starters. Sending them to a country where they are at extreme risk of permanent arrest, torture, and execution also works.
Ok so just like in America
Not at all, nothing in the post you replied to is actually true.
None of that is true. There is due process, no hit squads. They will have the ability to bring this to court (a process which they already started). And deportation would happen to where they come from, so other EU countries and the US.
It can’t, municipalities and states can, and the EU law allowing for this requires showing they’re a threat to public safety (which is why it’s not a federal matter the federation doesn’t do public safety). The Berlin state government wants to expel some people, so far no other state has made similar moves, and it’s very questionable whether Berlin courts will let them do it. And then there’s federal courts. And then the ECJ.
European far right party in the back taking notes. ‘Oh! So you can do that! Interesting.’
Where are all the people cheering up for germany government preparing for war?
Because the Russian Federation is a belligerent nation undermining EU institutions1, carrying out acts of sabotage on EU soil2, threatening nuclear war regularly3, threatening to reconquer EU member states4, and conducting genocide in Ukraine5.
And that is not to mention that actions taken by Kremlin assets in the US and Hungary.
1: https://foreignpolicy.com/2025/01/27/russia-putin-disinformation-hybrid-warfare-europe/
4: https://www.newsweek.com/russia-zaporozhzhia-nato-invade-balitsky-1832236
What answer are you reply to? If russia is shit and conducting a genocide is it ok to support one yourself and turn fascist?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_War_
Germany and europe are already armed to compete with russia and spend billions in war already.
Wat?
Supporting this because the same people were justifying and defending genocide.
„It’s not holocaust when brown people are dying”
~white people
*some white people
Isn’t putting a whole race in one category some of what the issue is in this world? Plenty of people disapprove of the inhumane shit going on but there’s only so much that can be done by the small numbers of those in the lower class. If it’s so easy to fix all this, why are you sitting on your computer rather than being out there trying to do something about it?
I’ve protested and spread the word, doing everything short of picking up a gun and going after politicians (which would surely end up with me dead for naught). Tired of seeing this shit.
#notallmen vibes
germans talking about jews, at that.
Here we go again, only the US is joining them this time. 🙄
Germany repeating the history. Twice.
What the actual fuck is going on with humanity?
People who want extreme ‘order’ are really good at organizing and fund raising, and breaking the law and daring the rest of us to do something about it. People who like making sure everyone has rights and those rights are protected aren’t.
I am not even sure why as a trans person one wants to support an islamic-extremist and authoritarian organization like Hamas. Honestly, I dont get it.
I mean yeah I dont want to make a case of supporting the other side either. But just think would rather wants you dead, Israel, or Hamas? I think I pretty much know the answer.
Yes, you know an answer to irrelevant question. Good job
Is it irrelevant though?
Lets take it to an extreme: Imagine in Gaza there would be a Nazi regime. Nazis who hate trans people and want them dead. Nazis living there with their families, innocent children etc.
I Understand that it would be worthwhile stopping war actions on all those innocent souls, but would I actively advocate for the Nazi party ruling this imaginary Gaza strip? Certainly not.
Hence, get your act together. Support an end of the war on Gaza, support innocent people. Dont support Hamas!
Supporting innocent people would be putting pressure on Izrael to stop killing medics. At the moment it’s Nazis against Nazis. It’s not black and white it’s black and a darker shade of black. If your opponent starts doing war crimes you don’t kill members of red cross.
Fucking seriously. Just how much of the world has always been a bunch of hateful shits who only needed a bigger asshole to kick things off?
and calling a police officer a “fascist”
No, Germany, bad Germany. You’ve done this twice already, haven’t you fucking learned?
And with Nazi Germany back, it’s officialy over for this world. I don’t see how weare supposed to fight back.
