A Berlin court has convicted a pro-Palestinian activist of condoning a crime for leading a chant of the slogan “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” at a rally in the German capital four days after the Hamas attacks on Israel, in what her defence team called a defeat for free speech.
The presiding judge, Birgit Balzer, ordered 22-year-old German-Iranian national Ava Moayeri to pay a €600 (£515) fine on Tuesday, rejecting her argument that she meant only to express support for “peace and justice” in the Middle East by calling out the phrase on a busy street.
Balzer said she “could not comprehend” the logic of previous German court rulings that determined the saying was “ambiguous”, saying to her it was clear it “denied the right of the state of Israel to exist”.
People 100% do use it both ways. That the court convicted and fined them without showing which one it actually was. And rejecting their defense stating that it wasn’t intended in that way. Is very troubling.
It’s absolutely plain to see that Germany is erring too far in a different direction so it’s not seen as attacking Jewish populations in any way. But as a result they are helping push back other vulnerable populations. I don’t think it’s the good look they’re hoping it was.
Both ways? It is unambiguously a call for genocide.
It only means genocide to Israelis because they can only fathom Israel as a mono-ethnic state with all others genocided. Anyone supporting a free and united Palestine supports the multicultural community that has been in the area for millennia.
You don’t know much about the region do you?
Nazi Germany never went away it seems.
Never did. Lmao, they literally had nazis in government after WW2. They had ex nazi ministers. All the nazi army generals stayed in the Bundeswehr. Their intelligence services were filled to the brim with Nazis and aided nazi criminals in escaping prosecution, literally tipping Adolf Eichmann to escape the Mossad. Their nazi built companies never paid for what they did. Hell, they’re still funding and naming public buildings after their nazi grandpas. There’s absolutely nothing true about this so called german “denazification” other than some superficial virtue signalling.
Free speech in Germany is dead.
That said, if I were in Germany, I would use a different phrase. Maybe “stop the genocide in Gaza, ceasefire now”.
That would just be way more effective in actually rallying support.
But I’m not in Germany, so Free Palestine, from the river to the sea.
That doesn’t fucking rhyme, dude. People like the chant because it rhymes and is fun to chant. It’s not that deep.
I am fully aware of that.
But in the German context, I am not sure if it is effective.
Perhaps someone can make a nice rhyme against genocide.
“Germany sides against genocide”, or something. Maybe something that rhymes in German.
You can’t say “stop the genocide in Gaza” in Germany either. People have been fined for that before. Apparently it counts as “hate speech against jews”.
Germany being antidemocratic as usual. Nothing new here.
Not following what you mean here as I am unfamiliar with Germany’s justice system, but how would a judge be democratic? Criminal trials having the whole country vote on what the individual result would be? Or are you saying they democratically voted for free speech, and this judgement did not follow that?
I would say this is consistent with Germany’s rules about not having Nazi emblems, which would also be against free speech one could argue.
Unfortunately I don’t think you can easily write a law that said, ban people calling for violence against people do to their race, gender, nationality, or other discriminating factor, except when we don’t want it too.
Or are you saying they democratically voted for free speech, and this judgement did not follow that?
Exactly what I’m saying. Germany is expanding it’s undemocratic arsenal of laws to suppress anything that doesn’t fit its political and foreign policy agenda.
