German police cancel Pro-Palestine rally in Berlin on Al-Quds Day
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The rally's organizers say the decision was subject to pressure from the Zionist lobby.
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Supporters of Palestine gather to protest against Israeli attacks on Al-Aqsa in 2021 in Berlin (AA)
On Thursday, German police announced the cancellation of a rally in support of Palestine and condemned the Israeli aggression on Al-Aqsa coinciding with World Quds Day.
See more: The world stands with Palestine
The organizers of the demonstration told Al Mayadeen that they were surprised to hear the rally was banned, particularly since the reasons mentioned by the German police are illogical and illegal, owing to pressure from the Zionist lobby in Germany.
Organizers of the demonstrations have resorted to the German judiciary to decide on the validity of the illegal decision and if it is in line with the German constitution and Germany's freedom of expression laws.
This comes after the arrest of several people following a pro-Palestine demonstration in the German capital to protest Israeli attacks on Al-Aqsa.
The police claimed that several demonstrators chanted "anti-Semitic" slogans during the demonstration in Berlin's Kreuzberg and Neukölln districts on Saturday evening.
In recent weeks, organizers said the demonstrations were marketed by German media as anti-Semitic to smear them.
Thousands of protesters took to the streets in Germany to denounce the ongoing Israeli attacks on al-Aqsa Mosque. pic.twitter.com/6TGrDRdDXJ
— PALESTINE ONLINE 🇵🇸 (@OnlinePalEng) April 24, 2022
Germany paying for the surveillance of Palestinians, activists
Days ago, a German-Palestinian scholar, who was barred from appearing at a 2019 panel after a dossier portraying her as "anti-Semitic" and a "terrorist sympathizer" was shared with organizers, has launched a lawsuit against the state-funded organization purportedly behind the dossier.
Lawyers for Critical Race Theory professor Anna-Esther Younes filed a civil suit in a Berlin district court earlier this month against the Society for a Democratic Culture in Berlin (VDK), an umbrella group that handles programs supporting "human-rights-based democratic culture."
MEE obtained a two-page paper from Younes that is a compilation of publicly available material about her, organized chronologically with links and snatches of comments throughout.
There are records of a 2014 Facebook post in which Younes shared a photo of graffiti on a wall saying, "Boycott Apartheid 'Israel'"; and a 2019 letter she signed - along with over 100 other academics - raising concerns about Germany's growing tendency to equate criticism of "Israel" with antisemitism.
In general, the ELSC says that the way Younes' data was obtained and handled – without her knowledge or consent – "amounts to monitoring" by publicly funded institutions with no transparency or accountability.
DW fires Palestinian journalists for being "anti-Israel"
Germany's shut-down of Pro-Palestinian demonstrations is no surprise, as in February, German state media Deutsche Welle dismissed a Palestinian journalist Maram Salem after a German journalist published a report accusing her of "anti-Semitism" and being "anti-Israel" in reference to her Facebook posts.
However, this dismissal did not end with Maram, but also stretched onto Palestinian-Jordanian journalist Farah Maraqa, who tweeted that she received a notice, without any explanation, that she is fired from DW on similar grounds. Basil Al-Aridi, Daoud Ibrahim, and Murhaf Mahmoud have also become the victims of an Israeli-sponsored media purge, as they had also been laid off.
Here's an inside memo sent around to people at Deutsche Welle concerning how to talk (or rather not) about Palestine and Israel's ongoing brutalization against Palestinians. All in response to @AliAbunimah Truly disgusting from German media. pic.twitter.com/p04u7MyNwF
— Corner Späti (@cornerspaeti) May 15, 2021
