Dutch footballer donates Mainz FC payout to Gaza's children
3 Min Read
After being wrongfully terminated for posting pro-Palestine views, Anwar El Ghazi has announced that his Mainz payoff will be donated to Gaza and its children.
-
Then-Bundesliga Mainz player Anwar El Ghazi, left, scores his side's fifth goal during the Europa League group A soccer match between PSV and Zurich, Netherlands, on Oct. 13, 2022. (AP)
Anwar El Ghazi, a Dutch winger of Moroccan descent who currently plays for Cardiff City Football Club, vowed to donate the 500,000 euros he is receiving as part of his Mainz payoff to the children of Gaza.
In a statement posted on X, El Ghazi thanked his former football club for two things.
"Firstly, for the substantial financial pay off, 500k of which will be used to fund projects for the children in Gaza," he said, adding that despite the club management's attempt to avoid settling the payment, the money they will eventually pay would make life "a little more bearable for the children of Gaza."
"Secondly, in attempting to silence me, making my voice even louder for the oppressed and voiceless in Gaza," he said.
— Anwar El Ghazi (@elghazi1995) August 23, 2024
This comes after the German Mainz Labor Court found that the international footballer was unfairly dismissed from his club for expressing pro-Palestinian sentiments.
On November 3, 2023, El Ghazi's contract was terminated after he uploaded an Instagram post including the phrase "From the river to the sea", which Mainz FC deemed "unacceptable".
The criminalization of pro-Palestine views in Germany
The slogan "From the river to the sea" has been widely criminalized, particularly since "Israel" launched its onslaught in Gaza in October.
Germany has notoriously illegalized the phrase, going as far as convicting those who chant it during pro-Palestine protests.
Earlier in August, a Berlin court convicted pro-Palestine activist Ava Moayeri, a 22-year-old German-Iranian national, for the "crime" of leading the chant "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free," back in October.
The presiding judge, Birgit Balzer, ordered Moayeri to pay a 600 euro fine. While the 22-year-old's defense team argued that the conviction was a violation of free speech, the judge rejected Ava's argument, exhibited by chants of expression against injustice in Gaza and for peace in the Middle East.
Balzer argued that precedents documented in different courts that describe the slogan as "ambiguous" were incomprehensible, considering the chant a declaration against the "right of the State of Israel to exist".
Moayeri's case was the first examination of a politically charged expression by German authorities, with many to follow following the Palestinian Resistance's operation on October 7 and the Israeli genocide that rapidly unfolded after. The trials stand to expose Germany's tight restrictions on pro-Palestine protests.
