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.
„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.
How can Germany “deport” an EU citizen? Is there any way for them to block an EU citizen from coming back into Germany?
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.
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.
Germany is always on the wrong side of history.
That depends on who wins.
Let’s hope they go 0-3
The good side of history isn’t really that of police states built on violence and blood. Germany government is not alone in supporting israel, pretty much every government rooted in authority share the same values.
Every government rooted in colonial violence, genocide and land theft, supports Israel.
It really blows my mind. Masha Gessen, Nancy Fraser, Yuval Abraham, Omri Boehm, and also others not mentioned in the article. Who the fuck gave Germany the right to decide who is a good pro-Israel Jew and who is a bad anti-Israel Jew? Germany of all countries, being in the business of labelling Jewish people as acceptable and unacceptable. The fucking nerve on these people.
Germany has public broadcasters, which are controlled by councils made up of representatives of different groups like chourches, unions, enviormental groups and well Jews. That was part of trying to make sure that the Holocaust does not happen again. However the Jewish community in Germany is rather small, due to the Holocaust at about 100k. That group is also unlike American Jews extremly pro Israel. That is why anti zionist Jews are such a problem within Germany. So the Israel lobby works hard to get rid of them.
Germany… forever pro-genocide cvnts
Name a more dynamic duo: German 🤝 being on the wrong side of history
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?
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I’m EU citizen, I go into Germany if I so please. I’ll do it and I’ll do it again.
Nope…I can only handle one Western country going down the batshit stupidity rabbit hole at a time.
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.
fascism in Germany! now I’ve heard everything
So, once a nazi, always a nazi, it seems. Carved Hakenkreuzes in foreheads for all of them.
When you start calling for genocide of Jews, you’re no better than Israelis attacking Gaza.
EDIT: Okay I get it guys, you want to do genocide against Jews. Sick fucks. Reddit was mild compared to this hipster 4chan pit
You’re being downvoted for your strawman framing. Recognising that Netanyahu’s actions in Gaza (and farther, now) are unethical and illegal is absolutely not the same as calling for another Jewish genocide. Being pro-Palestine does not mean you’re calling for the destruction of Israel or the murder of Jews.
There seems to be a fairly successful effort to frame any opposition of Israel’s actions as antisemitic, which is a disgraceful attempt to use the suffering of Jewish ancestors as a shield against criticism today.
What? We’re talking about the person from Germany chanting “From river to the sea” thingy, which was made illegal in Germany.
Of course what that war criminal is doing in Gaza is beyond unethical, but both my comment and article is about what happened in Germany.
If you wish to live there, try not breaking laws that Germans are super sensitive about. That’s it.
EDIT: You guys read the article, right? …right?
From the river to the sea Palestine will be free
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Completely false.
Those are reperation payments from WW2 and Germany stopped weapon exports to Israel.
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If reducing weapon exports by nearly 99% (going from billions to millions to thousands to no approvals in last 6 months is insane difference, wake up) is still bad for you, then… ehh, you people are out for blood. You do not care about any form of sane approach to the problems, you wish to reach for extrememities and do things that would make even Natenyahu (hopefully wrote that right) proud.
I do not feel safe here, I feel like in some radicalized place that wants to kill, kill, kill.
The responses I’m getting are insane, thankfully moderators here seem to be doing a fine job.
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Ah ok, fair enough. I did read the article, but I didn’t realise that was what you were talking about - perhaps quoting the bit you’re responding to would stop me and others being confused.
who is calling for this?
FREE PALESTINE 🇵🇸
Strawman! There is an active ongoing genocide against Palestinians right now, that is the reality, not the one you just made up
Can you read?
Wow I feel like in tumblr.
Me: Genocide bad
You: GENOCIDE BAAAD
Yet you think we are enemies.
Your edit is literal cancer and just made up by you.
Same as your argument that talks about something unrelated to whatever happened in Germany. Strawman argument, like you said.
And you deleted your edit, hypocrite racist fucking asshole. Karma will be a bitch to your Nazi ass
Wow you are really insane. What are you even talking about
How tf does me being anti-genocide, supporting free palestine and peace equals to a nazi? Take the pills dude, you people remind me of 4chan conspiracy theorists and I think not a single person here really understood my point (that you should respect Germany’s sensitive laws if you wish to live there)
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You make up people calling for a Jewish genocide in this thread, but you still can’t bring yourself to use the word Genocide for the state that set up torture rape camps that they used to rape doctors to death.
Why the double standard? Why does calling for a single state with equal rights for citizens constitute calling for a genocide, but you can’t call the country that has bombed and destroyed every hospital and school while continuing to block all access to food genocidal?
Why the double standard?
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.
What kind of fascist world are we living in that “insulting a police officer” can be a crime?
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.
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.
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.
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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.
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.
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 people on this thread dont realize. It seems like what they did was quite more severe than just calling a police officer a fascist.
Translated:
An attempt was made to drag employees out of offices; the attackers were “also masked and armed with axes, saws, crowbars and clubs”. Six-figure property damage was caused
That was a thing that happened at the protest in general. The state was not able to prove any of the now deported committed any crimes though (it even says so in your source and the part you quoted was about the protests in general, not the specific people about to be deported). That is one of the mayor reasons it is so problematic, just skipping presumption of innocence and letting the executive punish someone for an alleged crime without having to prove that crime.
Plus Welt is Springer media, so a pretty unreliable source.
Source
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.
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