German court convicts activist for leading ‘from the river to the sea’ chant
German court convicts activist for leading ‘from the river to the sea’ chant
Judge says phrase ‘denied right of Israel to exist’ but woman’s lawyer says ruling is a defeat for free speech
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.
It's State racism.
Racism isn't just picking on some ethnicities and attacking those who are members of it, it's also deeming some ethnicities and their members as special and deserving of superior treatment versus others: back in the day they were openly NAZI the German state deemed the Arian Race as special and criticism of it AND OF THOSE WHO SELF-PROCLAIMED TO REPRESENT IT (the NAZIs themselves then, same as the Zionists do now for Jewish ethnicity) as a crime.
Ever since Israel has started the most genocidal stage of their destruction of Palestinians, Germany has progressivelly uncovered a mindset of racism and authoritarianism with far too many parallels with their "old ways" only this time around it's a different "superior race" and it's a different group of ethno-Fascists that is illegal to criticise.
That the mental and moral posture of old is still alive and well even IN DEFENSE OF EXTREME GENOCIDE - even if now the beneficiaries are a different group of murderous ethno-Fascists claiming to represent a different ethnicity than last time around - is genuinely alarming for me as an European: if now Germany puts ethnicity above Humanitarianism even in the face of Genocide, accepts the same old logic as the NAZIs used from ethno-Fascists that they represent a whole ethnicity and uses the law to silence criticism of that Genocide and those ethno-Fascists, they will likely do it again, and next time around the victims of the genocidal ethno-Fascist that Germany supports might be a lot closer to home than Gaza.
Germany has progressivelly uncovered a mindset of racism and authoritarianism with far too many parallels with their “old ways”
There's been plenty of pro-Palestinian protests in Germany. Most of the news you're hearing regarding this are from Berlin (as in the state, not "the federal government" or something), where previously there was a great tohuwabohu from people like you over Nakhba protests being outlawed. Very similar lines of argument already back then.
And it's also been bullshit back then: The Berlin police outlawed them, and courts upheld that ban, because in each and every previous year the Nakhba protests turned violent. Organisers did not have the protesters under control, public safety got endangered, and organisers could not demonstrate how this time it would be differently.
So, rather unsurprisingly, Berlin also reacted harsh to the protests post 7th of October. Elsewhere everything went very differently, not the least because the Palestinian diaspora elsewhere in Germany is saner.
What I don't get though is what you people are trying to achieve by pushing that kind of narrative.
And rejecting their defense stating that it wasn’t intended in that way.
That all happened on 11th of October, IIRC that was before the IDF went into Gaza, at a protest ostensibly about violence at schools, at which no slogans regarding violence at schools were chanted.
Maybe she really meant it in a completely harmless sense -- but did those others chanting with her? She's leading a chant, some political awareness and responsibility should be assumed. If she really did mean it as a message of peace, let those 600 Euro be a lesson in clear messaging, then.
Oh, those 600 Euro: Couldn't find any proper reporting so working back from the average net wage she's got sentenced to a week (Germany doesn't do short prison stays, it's 1 day lock-up == one day disposable income). I also can't find what statute she's been sentenced under -- I guess general endorsement of crimes? The maximum there (three years) matches with what I read, a week is pretty much the lowest possible sentence while still being considered guilty. tl;dr: Definitely a slap on the wrist.
Using it both ways should not be a problem regardless.
There is nothing wrong with being against a less than 100 year old settler state that’s actively engaging in genocide. The land and the people do not have to be under the jurisdiction of a racist ethnostate.
What would actually help is not continuing to conflate Israel with Judaism.
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.
It's kinda funny (not haha funny) how after all this time, Germany is still using state power to help keep a genocide going. A really weird 'the more things change, the more they stay the same' sort of deal
Both ways? It is unambiguously a call for genocide.
How is that?
Do you have any facts to back that claim up? Because I've heard a number of people say it without that intention. It absolutely can be ambiguous. You would need evidence of a person's actions outside the claims to understand whether or not it was intended that way. But that's not what you're advocating for.
A Bavarian court ruled in June that the phrase expected to be used in an upcoming demonstration in Munich did not constitute a crime and could not be banned outright, finding that the “benefit of the doubt” around the slogan must prevail.
Yes, both way. People do see it in one way though, and that one way also openly call for genocide. Whoops 🤷
No it is not unambiguously a call for genocide.
Yeah, way too many western countries have knee-jerked the opposite direction so hard that they're willing to support another Holocaust, albeit against a different minority.
Why must it be evaluated in the context of "the biggest massacre of Jews since the Shoah" and not "the biggest massacre of Palestinians since the Nakba?"
That’s not an entirely unreasonable decision. The slogan is not one of peaceful coexistence but of maximalist territorial claims. It was a supremacist slogan when the Zionists coined it, and remains one when appropriated by the other side.
Being free in your homeland doesn't imply anything about Israel except the dissolution of its apartheid, occupying systems. At least when used as a Free Palestine chant. When the Zionists say it, it does imply a supremacist mindset but mostly because we've seen them use it to justify a genocidal settler colonialist colony.
It's like the difference between the US saying from coast to coast during the manifest destiny phase, and comparing it to Native Americans saying from coast to coast they'll be free after they're being put into reservations and have been getting pushed West.
How many other countries can you be fined for supposedly threatening?
The second part of the phrase determines what it means. "Will be Israel" is a supremacist slogan. "Will be free" is a call equality and an end to oppression.
Why fix the problem when you can persecute the symptoms.
Is there any historical significance behind the “River to the sea” reference?
Edit:
“Between the river and the sea” is a fragment from a slogan used since the 1960s by an array of activists with different agendas. It has a range of interpretations around the world, from the genocidal to the democratic.”
”The full saying is a reference to land between the Jordan River to the east and the Mediterranean Sea to the west, encompassing Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.
The river to the sea are the traditional pre British intervention borders. They're not arguin saying Jews can't live there there just saying they want their country back which seems to be a fairly reasonable request.
New Germans same as the old Germans.
The old Germans watching the new Germans support Israel:
Tell us more about your missed historylessons
From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free. German wankers.
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.
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".
Source please!
Damn, then it's even worse than I thought.
Good old Germany, going back to the days of the State deeming some races as superior and having special laws to punish and silence those critical of the actions, no matter how murderous, of those the German State has deemed to represent a superior race.
You can take the NAZIsm out of Germany but you can't take the profound racism and the authoritaristic tendencies out of the heart of the German Power Elites.
The only thing the Germans learnt from the Holocaust is that the Jews are entitled to carry out their very own Holocaust.
The non-racist lesson they could have taken from the Holocaust is: "Never again shall be this be done to anybody"
Instead the German elites (who, remember, were brought up in the very same time and environment as the NAZIs, with for certain many who quietly sympathized with some NAZI views) very openly chose for their country to learn a different lesson, one that preserves the Racist view of Human Beings: "Never again shall Germans do this to Jews"
This "lesson" in Racist format then anchors the utterly immoral and anti-Humanist idea that for Germans a Genocide is unimportant if not done by actual Germans and if done by people claiming to represent Jews, then Germany has a moral obligation to support them.
The Humanist version of the lesson, on the other hand, is wholly incompatible with closing one's eyes to Genocide, much less to supporting those committing Genocide, no matter what the ethnicity of the mass murderers or their victims.
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.
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Wikipedia about this sourceGermany 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.
It's is important to understand what law is used for these rulings.
Germany limits free speech by putting penalties on speech that calls for others to commit crimes. This is rarely actually enforced by police or judges when it is about minor things or clearly satirical/parody usage. On the other hand, when it's clearly malicious intent and for severe crimes, there's little tolerance.
Most commonly this happens when people publicly call for violent regime changes (attacking democratic/republican or feudal constitutional principles) or calling for violence against basic human rights, e.g. supporting genocide, deportations of specific groups, etc..
This actually serves as a strong base which is mostly used to combat domestic terrorism and unconstitutional organizations such as far right parties ( see dissolution of NPD).
Calling for support of an officially recognized terrorist organization is a surefire way to get into trouble. Hamas is, as in many countries, recognized as such by Germany. The judge now based their ruling on the belief that the chant is "clearly and obviously used to support Hamas" and as such supports terrorism.
What the article above does not tell: This ruling is incredibly controversial in Germany, and it is actually very likely to be overturned in a higher court. There even are precedent rulings of the same chant with entirely different ruling outcomes.
It really saddens me to see so many clearly well-meaning left-oriented people on Lemmy get outraged so easily without being informed. If you lack info, I feel such news should be approached with cautious neutrality until more info is gathered and an opinion is formed and voiced.
Yes, it's fine to dislike this ruling and voice such an opinion. But calling Germany fascist or "freedom of speech is dead in Germany" based on such an individual event is just comically far from the truth.
We have checks and balances in Germany. Our system is not perfect, but whose is, and I firmly believe it's still better than most out there.
Germany has no infinite freedom of speech, but I also firmly believe that being intolerant of intolerance is absolutely vital for a robust liberal society. So I'm fine with deeply disruptive and simply vile inciting speech being treated as criminal.
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.