Police break up Palestine Congress in Berlin

BERLIN

As many participants feared, Berlin police broke up the Palestine Congress in Berlin on Friday, less than two hours after the event kicked off.

Dozens of police officers stormed the meeting, cutting off the livestream transmission and electricity in the hall.

A police official ordered the 250 participants to leave the hall, spurring strong shouts of protest by the crowd.

At least one person was seen being taken away by police amid crowd cheers of “Viva, viva Palestine” and “Stop the (Israeli) genocide.”

So far the reason for the cancelation of the congress is unknown, but organizers had complained that officials were using technical reasons as pretexts to shut it down.

Reacting to the police raid, former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis, who was scheduled to address the Palestine Congress, wrote online that what “Germany's police has just done is proof that fascists no longer need to be in government to be in power.”

Nadija Samour, a congress organizer, told Anadolu before the start of the meeting that the German government had actively and illicitly tried to stop or delay the Palestine Congress from happening.

There is “pressure from the federal government” to cancel the congress, Samour said.

She also accused Berlin of intentionally delaying the start of the congress, citing technical reasons as a pretext.

“The congress could not be banned. Freedom of assembly protects the congress, which is precisely why the police came up with all sorts of harassment. Be it fire protection or the landlord's business license,” she said.

The German-Palestinian activist said that at least one of the main speakers, Ghassan Abu Sittah, was held up by federal police at Berlin airport and prevented from entering Germany.

“There is absolutely no legal basis for this, no justification at all. Sittah is the dean of the University of Glasgow. I can't imagine that he’s a dangerous person or a person who incites violence. Quite the opposite,” Samour said.

At least one person was arrested by police ahead of the start of the congress, according to eyewitnesses.

The three-day conference was supposed to take a critical look at the German military support for Israel’s war in Gaza, according to organizers.

The congress had called for “an immediate cease-fire as well immediate withdrawal of the Israeli army.”

Organizers had also urged an “immediate cessation of all military, diplomatic, and economic support for Israel by the German state as well as a comprehensive military embargo” on Tel Aviv.

There had been intense pressure from pro-Israeli politicians in recent days to ban the event, as hundreds of police surrounded the congress venue in Berlin's Tempelhof district.​​​​​​​

Numerous pro-Palestinian groups and mainly leftist initiatives invited people to the three-day international meeting under the motto “We accuse.”