"In the style of the 1930s police." Germany bans pro-Palestine conference
German police stormed the venue of a pro-Palestinian conference in the capital Berlin on Friday, banning it on its first day after a live broadcast of a Palestinian figure banned from political activity in Germany.
German police said they decided to end the conference after a legal assessment and asked attendees to leave. Meanwhile, in a phone call with the Associated Press, prominent British-Palestinian surgeon Dr. Ghassan Abu Sitta, who volunteered in Gaza hospitals during the first weeks of the Israeli war on Gaza, said he was prevented from entering Germany on Friday to participate in a pro-Palestinian conference.
Dr. Abu Sitta said he arrived at Berlin airport on Friday morning, before being stopped at passport control, where he was detained for several hours and then told he had to return to the UK.
Footage from the conference venue shows a woman with a microphone, believed to be one of the conference organizers, asking people to calm down and let the police "put themselves in an awkward situation" so that the media can "see what's going on."
Commenting on the police intervention to ban the conference, former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis published the speech he was unable to give at the Palestine conference in Berlin, criticizing the German police intervention as reminiscent of the 1930s. "Judge for yourself what kind of society Germany has become when its police ban speeches," he said, attaching his words to the text of the speech on Axe.
German officials had a cautious view of Friday's conference before it began, as Germany remains a staunch defender of Israel, even as international outrage grows over the rising death toll of Palestinians killed by Israeli bombing in Gaza, which has surpassed 33,000.
Since the Palestinian factions carried out Operation Al-Aqsa Flood and the start of the war on Gaza, Germany has clamped down on many pro-Palestinian activities and demonstrations.
Varoufakis criticized the German position on the ongoing tragedy in Gaza, saying: "The German people are being led down a perilous path towards a heartless society by being forced to associate themselves with another genocide committed in their name and with their complicity."
(Source: Euronews)
