Berlin police remove a pro-Palestinian camp from the lawn of the parliament.
On Friday, activists demanding that the government cease arms sales to Israel and end what they claim is the criminalization of the Palestinian solidarity movement set up a pro-Palestinian camp in front of the German parliament. Berlin police started removing the camp.
Police broke up tents, ejected demonstrators with force, and barricaded the area to prevent more from coming.
The action was a part of worldwide protests against Israel’s military assault in Gaza and Western backing for Israel, and it came after altercations between protesters and police on American campuses and a blockade at Sciences Po university in Paris.
On April 8, the International Court of Justice began considering Nicaragua’s lawsuit against Germany for allegedly supplying military help to Israel. This coincided with the opening of the Berlin camp known as “Besetzung Gegen Besatzung,” or “Occupy Against Occupation.”
The camp organizer, Jara Nassar, told Reuters, “The idea was to draw attention to that and… to the German complicity and active enabling of the Israeli genocide in Gaza.”
Israel vehemently refutes claims that its assault in Gaza, which aims to eliminate Hamas, a terrorist organization in Palestine, amounts to genocide.
As police with loudspeakers urged them to leave, Nassar and a dozen protestors sat on the ground and chanted songs and chants in favor of the Palestinian people.
“We observe with admiration what is taking place in the United States.” According to Udi Raz, a PhD candidate at Berlin’s Free University and a representative of the Jewish Voice organization, “there is no reason to believe we should stop now.”
In a live social media broadcast of the clearance, Raz, sporting a Jewish kippah in the colors of the Palestinian flag, announced that Jewish activists had joined the camp and hosted a candle-lit Passover supper this week.
The camp was authorized at the beginning of the protest, but police said that some demonstrators had repeatedly violated the order by using prohibited chants and unconstitutional symbols. As a result, the camp was placed under prohibition.
Police spokesman Anja Dierschkesaid stated, “Protection of gatherings cannot be guaranteed at this point because public safety and order are significantly at risk.” She also mentioned that, in order to maintain the lawn, tents have to be relocated every day in accordance with local laws.
“More than 40,000 innocent people killed by the Israeli military in Gaza, grass matters more to the German government,” Raz stated.
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