‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’ and other chants for freedom and against genocide are freedom of expression, despite government efforts to criminalise pro-Palestinian protest

Image: Die Linke

In a huge victory for human rights, for humanity and for the Palestinian people, the Münster Administrative Court in north-west Germany has ruled that chants and slogans frequently used in pro-Palestinian, anti-genocide rallies and marches are not illegal.

“From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” and “Child murderer Israel” are not only legal but are protected by freedom of expression laws. “Stop the genocide in Gaza” has already been ruled legal by the Cologne Administrative Court.

The German state, which has some of the most extreme laws protecting Israel from criticism of its actions, has used riot police and draconian action to try to quell the protests.

Palestinian legal advocacy group the European Legal Support Center, which has been fighting the cases on behalf of the movement, noted that:

In both decisions, the judge reiterated that criticism of the Israeli state is protected by freedom of expression, stressing that the slogans are directed against Israel & not against the Jewish population of Germany, thus rejecting any inflammatory allegations of antisemitism.

Both court decisions followed protest bans issued by the Police. We congratulate the activists and their lawyers who refused to be silenced and boldly challenged the bans!

The decisions come as the UK government continues to try to demonise protesters and to use anti-terror laws to persecute activists working for human rights and justice in Palestine and to stop Israel’s mass slaughter and ethnic cleansing of civilians, which has taken approaching 30,000 innocent lives so far, around half of them children. Many more have been hideously wounded and more than seven out of ten of Gaza’s 2.2 million people are reported to be in severe hunger.

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