On November 4, thousands of people marched in Berlin in solidarity with Palestine to demand an end to the ongoing genocide in Gaza by Israel. The march was called by various groups including the Palestine Campaign, Palestine Speaks, Jewish Bund, Migrantifa Berlin, DiEM25, and Klasse Gegen Klasse. Demonstrators marched holding placards and banners with slogans such as “Stop Genocide,” “Free Palestine,” and “Anti-Zionism is not Anti-Semitism.” Protesters also raised the Palestinian flag over the Neptune Fountain in Berlin.
The march took place despite heavy police surveillance due to the hostile attitude of the government towards pro-Palestine protests in Germany. Meanwhile, sections within the conservative Christian Democratic Union and other right-wing groups in the opposition came out against the march and accused the government of not properly implementing the November 2 ban imposed on pro-Hamas activity and the prisoner solidarity group Samidoun.
The Palestine Campaign stated, “The city of Berlin banned almost all protests in solidarity with Palestine, banned symbols of Palestinian identity from our schools, and triggered a wave of police violence against Palestinians and their supporters, with hundreds of people arrested. In the face of this escalation of the decades-long Israeli occupation of Palestine and restrictions on free expression in Germany, we need to take to the streets for Palestine, in more numbers than ever before.”
On November 3, hundreds of students and employees of the Free University of Berlin also organized a Palestine solidarity demonstration. They condemned the criminalization of Palestine solidarity in Germany, especially the ban on Samidoun.
