Berlin court ruling: dispersal and ban of the Palestine Congress in Berlin 2024 was unlawful

On April 12, 2024, shortly after it began, the Palestine Congress in Berlin was stormed and banned by police. One and a half years later, on the 26th of November 2025, a Berlin court ruled that the dispersal and banning of the Congress was unlawful. We spoke about the ban and the current court ruling with one of the organizers of the Congress, Lina.

Lina, you were one of the organizers of the Palestine Congress. What was your aim in organizing such an event?

Lina: The congress aimed to denounce Germany’s complicity in the genocide in Gaza. Several panels, lectures, and workshops were scheduled for April 12th, 13th, and 14th, 2024, intended to expose the ideological, military, and political complicity of the German state. Speakers included eye-witnesses of the genocide in Gaza, like Dr. Ghassan Abu Sittah, but also renowned Palestinian scholars (and survivors of the Nakba) like Dr. Salman Abu Sitta.

Other speakers were Yanis Varoufakis, Richard Boyd Barrett, Noura Erakat, Yuval Gal, Ali Abunimah, and many other experienced activists, speakers and practitioners from the Germany-based but also international movement for a free Palestine.

What were the demands of the Congress?

Lina: The demands formulated by the organizers of of the Palestine Congress (in German, Palästina Kongress) were wide-reaching:

1. Immediate ceasefire, immediate withdrawal of the Israeli army, and complete investigation of all war crimes committed.
2. Immediate lifting of all restrictions on humanitarian aid to Gaza and full funding of UNRWA.
3. Immediate opening of all border crossings from Rafah to Allenby. Tear down the apartheid walls.
4. Full reparations from Israel, Germany, and other allies to the Palestinian people.
5. Immediate cessation of all military, diplomatic, and economic support to Israel by the German state, as well as a comprehensive military embargo.
6. Immediate withdrawal of the Bundeswehr, the US Army, and all NATO troops from the Red Sea and the Middle East! No to the Bundeswehr’s rearmament and special funds for war!
7. No to the use of the Zionist IHRA definition by any institution or state authority, no to the legitimization of genocide in school curriculum. Stop the expulsion of students and dismissals of wage earners who express solidarity with Palestine!
8. End the criminalization and repression of the Palestine solidarity movement in Germany.
9. Immediate halt to all criminalization of Palestinian organizations and individuals, as well as all deportations. Open the borders and accept all refugees with full rights to housing, education, and work.
10. Enforce the right of return for Palestinian refugees and end the Zionist settler colonialism and ethnic cleansing of all historically occupied Palestine that has continued for over 76 years.

How did politicians and media react to the Palestine Congress?

Lina: Weeks before the congress, the media and politicians had demanded its ban and defamed us with a smear campaign.

The intentions of German politics to ban or hinder the conference represented a clear political threat to freedom of expression and aligned with ongoing repression against the Palestine solidarity movement. The Senator for the Interior in Berlin, Iris Spranger (Social Democrat), stated a couple of weeks before the Congress that the authorities are monitoring us, while CDU faction leader Dirk Stettner demands that everything must be done to prevent the alleged “anti-Semitic event.” A whole range of politicians from across the political spectrum demanded that Congress be banned. Simultaneously, media outlets like the right-wing tabloid Bild produced daily articles stating that Israel-haters and terror-supporters of the world were uniting in Berlin.

While the German government shamelessly supports genocide before the eyes of the world, democratic rights are undermined here in Germany to silence protests for an end to genocide. Freedom of assembly, freedom of organization, freedom of the press, and academic freedom have been massively restricted.

What happened on the day of the Congress?

Lina: On the 12th of April 2024, the police were already at the venue early before opening and tried to delay the Congress through bureaucratic tricks. 2,500 police officers were deployed for the Palestine Congress, and at least 800 were at the venue itself. The authorities tried to create a situation of chaos and tension.

The police delayed and sabotaged the opening of the Conference; fewer than 250 of the 800 waiting participants were allowed into the event building. While they argued there was not enough space in the event building, they deployed dozens of police officers into the venue hall as well as at least 40 Zionist journalists who had no ticket or accreditation, while two anti-Zionist Jewish persons were arrested and taken away. At the same time, the doctor and rector of the University of Glasgow, Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah, who was supposed to speak at the Palestine Congress about his experiences and work in Gaza’s clinics, was refused entry at the Berlin Airport. He was interrogated for three hours in the basement of Berlin airport and then deported. He was also threatened with a year in prison if he spoke at the congress via Zoom.

And then?

Lina: The Congress was finally allowed to begin with much delay. As a video message from the world-renowned researcher Dr. Salman Abu-Sitta had been playing for one and a half minutes, the police stormed the venue hall, turned off the power, and interrupted the broadcast of the video message and the event’s live stream. This was only after less than an hour of the Congress. The police declared the Palestine Congress over and banned it without justification. The events surrounding the Palestine Conference represented a new level of state restrictions on basic democratic rights that do not seem to apply to Palestine solidarity.

We then had to wait one and a half years for the court date, where it was to be decided if the storming and banning of the Palestine Congress was unlawful.

What happened on the court day, on November 26, 2025?

Lina: One witness was heard, the police director, who had ordered the ban on the 12th of April 2025. While the police director repeatedly cited the “emotionalization” of the congress participants in court today to justify the ban, after about three hours of hearing, the judges ruled that the dispersal and ban of the Palestine Congress was unlawful.

Two things struck me about the police director’s defence.

For one, he argued that had he not ordered the ban of the Palestine Congress, then thousands of people would have gone to the streets in the coming days, weeks, and months questioning “Israel’s right to exist.” He repeated this many times throughout the hearing. He confirmed what we in the movement have been saying since the beginning: The repressions against the Palestine solidarity movement have a clear function: to dissuade people from actively showing their solidarity with Palestine, demanding an end to Germany’s complicity, and questioning the ideological legitimization of Germany’s unconditional support for Zionist settler colonialism. In the logic of the police director, undemocratic repression is “necessary” to hinder the movement from growing stronger.

The message being: even if you plan a peaceful conference with renowned speakers (among them Parliamentarians and the former Finance Minister of Greece), you will be faced not only with smear campaigns but with police violence and effective banning of your efforts.

Another thing that struck me was that the police director lamented that if he hadn’t shut down the electricity of the venue and banned the Congress, then the participants of the Congress (he referred to them as “emotionalized scene” who is tech-savvy) would have taken their cellphones and the content of the Congress would have reached thousands around the world. Evidently, the authorities are afraid of the ripple effect that visualizing dissent has; we have the power to make our content heard and make practical solidarity possible. The irony is that the videos of the police storming the Congress did, in fact, go around the world, and dozens of protests took place in front of German consulates from Thailand to Greece – hence the storming and ban of the Congress raised awareness about the repression against Palestine solidarity in Germany.

What does the verdict mean for you?

Lina: It is a typical state mechanism that first, Palestine solidarity is banned, and then a year and a half later, it is determined that the repression was unlawful. Similarly, the court recently ruled that the ban on our speaker, the surgeon and eyewitness to the genocide in Gaza, Dr. Ghassan Abu Sittah, was unlawful. These court rulings come after more than 100,000 people in Gaza have already been murdered with German weapons, which are still being delivered. The genocide and the colonization of Palestine continue, and so does our struggle for the liberation of Palestine.
The repression and criminalization against the Palestine Solidarity Movement serve to divide, exhaust, distract, isolate, and silence us. We have to continue fighting.

Thank you for the interview, Lina.