Pro-Palestine conference leaders sue Berlin officials who shut down event
Organisers of a pro-Palestine conference are suing authorities in Berlin who shut the event down last April soon after it began.
They hope a panel of judges at the Berlin Administrative Court will rule that police acted unlawfully in cracking down on the Palestine Congress, a forum of solidarity activists and human rights experts who were gathering to discuss Israel’s genocide in Gaza and Germany’s alleged complicity.
The defendant, the State of Berlin, argues the police were right to act preemptively as they predicted criminal statements would be made at the conference, specifically incitement to hatred, dissemination of propaganda or use of symbols of unconstitutional and “terrorist” organisations.
The police justified this prediction in part on the basis that in a news conference held prior to the event, organisers allegedly did not distance themselves from the Hamas-led incursion into southern Israel on October 7, 2023.
On the day in question, April 12, 2024, officers in riot gear descended in their hundreds on the venue usually used for wedding receptions and pulled the plug – cutting off the power to ensure that none of the planned speeches could be heard or broadcast via livestream.
“I’m not aware of any other instance where a conference was shut down without any crime having been committed,” Michael Ploese, the lawyer representing the conference organisers, told Al Jazeera.
Palestine Action’s legal challenge against UK government ban begins
Legal action by Huda Ammori, the cofounder of Palestine Action, has begun in London’s High Court against the decision by the United Kingdom government to designate the activist group as a terrorist organisation.
The interior ministry, or Home Office, proscribed the pro-Palestinian group in July, days after activists protesting against Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza broke into an air force base in southern England. Prosecutors have said they caused an estimated 7 million pounds ($9.3m) damage to two aircraft at the base.
The legal action brought on Wednesday at London’s Royal Courts of Justice is expected to last until Thursday, with a third day to be set at a later stage.
“Today marks the beginning of our legal challenge to one of the most extreme attacks on civil liberties in recent British history – a measure condemned across the political spectrum as an affront to our democracy and an unjustifiable drain on counterterror resources that should be focused on actual threats to the public,” Ammori said at the beginning of the hearing.
Protesters hold placards and flags during a demonstration in support of Defend Our Juries and their campaign against the ban on Palestine Action, outside the Royal Courts of Justice, Britain's High Court, in central London on November 26
