4mo ago

Germany Turns to U.S. Playbook: Deportations Target Gaza War Protesters

theintercept.com /2025/03/31/germany-gaza-protesters-deport/

Berlin’s immigration authorities are moving to deport four young foreign residents on allegations related to participation in protests against Israel’s war on Gaza, an unprecedented move that raises serious concerns over civil liberties in Germany.

The deportation orders, issued under German migration law, were made amid political pressure and over internal objections from the head of the state of Berlin’s immigration agency.

The internal strife arose because three of those targeted for deportation are citizens of European Union member states who normally enjoy freedom of movement between E.U. countries. None of the four has been convicted of any crimes.

“What we’re seeing here is straight out of the far right’s playbook,” said Alexander Gorski, a lawyer representing two of the protesters. “You can see it in the U.S. and Germany, too: Political dissent is silenced by targeting the migration status of protesters.”

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3mo ago

Germany Turns to U.S. Playbook: Deportations Target Gaza War Protesters

theintercept.com /2025/03/31/germany-gaza-protesters-deport/

156 comments

If you search for it, its only reported by two outlets. There is not a single German newspaper reporting this, including left wing or Berlin regional ones. Searching for the names in the articles returns no results linked to Berlin or Free Palestine at all. The name of the public official also turns up nothing.
Could be misinformation.
- Already addressed this elsewhere so pasting the same comment; It is possible the American student contacted TheIntercept first. If TheIntercept is the first source then German media will likely pick up the story soon.
  I also searched for the lawyer
  “What we’re seeing here is straight out of the far right’s playbook,” said Alexander Gorski, a lawyer representing two of the protesters. “You can see it in the U.S. and Germany, too: Political dissent is silenced by targeting the migration status of protesters.”
  Alexander Gorski is the same person who overturned Ghassan Abu-Sittah's ban from Germany which does lend a lot of credibility unless TheIntercept is straight up making up quotes from people out of thin air.
  The International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) announced in a social media post on Tuesday that it, along with lawyer Alexander Gorski and the European Legal Support Centre, had successfully challenged the travel ban imposed on Abu Sitta by Germany.
- The financial times and the Irish times have since picked it up.
  
  Thanks
- That's fair, but then again the Intercept is a pretty reputable site and the story seems legit.
- I was also sceptical but it seems to be generally true, however the details of it are way more complicated. Read for yourself if you know German or use a translator, one of the biggest Berlin newspapers picked it up and added details : https://www.tagesspiegel.de/berlin/nach-beteiligung-an-palastina-protesten-in-berlin-drei-eu-burgern-und-einem-studenten-aus-den-usa-droht-ausweisung-13468543.html
- At this point it’s equally likely that the mainstream media just don’t care because of their reason of state. Idk how their reporting is on other Palestine related content but in my country it’s mostly silence, I learn about what’s happening mostly from The Guardian and Al Jazeera because most media outlets simply don’t give a fuck about Palestinian life.
  
  Yeah, no. There are many left wing German newspapers.
- The Tagesspiegel as well. One of the German papers of middle size. They also asked sources independently.
  
  The account in the linked article presents a completely different version of events compared to the original narrative by TheIntercept.com. According to the Tagesspiegel article, individuals armed with axes reportedly forced their way into the Free University of Berlin, where they threatened staff members and caused damage to the premises.
I fucking hate the timeline we're living in
International law: Conducting and Support of Genocide is Illegal.
U.S./Germany law: Protesting Genocide is Illegal.
- The challenge lies in the fact that criticism of Israel is often intertwined with accusations of anti-Semitism. Germany finds itself in a delicate position: on one hand, it has pledged unwavering support to the state of Israel; on the other hand, it must uphold the right to dissent and allow protests against Israeli policies.
  
  It’s not delicate at all.
  If you don't stick to your values when they're being tested, they're not values: they're hobbies.
  —Jon Stewart
  
  Choosing between an incredibly bad lie to commit genocide and not committing genocide must be a hard choice for Germany, knowing their history and regret for their previous genocide
  No wait, Germany is supporting genocide again.
  "Germany has pledged unwavering support to a genocidal colonial apartheid" really is not the own Germans think it is.
  
  Why should anyone give a fuck about that?
Fucking disgusting.
Fash support fash. Germany has been supporting genocide for a long time.
It's really amazing how liberals will completely accept genocide up until the very second that it affects them.
- It is heart breaking to see Germany begin to give in to fascism again. What happened to "never again!" ???
  
  It was a lie.
  And in a decade or so, before you know it, Deutschland will be invading Poland again.
  
  It's because: "this time it's different"
  
  People started to claim that the people did the thing that was supposed to never happen again did them with no moral self-justifications. This lead to the same evil people getting away with evil yet again if they pull out a (usually fabricated) crime statistics, etc.
- Look, if we don't tolerate at least a little genocide of somebody else, then we're basically throwing our votes away. /s
- Oh really? How? What genocide?
  
  Uh... The one in Gaza?
Just yesterday people were cheering up germany government for rearming for war and everyone arguing against it was being downvoted.
https://lemmy.world/post/27602242
- "I think re-arming doesn't do anything but spend money that could be better spent on helping people."
  "Shut up, this is exactly what we need right now!"
  "So you don't care about helping people?"
  "That's a strawman!"
  Wow it looks like we were right again, but still downvoted and removed. Odd how that always works.
- I was there. It was weird.
- Doesn't seem very pro Russia to me
  
  well known russia supporter
  Never supported the russian government in any of the comments i ever made. You sound brainwashed on propaganda.
I have some notes on that. 3 of the 4 are EU citizens, that makes deportations highly complicated. I also can't find another source, ~~and the intercept has a history of pushing some shady things.~~ Something feels off.
- They are naming the people being deported, maybe one of our German friends can dig up some German articles with their names?
  The four people slated for deportation, Cooper Longbottom, Kasia Wlaszczyk, Shane O’Brien, and Roberta Murray, are citizens of, respectively, the U.S., Poland, and in the latter two cases Ireland.
  
  I searched for German articles about this, but found none. However, the three parties expected to form the next government –the SPD, the CDU and its Bavarian sibling, the CSU– are considering to weaponize migration background against “sponsors of terror, antisemites and extremists”, which could be construed to include some peaceful critics of the Israeli government and military and their actions and plans.
  
  Good call. I've tried searching for their namens and some other related keywords in german but couldn't find any secondary sources. Only two other newssites that basically copied the intecept verbatim. So for now I wouldn't believe it
- What shady stuff have they published in the past? I’ve generally found their coverage good and they often cover stories like this that other mainstream sources won’t.
  
  You are right, I thought that Greenwald was still involved, but left in 2020. i did not like his downplaying of the trump Putin friendship
- although this article is republished from the Intercept, here's some info about the author:
  Hanno Hauenstein is a Berlin-based independent journalist and author. His work has appeared in publications including The Guardian, The Intercept, and Berliner Zeitung.
- Yeah nothing in the taz - Germanys biggest left wing newspaper. Nothing in the Zeit and nothing in Tagespiegel (Berlin Newspaper) either.
  
  Hey, you didn’t happen to search this again today did you? Just curious, thank you!
  
  Then it must be fake news and the >1000 people that got killed since the end of the ceasefire and the deliberate mass starvation of the people in Gaza who have to survive on a bowl of rice per day, all that isn’t happening right?
  Because I don’t see any news about that at all by our oh so holy liberal left wing academic journalists. The bubble you live in is pathetic, don’t make it sound like all of us in Germany are as bigoted and blind to the amount of suffering our political and media elites are causing to the Palestinians through constant dehumanization and outright support of the genocide against them. I hate to live in the same country as people like you.
- The financial times and the Irish times have since picked it up.
If those EU citizens take it to EU court they’d probably win very easily. Can’t just take away freedom of movement, one of the tenets of the Union, without any due process. Seriously fuck the German politicians who pressured for this. Guess fascism is making a return, didn’t even need the AfD for that.
I hope they can escalate to Strasbourg. Can they?
Germany is way out of line here.
- 🤔
Germany likes to pretend they’re super liberal and that they have no fascist citizens. They’ve gone completely to the other side of history where they now pretend like they’re above it all. I’m sick of people pretending like Germany is some sort of promised land
- I am a German citizen and we do not pretend we don't have fascist citizens. Why do you think we do?
  
  B/c USA is brainwashed by the zionism that Germany supports. We're raised thinking that Germany changed and is now a leader in anti-semitism, etc. It's brainwashing.
  But anybody with a clue, including many Germans, realizes that their zionism is still anti-semitic AF. It's an attack on non-fascist jews and a literal genocide against palestinians.
  
  Because everything we hear in Canada about Germany is lollipop propaganda about how perfect Germany is. You don’t see it from the inside but to the rest of us, the German government spends money to make themselves look like the country everyone should strive to be. You’re part of the machine so it’s no surprise you’re not aware of how others perceive you.
  We are literally told that any Nazi or fascist activity is banned and illegal, and not allowed. yet i see plenty of photos of German neo Nazi rallies
Nazis being Nazis
Albert Einstein is 100% correct.
Israel applying pressure on Germany.
- Israel the kings of the world?
  Nah if the USA gets blamed (deserved) Germany gets fucking blamed (also deserved as the original fucking Nazis they shouldn’t have been forgiven, either).
"Good" old Nazi thinking never left the German elites, hence their "unwavering support" for a nation committing Genocide very openly because of the race of its people, hence the highly manipulated Press over there spreading and amplifying race-based views and hence their casual bypassing of legal rights to silence those who would demonstrate against such ultra-racism and the support of Genocide based on it.
They might have changed who the ubermenschen and the untermenshen are but they still keep on classifying people into those two categories by race and treating then very differently, as well as using force to silence dissent against such views and practices.
In light of Russia's aggressiveness, the recent news of Germany militarizing itself sounds like good news, but in light of the increasing regression of Germany back to their old extreme-racist and repressive practices those are very bad news - a Germany which thinks race justifies Genocide and suppresses by force dissent from such way of thinking is bound to sooner or later once again use such military power against those they deem "lesser races"
he tried to warn us
https://youtu.be/uXdtafGdIVM?t=41
Germany, no....
Germany has a disgusting government.
Unfortunately in germany, france and uk, there's a big chunk of people that participate in protests against israel and in the protests in favor of turning the country who took them into a caliphate. Anyway i don't think this article is true since it's not being reported anywhere.
- Yeah, checks notes.. Cooper Longbottom, Kasia Wlaszczyk, Shane O’Brien, and Roberta Murray are surely trying to turn Germany into a caliphate...
  
  This is the related incident:
  https://www.spiegel.de/panorama/bildung/fu-berlin-uni-beschaeftigte-schildern-attacken-durch-pro-palaestina-aktivisten-a-39d1d797-b2c5-47cf-8b5b-9914cfdd7408
  Slogans and the triangle of the Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas were sprayed on the facade of the historic building.
  You make your judgement.
- It comes from a credible journalist who explicitly names the four victims and quotes their real, existing lawyer who has defended similar cases before.
  This is the typical Zionist playbook of spreading lies until we moved on to the next topic, and by the time it turns out to be true everyone already forgot about the issue. Don’t forget that they just did a 20-fold increase to $150m for their Hasbara botfarm. It wouldn’t be surprising if they also showed up here already. Also lots of new accounts here spreading Zionist propaganda.
  
  From the article:
  Some, but not all, of the allegations would correspond to criminal charges in Germany; almost none of them have been brought before a criminal court.
  They just need to take them to a criminal court and let the judge decide
- Are you German?
looks like German libs are doing the Kamala speedrun.
it's not a coincidence they went after trans immigrants first, they know it's easy to use us as guinea pigs for setting legal precedent.
- The propaganda is getting lazy, this doesn’t even make sense.
  Idk, maybe it is just feels-based. If we keep repeating over and over in various ways how bad and anti-Palestinian Kamala Harris was while she was in charge of the country and setting our Gaza policy, people will absorb it by pure groupthink, and won’t notice that the number of people deported or disappeared for being Gaza protestors has gone up infinity percent since the other person won the election and in fact this exact type of issue was a big part of why it was super important for him not to win.
  
  Their argument is liberals capitulating to the right in order to "win over voters" which will never vote for them. Not an exact 1 to 1 comparison.
  Kamala did support the brutal crackdown on student protesters. But, she did indeed not deport them. That said, ICE under Biden and Kamala was already heavily in violation of human rights and continuing the Trump 2016 agenda. Deportation of wrongthink is but the next logical step of the ratchet effect.
- I'm pretty sure Kamala, being a private citizen and not the president, has nothing to do with the deportations taking place in America right now.
  I'd check who the current president is and assign blame to him.
  
  sure, if you wanna do a dog-shit ahistorical analysis of what lead to this, you could place the blame entirely on Trump.
  do you seriously expect us to ignore the direct parallel between the Democrats adopting fascist rhetoric and deportations and the social Democrats in Germany adopting AfD propaganda in their program?
  you either didn't pay attention when she threw us under the bus to win the fascist electorate or You actively cheered her on as she was doing it. same for her being a rabid Zionist.
  
  checks who the current president is
  How could the democrats let this happen?!?
- The Kamala speedrun? Did she deport thousands of people to El Salvador?
  
  she's adopted a violent transphobic, anti-Palestinian campaign to win over MAGA voters. that's what the SPD is doing to Arabs, Muslims and immigrants by courting the AfD.

156 comments