Palestine activists arrested in Berlin

A number of police raids have taken place in homes across Berlin since Monday morning on the pretext that the residents had committed crimes in the context of pro-Palestine demonstrations. The charges against the suspects include disturbing public security and inciting hatred. Five apartments were targeted in the raids, which involved 125 police officers, according to the official police spokesman.

Five individuals have been detained so far, Bild has reported, but the police have a list of many activists who they want to question. Their details are being kept secret until the end of the campaign.

The capital’s police said that a 20-year-old man is suspected of being part of a group of 150 people who set fire to property in the Neukolln district on 11 July. An 18-year-old man is accused of attempted aggravated assault after he threw a microphone stand at Berlin’s Minister of Culture, Joe Chialo, during an official event in September, injuring a woman who was there.

In another case, a 31-year-old man is being investigated for “incitement to hatred” on two occasions. He is suspected of having posted statements glorifying Nazism on his Instagram account and calling for a “new Holocaust”. The fourth suspect, a man aged 40, is also accused of “incitement to hatred” after he called for Israel to be wiped off the map following the Hamas cross-border incursion last October, describing the movement’s members as martyrs and calling for a “fully Islamic world”.

The final suspect, a 25-year-old man, is accused of using banned slogans after posting a video on Instagram that included “From the river to the sea” and other phrases which are seen as promoting the idea of destroying Israel.

During the raids, police confiscated mobile phones, computers and other data storage devices.

This campaign by the German police comes in the context of silencing voices supporting Palestine, and accusing them of terrorism and anti-Semitism. Germany offers unconditional support to Israel and its genocide against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank since 7 October last year.

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