AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman in Berlin, Germany, at Publix, the house of journalism, with Nermeen Shaikh in New York.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: We turn now to look at how German authorities have cracked down on pro-Palestinian voices across the country in recent years. Soon after the October 7th attack on Israel in 2023, this is how the then-German chancellor described his country’s support for Israel.

CHANCELLOR OLAF SCHOLZ: [translated] There is only one place for Germany at this time, and that is by Israel’s side. This is what we mean when we say Israel’s security is part of Germany’s raison d’état. Our own history, our responsibility, deriving from the Holocaust, makes it our permanent duty to stand up for the existence and security of the state of Israel. This responsibility guides us.

AMY GOODMAN: In the years since, Germany has banned or restricted pro-Palestine demonstrations, criminalized certain speech and intensified surveillance and prosecutions of pro-Palestinian voices. The restrictions on protests have been accompanied by thousands of criminal cases and investigations.

For more, we’re joined here in Berlin by attorney Alexander Gorski. He’s been challenging Germany’s restrictions on pro-Palestine activism and representing people facing criminal prosecution or deportation for their protest. He recently represented the so-called Berlin Four — three European Union citizens and on U.S. citizen ordered to leave Germany because of their involvement in pro-Palestine protests. He successfully challenged those expulsion orders in court.

Alexander Gorski, it’s great to be with you here in Berlin. Explain that case.

ALEXANDER GORSKI: Amy, thank you so much for having me on the show.

So, the case of the Berlin Four is a good example of how the German state and the Berlin local government tried to crack down on the pro-Palestine movement. Those were four young people who were active in especially campus-related activism in favor of Palestine liberation, against the genocide in Gaza, and they were accused of taking part in an occupation. But none of them had a criminal conviction. None of them had a criminal record. And then, in March of 2025, the migration office in Berlin decided to issue expulsion orders against all four of them, making them executable at the moment.

So we had to file an emergency relief measure at the administrative court in Berlin to make sure that those four people could stay in Berlin to await the outcome of their case. Luckily, we achieved that, and we won the emergency measures in April of 2025, and all four are still in Berlin. Three cases are still pending. The fourth one, of an Irish national, we already won. But this is just one of many examples of Germany using migration law in order to crack down on the pro-Palestine movement.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Alexander, let’s just talk about the context, the broader context, in which this has been occurring, the contemporary political use of the term, which we just mentioned, Staatsräson, reason of state, in Germany. The way it’s being used now was reportedly coined by Chancellor Angela Merkel during a historic speech to the Israeli Knesset in March 2008. So, could you talk about what exactly was going on then and what prompted Merkel to speak specifically of this to the Knesset?

ALEXANDER GORSKI: Yes, the now-infamous concept of Staatsräson, or reason of state, was popularized by Angela Merkel in 2008, as you just said, but this concept dates back a lot longer. It’s an extralegal concept. It’s not enshrined in the German constitution. It’s not a law. It’s actually a guiding principle of German foreign policy towards the state of Israel.

After the Holocaust, in the 1950s, for geopolitical reasons, Germany, Western Germany, supported Israel with money and weapons in order to regain its position again at the United Nations, at NATO, to reenter into the Western community of states. And in the decades since, this unconditional support for Israel has served as a moral whitewashing of Germany’s guilt regarding the Holocaust.

And especially since October the 7th, we have seen that this concept has been abused to justify the support of the genocidal war of Israel against the population in Gaza and of the export of millions and millions of euros’ worth of arms to Israel in order to continue its military actions in Gaza.

AMY GOODMAN: You’ve also represented Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah and Yanis Varoufakis, the former Greek finance minister, and their restrictions on coming here into Germany. Explain.

ALEXANDER GORSKI: Yeah, those two cases are definitely extraordinary. I don’t think that your audience needs to be introduced to those two people. So, very briefly, Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah is a British Palestinian surgeon, a world-leading expert in the field of conflict medicine, and Yanis Varoufakis is a Greek politician and global commentator on global affairs. So, those two people were scheduled to speak at the Palestine Congress, which was supposed to be held here in Berlin in April of 2024. But the German government again used migration law in order to silence these voices.

The Congress itself was organized by Palestinian groups, leftist groups, but also anti-Zionist Jewish groups, and it was the idea to talk about what’s happening in Gaza and how Germany is complicit. And Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah specifically wanted to speak about his personal experience working at Al-Shifa Hospital and Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza in the first weeks of the genocide. And Yanis Varoufakis was invited to give a broader political context.

Ghassan Abu-Sittah was entered into the Schengen Information System, meaning that Germany banned him from entering the whole Schengen Area, which covers most of Europe, which also would have banned him from giving expert witness testimony at the ICC. And they also put a ban on political activity for several weeks on him. We challenged both of these government actions successfully in court. We fought back.

And we are doing the same in the case of Yanis Varoufakis. Yanis Varoufakis was also targeted by the German government. The Federal Police, who patrols the airports and is in charge of airport security, was given a notification for the weekend of the Palestine Congress that, upon arrival, Yanis Varoufakis was to be checked very carefully, because he could be a danger to the public good because of possible antisemitism, of possible radicalization in anti-Israeli views. And he was — the Federal Police was told to search him very carefully and possibly deny him entry, if they deem it necessary. Also, we found out about this notification that went out to the Federal Police, and we’re challenging it in court, and we’re hoping for a court date later this year.

Those two cases obviously target two very prominent figures, but the abuse of migration law goes far beyond that. Numerous Palestinian activists, Palestinian refugees living in Berlin, have been targeted by the German state for their activism in favor of Palestine, with the use of migration law by revoking their refugee status, by revoking their residence titles or by denaturalization.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Alexander, just as we conclude — 

AMY GOODMAN: Alexander Gorski — 

NERMEEN SHAIKH: — with the 19 — just to make one last point, just to clarify, this Staatsräson, from the very outset, was there a conflation between antisemitism and anti-Zionism, or anti-Zionism as antisemitism with respect to Israel?

ALEXANDER GORSKI: Definitely. The German state is basically using these terms interchangeably. When they say antisemitism, they could just as well mean anti-Zionism. I think it’s very important to distinguish between those two concepts. Germany has a historic responsibility for challenging antisemitism, but at the same time, what we should learn — especially as Germans — from the Holocaust, that “never again” means never again for anyone. And that is especially important now, considering the genocide happening in Gaza.

AMY GOODMAN: Alexander Gorski, we thank you so much for being with us, a Berlin-based lawyer here who specializes in migration and criminal law, has represented several clients involved in the pro-Palestine movement.

Coming up, a quick look at Germany’s crackdown on migrants and refugees. Stay with us.

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AMY GOODMAN: Alice Gerrard and band singing “When I Loved You” at the Brooklyn Folk Festival.