Berlin woman fined for using slogan ‘from the river to the sea’ at banned gathering
Court says 22-year-old’s use of phrase just days after October 7 massacre ‘could only be understood as a denial of Israel’s right to exist and an endorsement of the attack’
A Berlin court on Tuesday fined a woman 600 euros ($655) for using the phrase “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” at a banned protest gathering in Berlin’s Neukoelln district on October 11.
The court concluded that the use of the phrase by the 22-year-old woman, named only as Ava M., so soon after Hamas’s brutal October 7 massacre meant it “could only be understood as a denial of Israel’s right to exist and an endorsement of the attack,” a spokeswoman said.
“From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” has been used by Palestinian nationalist movements for decades, including by the Hamas terror group, and pro-Palestinian activists say it is a call for liberation. Israel and Jewish groups view it as advocating Israel’s destruction.
The phrase was outlawed by German Interior Minister Nancy Faeser in November as part of a ban on Hamas activities.
However, the ban is legally controversial, and courts in different parts of Germany have handed down different rulings on cases involving the phrase, with many finding it to be permissible.
The phrase has also been condemned in congressional votes and investigated in multiple instances by the United States Department of Education.
Lawyer Alexander Gorski, who represented the woman in Berlin, said it was “a dark day for freedom of expression.”
“My client only wanted to express her hope for a future of democratic coexistence for all people in the region,” he told AFP, adding that his client would appeal the decision.
German police have cracked down on any kind of public or written statements that are antisemitic, anti-Israeli or glorify violence or terror in the wave of protests against the ongoing war in Gaza, sparked by Hamas’s October 7 onslaught on southern Israel.
Still, a report released in June by the Federal Association of Departments for Research and Information on Antisemitism showed an 80 percent increase in antisemitic incidents in Germany over the previous year, at an average rate of 13 cases per day last year. More than half of the 4,782 such incidents recorded in 2023 happened after October 7.
The war in Gaza erupted after Hamas’s October massacre, which saw some 3,000 terrorists burst across the border into Israel by land, air and sea, killing some 1,200 people and seizing 251 hostages, mostly civilians, many amid acts of brutality and sexual assault.
In April, Berlin police launched an investigation into an anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian rally in the Kreuzberg and Neukölln neighborhoods where demonstrators allegedly chanted “Death to the Jews” and “Death to Israel,” phrases that if verified could be criminal offenses under Germany’s strict post-World War II hate speech laws.
