Germany is becoming a police state when it comes to Palestine activism
At 6 a.m. on March 22, pro-Palestinian activists Said and Yasemin, who were asleep in their respective Berlin homes, were awakened by armed and masked police officers who broke down their doors at the same time. Berlin police then looked through their belongings and confiscated their electronic devices, including their phones. The simultaneous raid was to deter one from communicating with or warning the other.
In a series of posts on social media, Said said that this raid was the police’s third visit and he maintains that he is being targeted for his activism and that he did nothing wrong. “I am not okay,” he wrote, “Why is the German government trying everything possible to criminalize me? I have done nothing wrong. I make the German government and the media responsible for everything that might happen to me!”
Yasemin tells me that she was targeted due to a social media video she made on the action against Israeli diplomat and ambassador of Israel to Germany, Ron Proser. “I explained why the activists are protesting Proser in my video, but the police [took that as evidence that] I was there.” Yasemin was not.