Human rights defenders sue German parliament over anti-BDS resolution
Rights and Accountability 5 October 2020
Three human rights defenders are mounting a court challenge to the German parliament’s resolution condemning BDS – the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement for Palestinian rights.
The BDS supporters are suing the German parliament for violation of their rights to freedom of expression and assembly.
Based on the widely criticized IHRA definition that is promoted by Israel and its lobby, the resolution passed by the Bundestag in May 2019 smears BDS activism as anti-Semitic.
The IHRA definition deliberately conflates criticism of Israel’s anti-Palestinian policies and Zionist state ideology, on the one hand, with anti-Jewish bigotry, on the other.
The Bundestag resolution baselessly compares calls not to buy Israeli goods to the Nazi slogan “Don’t buy from Jews.”
It also enshrines Israel’s racist, apartheid system as a value by declaring that anyone who “questions the right of the Jewish and democratic state of Israel to exist or Israel’s right to defend itself will meet with our resolute resistance.”
The resolution alleges that “argumentation, patterns and methods of the BDS movement are anti-Semitic.”
In fact, the demands of the BDS movement that Israel respect Palestinian rights are firmly rooted in international law.
The Bundestag resolution also urges German institutions and public authorities to deny funding and facilities to civil society groups that support the BDS movement.
Increase in repression
Though nonbinding, it has prompted authorities in Frankfurt am Main, Oldenburg, Munich and Berlin to deny activists public spaces for their events.
But human rights lawyer Ahmed Abed assisted in legal action against the cities, which resulted in most cases in the decisions being reversed.
Now Abed is assisting the three plaintiffs in challenging the Bundestag resolution itself.
They are Judith Bernstein, a Jewish German activist born in Jerusalem; Amir Ali, a Palestinian German citizen whose family was displaced from Haifa during the Nakba in 1948; and Christoph Glanz, an anti-racism and Palestinian rights activist.
The three hope to gain public support for their initiative, which includes urging people to spread the word about the lawsuit and even contribute to help with legal costs.
Judith Bernstein along with her husband Rainer Bernstein won an award in 2017 from the Humanistische Union for their project “Stepping Stones,” which commemorates Jewish Holocaust victims by placing markers outside the Munich homes they lived in before the German government deported and murdered them.
The three released the video statements that are included in this article.
After the adoption of the anti-BDS resolution, Germany saw an increase in smear campaigns and repression against writers, musicians, journalists and scholars who have expressed solidarity with Palestinians or support for freedom of speech.
Under Israel lobby pressure, the head of Berlin’s Jewish Museum was forced out of his job after the museum tweeted out an article about the 240 Jewish and Israeli scholars who signed a petition opposing the German parliament’s anti-BDS resolution.
#BT3P
The lawsuit filed in the administrative court in Berlin seeks to nullify the anti-BDS resolution.
The petition argues that Germany has the duty to guarantee freedom of speech for human rights defenders.
The three petitioners hope their action will help bring a fundamental change in the German discourse on Palestine and Israel.
They are using the hashtag #BT3P in tweets about their campaign, which they are calling Bundestag 3 for Palestine.
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