By ELSC Europe work team 

Germany’s repression of Palestine solidarity has been criticised by prominent international and European human rights expert bodies. Both the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights and the UN Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Opinion and Expression came to similar conclusions following their visits to the country. In this article, the ELSC Europe work team shows how Germany disregarded recommendations made by both bodies – but argues how the visits and their findings still matter. 

The repression of Palestine solidarity is hardly a recent development in Germany. Since 2019, the ELSC has documented over 1,000 incidents in which the fundamental civic rights of Palestinians and their allies were conditioned or violated – through assembly bans, police dispersals, and the imposition of restrictive conditions on slogans and symbols, often justified in the name of ‘public order’ or ‘public peace’. These measures are embedded in a broader political and administrative culture in which expressions of Palestine solidarity are routinely subsumed within expansive allegations of antisemitism or support of terrorism.  

This culture finds its most enduring justification in the notion of Staatsräson – a doctrine that, despite its invocation of historical responsibility, operates as a technique of racialisation. When former chancellor Angela Merkel declared before the Knesset in 2008 that Germany’s reason of state meant that ‘Israel’s security is never negotiable’, she institutionalised a relationship in which German state reason became tethered to the settler-colonial project in Palestine. Since then, this doctrine has served as a recurring public justification for Germany’s repression of Palestinians within its borders and complicity in the genocide against them in their homeland. 

This system of repression has not, however, proceeded unnoticed by the international community. In October 2025, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Micheal O’Flaherty, visited Germany to investigate issues of migration and asylum, racism and discrimination, and violations of freedoms at Palestine solidarity protests. In January and February 2026, the UN Special Rapporteur (UNSR) for Freedom of Opinion and Expression, Irene Khan, conducted the first country visit of this mandate to Germany since its establishment in 1993. Both mandate-holders met with several ministers and civil society groups, including the ELSC. Taken together, these visits along with ELSC’s documentation reveal significant tensions between Germany’s constitutional self-image and its actual practices.  

What are these mandates, and what do they mean? 

The office of the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights was created in 1999 by the Council of Europe as an independent international institution. The Council of Europe is not a European Union (EU) institution as it also includes European states which are not EU members – such as the United Kingdom – numbering 46 member states in total. Whereas the EU proposes and enforces laws for EU member states, the Council of Europe sets human rights standards and oversees compliance with the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). While their powers are neither legislative nor judicial, they can intervene as third parties at the ECtHR, which pressures governments to align domestic practices with human rights standards. 

The UNSR for Freedom of Opinion and Expression is a special procedure of the UN Human Rights Council. This mandate is narrower in theme but global in scope. It focuses on and investigates alleged violations of freedom of expression, especially in the context of protest, media, art, and access to information. The UNSR publishes communications that interpret the obligations of states under international human rights law. Here too the reports are not legally binding yet authoritative in their interpretations of international norms. They can shape how Germany is seen internationally, which gives the mandate the power to turn Germany’s repression of Palestine solidarity into a matter of international legal accountability.  

The reports and communiqués issued by both offices are not mere commentary, but soft-law instruments. In the Commissioner’s case, country visits often produce memoranda, reports, letters, or thematic recommendations addressed to governments and the public. In the Special Rapporteur’s case, a country visit is followed by preliminary observations and later a fuller report to the Human Rights Council, combining fact-finding, legal assessment, and recommendations. Although neither body can invalidate German law, both produce authoritative interpretations of human rights standards that courts, lawyers, UN bodies and advocacy organisations rely on. Their findings therefore become part of the political and legal record against which Germany’s conduct will increasingly be judged.  

What the country report and observations on Germany are about 

The results of both mandates’ investigations in Germany confirmed what the ELSC’s Index of Repression had already exposed when it published hundreds of incidents in May 2025: the repression of Palestine solidarity is not episodic or exceptional; it is institutionalised, systematic, and undeniable.  

While the Commissioner’s report on Germany, published on 15 April this year, is about much more than the repression of Palestine solidarity, it shows that this repression has served as a testing ground and fuel for further violations in migration and asylum, as well as racism and discrimination. The report specifically recommends that German authorities refrain from blanket prohibitions on slogans, symbols, or other forms of expression in support of the Palestinian people. The memorandum also reiterates that the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism should not be distorted or misapplied to stifle freedom of expression or legitimate criticism of state policies. The Commissioner also observed that: 

 …a Bundestag research analysis indicated that the non-legal concept of Staatsräson had influenced the enforcement of measures to counter hate speech, creating a climate in which criticism of Israel may jeopardise residency or naturalisation prospects or lead to criminal liability through an expansive interpretation of what constitutes antisemitism. 

The UNSR’s report on Germany to the Human Rights Council, published on 19 June this year, gives these concerns a more detailed legal framework and includes information on the repression of Palestine solidarity beyond the migration and civil society sectors. On the ban of ‘From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free’, the UNSR stated that ‘a general ban or criminalization for the mere utterance of a slogan is disproportionate and not in line with international human rights law’. The Special Rapporteur goes further by stating that the practical consequence of ‘Israel-related antisemitism’ is to suppress legitimate criticism of the State of Israel rather than enhance the protection of Jews from racial and religious hatred. As an example, the UNSR points to the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (BfV), Germany’s domestic intelligence service, and its classification of Palestine solidarity groups (which the ELSC successfully challenged), as ‘extremists’.   

The lack of a legal definition in connection with the severe implications on the rights of those listed is merely a mechanism to silence dissent and has nothing to do with security. As noted by the UNSR, classification ‘relies often on scrutiny of speech which is not violent or criminal in itself but which may be politically contrary to the views of the Government’.  

The report also identifies criminalisation as a central technique of repression. It records that between October 2023 and January 2026, Berlin authorities brought more than 2,100 charges of ‘propaganda’ offenses related to Palestine activism – including 994 charges of incitement to hatred – and anecdotal evidence suggested that a significant number of cases were being dismissed or dropped, indicating excessive use of prosecution. This matters because it suggests a broader disciplinary function, where people are drawn into administrative or legal jeopardy even when convictions do not follow. 

Both offices independently arrived at remarkably similar conclusions about how the criminalisation of Palestine solidarity is a central technique of repression and a state sponsored fuel for anti-Muslim and anti-migrant hatred.  

How did the Federal Republic of Germany officially respond to the reports?  

Germany did not move towards the recommendations made by the Commissioner and the UNSR, instead, it keeps moving in the opposite direction. Before the Commissioner’s country visit and the publication of the country report, Micheal O’Flaherty had sent a letter in June 2025 to Germany’s Federal Minister of Interior, Alexander Dobrindt, against the backdrop of the violent repression of the Nakba commemoration protest in May 2025. 

Already then, the Commissioner raised concerns over the excessive use of force and surveillance by the police, the deportation of foreign nationals, and pointed to the pattern of suppression of protests during Nakba commemoration day. The Commissioner noted that Germany’s repression of Palestine solidarity is justified ‘on the basis that events, symbols, or other forms of expression “disrupt public order” or “disturb public peace”’, or through recourse to the IHRA definition of antisemitism, and requested Dobrindt not to misuse these justifications to restrict political speech and instead comply with the guidelines of the ECtHR and the EU Commission.  

Dobrindt did not answer the letter himself. He requested a state secretary and former police officer to respond instead. Unsurprisingly, the answer was defensive and deflective, prompting the Commissioner to conduct an official state visit later that year. 

Germany’s official response to the Commissioner’s country report was just as defensive. It referred to the letter from June to deflect from additional findings made during the October visit. Yet again, Germany expressed an inflated constitutional self-image to firmly reiterate ‘its disagreement with allegations of unlawful acts by the German authorities’.  

Ironically, the defensive line on violations of freedom of expression repeatedly conflates Israel and Judaism, while arguing that the IHRA definition of antisemitism reprimands this. Even worse, the government legitimises its repression of Palestine solidarity as a defence against racism and a protection of Jewish life, invoking the organisation RIAS and its reliance on the IHRA definition. Yet this same government denies the existence of anti-Muslim hatred, even as organisations like  CLAIM and other racial justice groups continue to document it.  

It is worth noting plainly that the government’s section on combatting racism and discrimination denies the seriousness of anti-Muslim hatred and prioritises the alleged protection of Jews above all else. RIAS, CLAIM and other monitoring groups are treated selectively, creating a racialised hierarchy in which only certain lives are deemed worthy of protection.  

Another claim by the federal government is that ‘the peaceful exercise of the right to assembly or of freedom of expression do not lead to measures with respect to a person’s residence statuses’ is contradicted by the ELSC’s Index of repression and casework. Cases such as Dr. Ghassan Abu Sittah denied entry into the country, the revocation of citizenship by Abdallah A., the stripping of refugee status for social media posts, and criminal proceedings linked to protests all point in the opposite direction.  

It remains to be seen whether the official reaction to the UNSR’s report will follow the same logic. In practice, Germany has already responded by doubling down on the repression of Palestine solidarity, including expanding the prohibition of Palestinian symbols. A 2026 dossier published by Germany’s domestic intelligence service lists symbols such as the watermelon and Handala under a framework of ‘secular pro-Palestinian extremism’, adding to an already extensive pattern of restrictions on flags, slogans, and visible signs of Palestinian identification. In other words, after being warned against overbreadth and blanket restrictions, Germany appears to have widened the net. 

Will there be any consequences?  

The immediate consequences are limited, but not negligible. Germany has not reversed course, if anything, it has doubled down on repression and continues to treat Palestine solidarity as a security problem. The more important consequence may be political rather than legal: the discrepancy between Germany’s constitutional self-image and its actual conduct is now visible in several international forums, forcing the government to look in the mirror.  

The limits of human rights and why these visits still matter 

The visibility of Germany’s hypocrisy matters, but not in the way that human rights optimists might hope. The limits of human rights and UN condemnations have been broadcast to the world from Gaza, where even crimes against humanity and war crimes have been documented and debated across international forums. Human rights mechanisms, and their decisive restraint, have not only failed Palestinians but humanity. Despite their inability to change the settler-colonial course in Palestine, these mechanisms and visits are not completely useless. The current international order is deeply flawed, yet no viable alternative has been built. What looks insufficient today can easily be replaced by something worse tomorrow.  

Symbolic victories still matter, and the inadequacy of these mechanisms does not mean accepting that human rights are meaningless. International human rights and legal mechanisms remain a strategic asset precisely because they are one of the tools available to the ‘weak’, and that is why the US and the Zionist settler-state invest so heavily in discrediting them. Even if these institutions are imperfect, they still create records, pressure, and openings that can be used alongside resistance on the ground. 

These visits still matter because they create an international archive of warning. Even when governments do not comply, memoranda and country reports document that the repression was visible, contested, and named in legal language while it was happening. They prevent the future claim that no authoritative body had recognised the problem, or that the issue was merely a polarised political disagreement.  

At the same time, the usefulness of these mandates should not be romanticised. International human rights frameworks have many limitations, and Germany’s drift shows how quickly even states that champion these institutions abroad can move in the opposite direction at home. That is exactly why the mandates should be kept in view: not because they are enough, but because they remain one of the few available tools for naming abuse, preserving a record, and supporting struggle on the ground. 

The situation also points to a wider breakdown in the international legal order in relation to Gaza. Now when arguments about genocide, complicity, state responsibility, arms transfers, and the obligations of third states have become unavoidable in international law, many governments have narrowed rather than widened the space for dissent. Germany’s repression of Palestine solidarity shows how this breakdown operates domestically: not only through foreign policy and diplomatic cover, but through the regulation of speech, protest, mourning, art, and political identification at home. 

This leaves a question that needs close monitoring in the coming period. Germany has intensified repression, including the expansion of ‘suspicious’ Palestinian symbols, but there are also signs of resistance in the courts, in civil society, and in the refusal of many activists and affected communities to be silenced. Whether Germany continues down the path of securitisation or begins to retreat slightly under pressure will matter, but so will the growth of counter pressure from below. 

In that sense, these visits are not detached from the genocide in Gaza. They show what happens inside a European ‘democracy’ when international law becomes politically inconvenient. They also show that Germany’s racism and repression of Palestine solidarity are not only harming people on the ground but also alienating Germany from the very international bodies whose language of human rights it routinely claims to defend.