{"id":8988,"date":"2026-07-02T13:24:56","date_gmt":"2026-07-02T11:24:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/elsc.support\/?p=8988"},"modified":"2026-07-02T13:39:38","modified_gmt":"2026-07-02T11:39:38","slug":"legal-victory-verfassungschutz-bds-berlin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/elsc.support\/ar\/legal-victory-verfassungschutz-bds-berlin\/","title":{"rendered":"Legal Victory:\u00a0 German Domestic Intelligence Service ends surveillance of BDS Berlin after ELSC\u2019s legal intervention\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

The German Domestic Intelligence Service Bundesamt<\/span><\/i> f\u00fcr<\/span><\/i> Verfassungsschutz (Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution) has ended its surveillance and listing of the Palestine solidarity group BDS Berlin after ELSC\u2019s legal pressure. <\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In pre-trial proceedings, the<\/span> Verfassungsschutz<\/span> has yielded to the legal action initiated by The European Legal Support Center (ELSC) through partner lawyer Ammar Bustami <\/span>\u00a0against the secret service\u2019s listing of BDS Berlin as an \u201cextremist\u201d group<\/span><\/a>. In a letter they stated: \u201cThe Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution has ceased surveillance of your client and will henceforth no longer classify them as a \u2018confirmed extremist\u2019.\u201d <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In fact, the secret service has neither named the Palestine solidarity groups BDS Berlin nor BDS Bonn in its recently released \u201c<\/span>Verfassungsschutzbericht 2025<\/span><\/i><\/a>\u201d (Constitutional Protection Report 2025). Both groups were first named in <\/span>the report last year<\/span><\/a>, which led to the ELSC\u2019s legal intervention on behalf of BDS Berlin. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBDS-affiliated groups\u201d \u2013 catch-all phrase fails legal inspection<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This comes after various branches of the secret service Verfassungsschutz have labelled the BDS movement as “extremist” for almost a decade now. The secret service office for the German federal state of Berlin has first named the BDS movement in its <\/span>report for 2017<\/span><\/a>, \u00a0considering \u201ctheir demands for an unconditional right of return for Palestinians and equating Israel with the South African apartheid regime, some segments of the BDS movement call into question Israel\u2019s right to exist and imply that Israel as a whole is fundamentally racist\u2019\u2019. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Presenting this reasoning as evidence for alleged \u2018extremism\u2019 and the surveillance of Palestine solidarity groups was<\/span> expanded by the secret service after the German Parliament Bundestag adopted an \u00a0<\/span>\u201cAnti-BDS resolution\u201d<\/span><\/a> \u00a0in 2019, declaring BDS to be \u2018antisemitic\u2019 and calling upon German state institutions to counteract it. That same year, the German government <\/span>publicly called<\/span><\/a> for surveillance of the BDS movement. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBDS-affiliated groups\u2019\u2019 has since become a stigmatised catch-all phrase for Palestine solidarity groups in Germany. The Verfassungsschutz uses this term in its latest report to declare another ELSC client, <\/span>J\u00fcdische<\/span><\/i> Stimme<\/span><\/i> f\u00fcr<\/span><\/i> gerechten<\/span><\/i> Frieden in <\/span><\/i>Nahost<\/span><\/i> e.V.<\/span><\/i>\/ <\/span>Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in the Middle East \u2013 EJJP Germany e. V<\/span><\/i>., as \u201cextremist as corroborated by hard evidence\u201d. Our legal action on behalf of J\u00fcdische Stimme is still ongoing, but we have already secured <\/span>a favourable ruling<\/span><\/a> at the Berlin Administrative Court (<\/span>Verwaltungsgericht<\/span><\/i> Berlin).<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Effectively, the <\/span>Verfassungsschutz<\/span><\/i> designates<\/span> ‘BDS-affiliation’ as a \u2018sign of extremism\u2019. However, the secret service can provide no legal argument for the designation and the resulting surveillance of an actual BDS group like BDS Berlin, which as a legal entity has the right to object against it in court. Instead, the secret service yields in pre-trial. This should raise serious doubts about the designation of ‘BDS-affiliation’ to be a \u2018sign of extremism\u2019 and indicates worrying violations of fundamental rights guaranteed by the German constitution, such as freedom of expression and political association.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The deployment of the secret service against Palestine solidarity in Germany<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Despite our legal victories, we have no expectation that the Verfassungsschutz will end its unconstitutional repression of Palestine solidarity groups. Specifically, we don\u2019t expect it to stop declaring a loosely defined \u2018BDS-affiliation\u2019 and other expressions of Palestine solidarity as extremist. However, we have achieved yet another legal victory on behalf of a Palestine solidarity group in Germany. This case has exposed how the German state\u2019s control mechanisms tasked with overseeing the Verfassungsschutz have clearly failed their duty for democratic control and overview of the secret service\u2019s conduct and instead allowed undemocratic and unconstitutional repression of Palestine solidarity.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It is important to keep in mind that Germany is <\/span>deeply complicit<\/span><\/a> in Israel\u2019s ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people. We assume the deployment of the domestic secret service Verfassungsschutz against Palestine solidarity groups is one crucial step to silence domestic critics and to avoid accountability. The ELSC will therefore continue to challenge the Verfassungsschutz for their surveillance of Palestine solidarity groups in Germany. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We have invited several groups the ELSC is legally supporting against the Verfassungsschutz and ELSC partner lawyer Ammar Bustami, who is representing the groups in the proceedings, to our latest online info-event. They talked about how the classification by the domestic intelligence services affects their political activities, why they\u2019ve decided to take legal action against it, shared insights into their cases, and answered questions from the audience. The full event (in German language) is now available on our YouTube-channel: here<\/a>.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

You can support our efforts to defend Palestine Solidarity Groups from German Intelligence Surveillance <\/span>here<\/span><\/a>.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The German Domestic Intelligence Service Bundesamt f\u00fcr Verfassungsschutz (Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution) has ended its surveillance and listing of the Palestine solidarity group BDS Berlin after ELSC\u2019s legal pressure. \u00a0 In pre-trial proceedings, the Verfassungsschutz has yielded to the legal action initiated by The European Legal Support Center (ELSC) through partner…<\/p>","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":8405,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_kadence_starter_templates_imported_post":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"default","_kad_post_title":"default","_kad_post_layout":"default","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"default","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"default","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[51,122,217],"test-2":[],"country":[25],"blog_categories":[],"class_list":["post-8988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-case-update","tag-bds","tag-palestine-solidarity","tag-verfassungschutz","country-de"],"acf":[],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":3,"label":"Case Update"}],"post_tag":[{"value":51,"label":"BDS"},{"value":122,"label":"palestine solidarity"},{"value":217,"label":"verfassungschutz"}],"country":[{"value":25,"label":"Germany"}]},"featured_image_src_large":["https:\/\/elsc.support\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/WEB-We-are-challenging-the-German-secret-service-3-1024x576.png",1024,576,true],"author_info":{"display_name":"Abir","author_link":"https:\/\/elsc.support\/ar\/author\/abir\/"},"comment_info":0,"category_info":[{"term_id":3,"name":"Case Update","slug":"case-update","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":3,"taxonomy":"category","description":"Updates on legal cases ELSC is working on.","parent":0,"count":35,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":3,"category_count":35,"category_description":"Updates on legal cases ELSC is working on.","cat_name":"Case Update","category_nicename":"case-update","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":[{"term_id":51,"name":"BDS","slug":"bds","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":51,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions campaign","parent":0,"count":42,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":122,"name":"palestine solidarity","slug":"palestine-solidarity","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":122,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":6,"filter":"raw"},{"term_id":217,"name":"verfassungschutz","slug":"verfassungschutz","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":217,"taxonomy":"post_tag","description":"","parent":0,"count":2,"filter":"raw"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/elsc.support\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8988","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/elsc.support\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/elsc.support\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elsc.support\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elsc.support\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8988"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/elsc.support\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8988\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8991,"href":"https:\/\/elsc.support\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8988\/revisions\/8991"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elsc.support\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/elsc.support\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elsc.support\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elsc.support\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8988"},{"taxonomy":"test-2","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elsc.support\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/test-2?post=8988"},{"taxonomy":"country","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elsc.support\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/country?post=8988"},{"taxonomy":"blog_categories","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elsc.support\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog_categories?post=8988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}