This week, a higher court acquitted a comrade previously convicted of condoning Hamas’ October 7th attacks for shouting “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will be Free.”
On October 11, 2023, dozens of people demonstrated outside the Ernst-Abbe secondary school in response to news of a teacher hitting a student for carrying a Palestinian flag. During the rally, activist Ava M. was arrested for saying “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will be Free,” a phrase globally used by the Palestinian liberation movement since the 1960s.
In August 2024, in a seminal ruling, the Berlin court declared that the phrase condones Hamas’ October 7th attacks and denies the Zionist state’s right to exist, fining Ava €600 for incitement and disturbing the public peace. Although the phrase has been de facto banned in Germany by the Ministry of Interior as a “Hamas slogan,” this was the first time that a Berlin court ruled on the legal grounds, setting a shocking precedent for the repression of the Palestine solidarity movement. Similar cases across the country had resulted in positive rulings, protecting the phrase as free speech under German law.
Upon further review, an appellate court has now ruled that the slogan’s multifaceted nature and use by various groups casts too big of a question mark on its true meaning, and that when in doubt, the court is obliged to prioritize freedom of speech. Although the judge made it clear just how offensive he finds the phrase, he conceded that it may have meanings other than the destruction of Israel or the Jewish people.
