My name is Zaid. To the Bundesamt für Migration und Flüchtlinge (BAMF), in their 30-page decision revoking my subsidiary protection, I am simply “the foreigner”. To BILD Magazine I am the “refugee leader of the antisemites”. To DIE WELT I am the “engineer with a double life”. To RBB and Das Erste a “terrorist sympathiser” and to the ZDF I am yet another “dangerous Palestinian”.
Like many other Palestinians who have had the misfortune of catching the German mainstream’s attention, I am made to fulfil their fantasies of an ungrateful, dangerous, Muslim Palestinian refugee. A deeply dehumanising experience.
My name is Zaid. I am a proud father and uncle. Blessed with a loving wife, supportive parents and siblings, and surrounded by many friends and comrades. A Palestinian refugee. The son, grandson, and great-grandson of Palestinian refugees. One of seven million others living in exile, denied our natural right to return to our homeland by the Israeli occupation.
In 2015, I came to Germany to study. Against the advice of many at the time, I refused to apply to asylum. I told myself: I’m a student! I work and I make my own money. Why should I put myself through the degrading asylum application process? As a volunteer translator with Caritas in Aachen, I spent years translating for Arab refugees. Sometimes I worked with the so-called “return counselling”, which helps refugees return to their home countries. I saw with my own eyes how refugees’ lives in Germany are made so miserable that they, driven by bureaucracy, loneliness, and lack of prospects, decide that they’d rather live in a war zone. Nobody in their right mind would voluntarily choose to become a refugee.
That was until 2017. As an adult man, who isn’t working or studying in the United Arab Emirates, I’m not even entitled to apply for a residence permit there. In other words: I would have to apply for a Visa every time I wanted to visit my family. It was in that year that my Visa application to Jordan, where my grandparents live, was denied. And in Syria, a civil war awaited me. Suddenly it was clear to me that – when push comes to shove – I don’t have anywhere to “return” to. I’m stuck here. So I, a Palestinian refugee born in Syria, applied for asylum and received subsidiary protection.
I think that was a turning point in my life: being forced to accept reality and going with my own two feet to apply for asylum. Of course, I have experienced the implications of being Palestinian in countless situations in the UAE, Jordan, and Germany. But being the target of anti-Palestinian sentiment and policy is different from going somewhere yourself and declaring I am a Palestinian refugee. It’s a resignation to a fate that your parents tried with all their might to protect you from.
Of course, it’s an oversimplification to reduce someone to a single moment. Like everyone else of my generation, I have been shaped by the massive political events happening around us: the second Intifada, the US invasion of Iraq, Abu Ghraib, the bombing of Gaza, the blockade, the Battle of Fallujah, the liberation of Lebanon, and so much more. Who I am today is shaped not just by my personal experiences, but also by what took place around me in the fight against US and Israeli presence in the region. In the same sense, the genocide and everything that’s happened in the last three years has formed the consciousness of hundreds of millions around the world.
And so now you walk around knowing that your homeland is occupied. That settlers murder your brothers and sisters day and night. That Europeans live on the ruins of your village. That you, your family and your children struggle, and are treated unjustly, because this occupation exists. And all of this while the world keeps telling you that all of this is normal. That they have the right to occupy your home. That they have the right to make you a refugee. And that they have the right to kill you, all the more so if you raise your voice or your hand to stop your extermination.
I would argue that all Palestinians are accompanied with this heaviness and deep feeling of injustice. And eventually, all Palestinians must decide how strongly they identify with this injustice, and what they will do about it. I would even go so far as to say that their decision will determine whether they lead a fulfilling, harmonious and dignified life, or a life of paralysing passivity and mindless consumerism.
That’s what Samidoun was for me. It brought me out of the confines of my own bubble and planted me in a wider context of a national and international liberation movement. Together, we did our best to make the voices of Palestinian Prisoners heard around the world. In Germany, we organised rallies and protests, information stalls and campaigns, created and joined coalitions and spoke about the struggle of Palestinian prisoners. We tackled various topics, like administrative detention, where Palestinians are held indefinitely without charge or trial; military law, where the conviction rate is 99.74%; torture, isolation, medical neglect, imprisonment of children and the elderly; and so much more. Since 1967, 40% of all Palestinian men in the West Bank and Gaza have been imprisoned at least once, and more than one million Palestinians have spent time in Israeli jails. Incarceration is a central tool in maintaining the occupation of Palestine and therefore also a core theme of our liberation struggle.
Talking about the struggle of Palestinian prisoners doesn’t mean portraying them solely as victims of Zionist oppression. It’s also about emphasising how these men and women are steadfast, organised, engage in hunger strikes, and successfully break out of prison. The Palestinian prisoners represent the unshakeable will of the Palestinian people and are the experienced, trusted and proven leaders of the liberation struggle. For solidarity work with Palestinian prisoners, Samidoun’s fundamental understanding of the Palestinian people’s right to resist was essential. It situates Palestinian prisoners – and their struggle before, during and after their incarceration – within the broader context of legitimate Palestinian resistance against the occupation and for self-determination. It is for this principle that I stand here today – a principle enshrined in UN Resolutions 34/44 and 37/43.
The court admits that I was neither a member of an organisation on the “EU terror list”, nor was I involved in terrorist activities. My crime is describing the Palestinian resistance as legitimate and necessary, and the Israeli occupation as a European colony populated by settlers on top of the ruins of our villages. I expressed these political beliefs both before and after October 7th, 2023. But suddenly, after October 7th, my statements were considered “support of terrorism” and against the “purposes and principles of the United Nations”, and were cited as the reason why my subsidiary protection is to be revoked.
To this, I’d like to say three things:
1 – Although many judicial bodies, such as the International Criminal Court in The Hague and the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, as well as several UN special rapporteurs and committees, human rights organisations, and legal experts have attested to Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people, Germany continues to be complicit in Israel’s crimes. While Germany is expected to stand before the International Criminal Court in a week’s time to answer for its complicity in the genocide of the Palestinian people, arms exports worth €780 million were authorised this year alone. None of the 4,000 German nationals who perpetrated this genocide as soldiers in the Israeli army stand before the court. No Israeli settler or soldier who lives or is holidaying here, no German politician, no company, and no public figure is being investigated for their active involvement in genocide. All of a sudden, their actions are not in contradiction to the “purposes and principles of the United Nations”. The fact that I am standing here today is a joke. Over the last three years, the credibility of the German government, and by extension its justice system, has been shattered.
2 – The BAMF is abusing the asylum law to bypass all standard legal procedures. I have no criminal convictions and if a German citizen were to do and say exactly what I have, then they would have nothing to fear legally. The BAMF has effectively created a parallel legal system, one that only punishes immigrants. Not only that, it’s also a textbook example of thoughtcrime. And the justice system is letting it all happen.
3 – The significance of my case doesn’t lie in the fact that one individual person will lose their legal status. It’s the implications of this case that are critical. The BAMF is attempting to set the limits of political expression for migrants in this country. To ignore these limits should threaten the very existence of the person. The BAMF is making the asylum status meaningless and turning constitutional laws into optional guidelines. They are carelessly shredding the social contract with the millions of Arabs and muslims who call this country their home. What happens when a large part of society is constantly told that one false move could cost them their status, their job, their citizenship, their security and their stability? When you only see them as a security threat? A population to control and subdue? And for what? To protect a foreign entity from criticism as it commits a genocide.
I will end my statement by saying that through my actions I have lived, and will continue to live, a life of dignity. No Goebbels in TAZ, no Eichmann in BAMF, and no Faeser in the federal government will change that. And no matter how this day ends, my dignity has always been, and will continue to be, untouchable.
When Palestine is free, no one in this room will be remembered. All that remains will be the fact that millions have fought for liberation while millions stood in their way. And then, in my village in northern Palestine, I will sleep peacefully knowing that I was one of countless people who contributed in the smallest of ways to the liberation of this small corner of earth that we call home.
This statement was translated from the original German by Ciara Bowen
