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Trump’s no-peace deal in the DRC

Why is there so much suffering in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and why doesn’t it seem to end?


06/08/2025

Rwandan and Congolese delegates shake hands across a table as the U.S. representative looks on, with national flags and a portrait in the background.

The war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) gained a new, imperialist turn on June 26th as a peace agreement with neighbouring Rwanda was signed, mediated by Qatar and the US. Yet, this won’t bring peace and prosperity to the region, but will rather further serve capitalist interests at the expense of the people of the DRC.

The conflict in the DRC has its roots in colonialism and imperialism, but also strikingly in the Rwandan genocide in 1994, when ethnic Hutu soldiers and extremists murdered about 800,000 members of the country’s ethnic Tutsi minority and moderate Hutu, as well as raped an estimated 250,000 women. In the aftermath, the new Rwandan Tutsi-led army then sought revenge on the DRC, where millions had fled to. Since then, according to different sources, the war on the mineral-rich eastern regions of the DRC has taken between 6 and 10 million lives, almost half of them children under age five. Rape has been used as a war tactic, villages and livelihoods have been destroyed, and millions have been displaced.

Since 2023, Rwanda-backed March 23 Movement (M23) paramilitary troops—once part of the DRC army—have been terrorising the country’s eastern Kivu region, with over 7,000 killed in fighting. The war escalated at the beginning of this year when M23 took over the region’s largest city of Goma. The Rwandan government has repeatedly denied its linkage to M23, but evidence from the UN tells another story. 

Imperialism in central Africa

Rwandan President Paul Kagame is celebrated by many for the country’s economic growth, although poverty remains widespread outside the capital. At the same time, he is widely criticized as a ruthless dictator, having served as a de facto head of state for 30 years with the mission to establish “a home for the Tutsi population”. Kagame, a former Tutsi refugee in Uganda, initially led the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), a militia founded by exiled Tutsis in Uganda in the 1980s, which fought the Rwandan Civil War and eventually ended the genocide. Yet, the international community, led by the US, failed to make the true genocide perpetrators accountable, many of whom were able to escape to the DRC and hide among the approximately 2 million—mostly unarmed—civilian Hutu refugees. Hence, with the already dodgy record of the RPF due to human rights violations, Kagame started to wage massacres against these refugees over the border. In 1996, with the support of the US, and UN leaders looking the other way, Rwandan and Ugandan armies acted with impunity and organized a full-scale invasion of the DRC’s eastern regions. This is known as the First Congo War. 

According to the documentary Crisis in the Congo: Uncovering the Truth by Friends of the Congo, the US government, as well as the international community, knew very well about the atrocities being committed, but only stayed silent. Thanks to its location in the central African Great Lakes region, along with its proximity to the Horn of Africa, Rwanda is surrounded by the DRC minerals and West-Sudanese oil, making it an important geopolitical ally for the US. As stated in the documentary, the whole US economy and its military funding are, indeed, based on the raw minerals from central Africa. Similar to German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s observation that Israel is doing the “dirty work for us” in Iran, Howard French from The New York Times explains in Crisis in the Congo the US strategy:

“Why are Uganda and Rwanda important to the US military? Precisely because we can have them do in Africa that which we don’t wish to do ourselves. We can have their soldiers die if need be, we can have them to deploy to places if need be. And so having proxies, having allies, and having clients who are willing to do your bidding becomes very important.”

Moreover, the EU is among Rwanda’s largest supporters, most recently as a part of the “Global Gateway” project for minerals for the “green transformation” and to counter China’s growing influence in Africa. Yet, a diplomatic crisis has arisen since an investigation by Global Witness has revealed Rwanda’s decades-long involvement in “conflict minerals” from the DRC. Evidently, Rwanda has been trading for instance white coltan with the EU—a raw material used in various electronics, but which does not occur in large amounts on Rwanda’s own soil. Further, in 2024, the DRC filed criminal charges against Apple in France and Belgium for the use of conflict minerals in their supply chains. This now poses a reputational risk for the European Commission, and Belgium has been pushing for sanctions against Rwanda. In response, Rwanda cut diplomatic ties with Belgium. The issues have been predictable: while the EU as well as Rwanda have praised “sustainable and responsible production”, the DRC’s sole control organ for the mineral supply chain, the International Tin Supply Chain Initiative (ITSC), has shown evident gaps, with some members involved in laundering conflict minerals, child labour, trafficking, and smuggling in the DRC.

However, the most important political and economic partners of Rwanda remain the US and the UK, and estimates state that diplomacy with Belgium will soon be restored out of pragmatism. With its powerful allies in the Global North and the rhetoric of defending “national security” and protection of the Tutsi minority in the DRC, Rwanda has developed into an important power in Africa —“a poster child of neoliberalism”—sending out the EU and the US paid troops to Central African Republic or even until the coast of Mozambique, where large gas reserves are located. As Mwambari stated: “This classic story is palatable to the Western world, in which the concept of genocide and resilience have a special place in the media narrative, especially in the United States, with its unique relationship with Israel (2021, p. 611–628).”

Congo’s bitter past and the present

The DRC, on the other hand, has been a colonial, imperial playground, and the people have been displaced, abused, kidnapped, raped, enslaved, mutilated and murdered since the Berlin Congo Conference of 1884–-1885, during which Congo was handed out to King Leopold II of Belgium. Indeed, the fast industrialization in Europe had created a new demand for raw materials found on African soil, and so the “scramble for Africa” began. Under the humanitarian narrative of bringing “civilization” and security to the region, King Leopold II and his administrators established the king’s own plantation for ivory and rubber for the newly invented vehicles. Between 1885 and 1908, 10–15 million Congolese were killed in this world’s only private colony. The Belgian government eventually took over, yet the structures of forced labour, apartheid and kidnapping of “mixed-race” children by the settler colonial regime continued.

Further, as the DRC serves as the warehouse of vast reserves of crucial minerals—gold, copper, coltan (70% of the world’s reserves), and uranium—imperial interests continue to hold their grip. However, after the official colonial rule, in 1960 the people of the DRC saw a brief light of true liberation—but for only three months. The film Lumumba by Raoul Peck documents the life of the revolutionary pan-Africanist, socialist Patrice Lumumba, depicting his path to becoming a celebrated, freely elected prime minister in June 1960. As shown in the film, Lumumba was feared and hated by the white settlers and threatened imperialist interests. The US, together with Belgium and the UK, reacted with a coup and assassination of Lumumba by the CIA in 1961, subsequently placing Joseph Mobutu in power for the next 30 years—“to save Congo from communism”. With the help of his “Western” allies, Mobutu would become one of Africa’s most notorious and cruel dictators. He plundered the country’s resources instead of investing in health care, education or infrastructure for the people, and accumulated an estimated 4 billion US dollars in his Swiss bank accounts.

As the Cold War ended and the record of immense human rights violations committed by Mobutu became somewhat embarrassing to the US, the West required a new, strong accessory in the region. It seemed they’d hit the jackpot with a former ally of Lumumba’s and opposition leader of Mobutu, Laurent-Désiré Kabila, who seized power with Rwanda’s help in the First Congo War in 1997. However, Kabila soon started to pose nationalist demands, and so the imperialist eyes turned to the country’s eastern neighbour, which was struggling with the aftermath of the genocide and wanted to continue retaliatory actions towards the ethnic Hutu in the DRC.

Throughout the decades, many attempts have been made for peace and security. However, although UN “peacekeeping” missions under various names have been on the ground since 1999, they have been struggling with credibility. UN peacekeepers have been accused of standing by as M23 took over Goma in 2012, not addressing the army’s human rights violations, chaotic and greedy leadership, or simply being useless. What is more, the United Nations Organization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUC), one of the former missions, concentrated on fighting only rebel groups opposing Rwandan or Ugandan interests. After several protests, the latest United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the DR Congo (MONUSCO) was banned by the DRC in 2024 for not being able to bring peace.

Old wine in a new bottle

Yet now, the DRC’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Thérèse Kayikwamba Wagner and her Rwandan counterpart, Olivier Nduhungirehe, have signed a peace agreement at Marco Rubio’s office in Washington, with the US calling this a “historic turning point”. The peace deal aims at the “neutralization” of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) militias and other groups. The FDLR was established by the ethnic Hutus after the Rwandan genocide and has been accused of immense atrocities like the murder of civilians and the use of child soldiers. However, the deal does not mention the role of Rwanda’s forces, which have also been suspected of participating in the conflict and are present in the DRC, violating the country’s territorial sovereignty. Further, M23 calls its mission the protection of the Tutsi community in the DRC against discrimination by the government and, hence, is supported by Rwanda. The deal with M23 is being negotiated separately with Qatar during the first week of August. Interestingly, Qatar is now investing heavily in the Kigali airport as well as the national RwandAir, as Qatar plans to establish its first cargo hub abroad. 

Kambale Musavuli from the Center for Research on the Congo says many are questioning the deal with the US, which has not been transparent and includes giving up rights to minerals., and  only then could the US “be engaged constructively” in the peace stability. Indeed, there has been an increasing interest by US companies in investing in crucial minerals in the DRC for new technology, such as electric cars, nuclear plants or weaponry, especially now since Chinese companies are gaining more and more influence in Africa. Yet, the miners in Katanga Province have already put out a statement against the agreement, and some MPs have questioned why this was not first discussed in the country’s parliament or the senate. Moreover, it has been strongly emphasized that DRC cannot lose control of their own minerals—by Lumumba and still today. Even the former president of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, previously offered a similar deal: minerals in exchange for peace attempts.

Moreover, the new “peace deal” does not address justice and accountability for the millions of deaths, displaced people or the severe atrocities such as rape as a war tactic, killings or torture—still taking place in M23-controlled areas. What the deal does include is US military training to “secure peace”. Yet, as history has shown us, armies are seldom there to protect people, but rather to secure the capital and easy access to resources. Musavuli draws a parallel to history by stating Trump is now creating false narratives of Congolese people being killed by machetes and, hence, needing to be saved—by the US: “At least for him, being the new King Leopold, he’s telling us what he got from DR Congo. […] The US has literally shown to the world that for them to have supremacy, they will do everything in their power to have control over Congo.”

Robberies, shootings, extortion, and rapes have been carried out by over 120 different groups pursuing different business or political interests—in collaboration with organized crime by multinational corporations, and even with the army itself, which sells weapons to whoever can pay. Musavuli goes further, stating the army is, in fact, the source of these groups and the perpetrators are “coming in and out of the military”, acting with impunity, contributing to a never-ending cycle of peace negotiations. Hence, none of the peace agreements have worked so far. What is more, the whole political structure of the country has been marked by predation, impunity, patronage, and a longstanding lack of legitimacy for decades—or even centuries.

In summary, the new imperialist deal is everything but justice and peace for the people of the DRC. But, the Congolese are calling for justice, and it is evident that this can only come from below, from the liberated people in control of their own resources instead of by creating new neocolonial exploitation structures with foreign military forces. According to Musavuli, Lumumba remains an aspiration; resistance is there, and people do keep fighting for their rights and the liberation of the DRC, like the fierce youth of Goma who protected the city against the M23 troops for 2–3 days. Musavuli quotes Lumumba: “Congolese are not alone but […] every liberated people everywhere around the world have always been found on the side of the Congolese people and because of that we are sure that people around the world will join us as we are fighting to transform the African continent”.

Climate change is killing us – and could claim millions more lives by 2030

Climate change insidiously and unequally affects human health, and it’s time we pay attention.


Healthcare workers die-in at the front of the Victorian Parliament, part of Day 1 of Extinction Rebellion's Autumn Rebellion in Melbourne. Photo by Matt Hrkac, CC BY-NC 2.0

The sooty fingertips of climate change can be found on almost everything dominating the news these days: soaring food prices, weather disasters, severe disruptions of ecosystems. And with another summer afoot, its halfway point has already hit Europe with a sweltering, inescapable heatwave, causing thousands of deaths. Another effect that may not have been at the forefront of climate change experts’ and activists’ manifestos, is its negative impact on human health. 

When we think of summertime, usually it’s turquoise water, poolside lounging, clear and bright skies. After all, things usually look better under a filter of golden glow. But there’s an aesthetic, and then there’s reality: rapidly rising temperatures, weather disasters, and lack of equitable and sustainable energy access spreading  disease and deterioration—exacerbated by an unsteady health infrastructure and many countries’ sheer lack of climate resilient tools. 

This year in June, the World Health Organization declared climate change to be a public health emergency. They’ve been emphasizing the danger it wields against humanity for years, pointing to rapid air pollution, an uptick in infectious diseases, and a surge of heat-related deaths. And yet, while climate change’s effect on health and mortality is well-documented and increasingly covered in the media, it still seems under-acknowledged in the general public sphere.

A rapid study led by researchers from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine and Imperial College London found that the pollution-driven warming tripled the death toll of Europe’s heatwave. A concerning 58% of infectious diseases faced by humanity worldwide have been in some form exacerbated by climate change. In December 2024, almost one fifth of Dengue cases in Latin America and the Caribbean were attributed to global warming, according to a study carried out by researchers at Harvard and Stanford. In 2023, a record number of six million cases of dengue fever were reported worldwide, indicating that as the world’s burning ramps up, so does disease. Malaria also has been linked to rising temperatures, due to parasites thriving in humid climates. WHO has also explored the intersection of tuberculosis (TB)—one of the world’s most contagious and dangerous diseases—and climate change, highlighting water insecurity and displacement as key factors. 

Researchers urged for extreme heat to be appreciated as a very material threat, and one that will appear with increasing regularity, due to the relentless speed of global warming. Indeed, June 2025 is the hottest ever recorded, and all signs point to the remainder of the year following its example. While Europe, Africa, and Asia are scrambling to rein in carbon emissions and speed-run the green energy transition, President Donald Trump has slashed funding for a host of sustainability initiatives and just hired three climate contrarians for the United States Energy Department, indicating that the leading global power is standing firm on plans to burn more and more fossil fuels, all evidence of severe danger be damned. 

Extreme heat isn’t the only threat climate change poses. This year alone, climate change has been linked to  higher prevalence of eco-anxiety, sleep apnea,  difficulties during pregnancy, a high prevalence of eco-anxiety, and the faster spreading of infectious diseases. From sleep conditions to mental illness, pollution touches every aspect of human health—and fundamentally, every part of our lives. And with every person affected, comes a further strain on an already-struggling healthcare system, the infrastructure of which is globally lacking due to aid cuts and general patient inequity. 

The “Food is Medicine” initiative has seen a recent increase in popularity in the United States. Positing that nourishing, individualized diets and access to healthy foods regularly can combat a number of health issues and save the government a substantial chunk of change, philanthropic organizations and research associations worldwide are working to implement such projects. But climate change threatens this radically simple ambition by disrupting the levels of carbon dioxide and the temperature conditions required for optimal crop growth, and by causing an imbalanced water supply. The world food production rate and the nutrition values of foods have been gravely impacted as a result. Agricultural losses are being recorded with more frequency, in line with the changes to temperature and precipitation. Without affordable and healthy food, the power of nutrition and nourishment is reduced—and chronic illnesses flourish. 

Perhaps coming on the heels of COVID, the general population is too fatigued to address another health emergency. After all, it was an odd, alienating and, scary time, impacting our mental health in myriad ways. In fact, reports confirmed that COVID drove wedges between people, threatening solidarity and community during a distressing time. It was almost four years of lock downs and regulations, some of which chopped and changed so quickly they had us all suffering from whiplash. Only five years have passed since it was declared, and yet, often in conversation, it is referred to in bafflement and abject incredulity. With the toll it took globally, it’s no wonder that there is a resistance to addressing another health emergency, one that isn’t new but has been bubbling barely beneath the surface for decades, over flames stoked by human-caused global warming. How could we not be jaded? Atop the succession of crises the past five years have offered us, those who aren’t denying climate change are also aware of the fact that it’s the top 1% of the world that emit the most carbon dioxide—roughly 1000 times more than the rest of us. 

And yet talking about it is better than not, because any small drop into a rising wave can contribute to a revolution. 

While the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP29) in Baku ended with a feeling of disappointment at the inadequacy of climate commitments, a milestone occurred in the signing of a Letter of Intent uniting Azerbaijan, Brazil, Egypt, the UAE and the UK under a framework co-led with the WHO with the aim of integrating health into climate change policies. WHO officials underlined health as a cross-cutting priority and emphasized that future leaders ought to keep the same momentum for the issue. COP30, slated for November in Brazil, is expected to continue on this line of discussion, with hopes that advances have been made and resilience is being pursued. 

Of course, the Trump administration’s slashing of foreign aid has thrust many undeserving countries into a tailspin. Despite insistence that the cuts have not caused fatalities, CNN has reported from the Nangarhar Regional Hospital in Afghanistan, where US-funded medicines, medical equipment, nurses, doctors, and midwives have been withdrawn, that the mortality rate of babies has risen by three or four percent since the suspension. Further research has projected that the cuts of international humanitarian aid could cause fourteen million premature deaths by 2030—with a third expected to be children. But medical calamities aren’t just being outsourced to the world’s most vulnerable countries; that Big Beautiful Bill we keep hearing about (I believe the ink is still fresh) will have a profound impact on the country’s healthcare. “This big, beautiful bill—in terms of its impact on health care, on how physicians and hospitals are going to navigate the next few years—I think is the biggest immoral piece of health care legislation I’ve ever seen. Just unethical, indefensible and tragic,” Arthur L. Caplan, PhD, a professor and founding head of the division of medical ethics at NYU Grossman School of Medicine told Healio. 

Himal Magazine has declared that the global health order as we know it has collapsed. This May, the 2025 Geneva Health Forum (GHF) took place alongside the World Health Assembly (WHA), under the theme of “One World for Health”—convening leaders in global health, medical personnel, philanthropists, and academics who were ensured of the utmost significance of the event—this year more than ever. In a session titled “Climate Change and Health: Adaptation and Resilience in a Changing World”, experts considered how to develop a new system, one in which climate change is recognized as a defining human health emergency. 

A burning planet scorches everyone in its path, but particularly the vulnerable. The elite set the bonfires and we inhale the smoke. The dam has already broken for those at the bottom of the pile—those who don’t have access to healthcare or food or shelter, those who are unable to afford nutritious meals or preventative care—and the water will rise until it reaches all of us. COP30 is coming in a matter of months, and the global health order is being recreated almost from scratch. While the only action most of us are able to provide to the cause is spreading awareness, it’s an action we must continue to do—continue talking, continue sharing, and continue protesting. Healthcare is at the point where it is now inextricable from climate change, and it’s imperative that research continues and measures are still taken towards crafting resilient and adaptable infrastructures worldwide to prevent millions of needless deaths. 

Ellen McBride is an Irish writer, media analyst and social media marketer based in Berlin. She has written for Friends of Friends, Companion Magazine and Whisk Journal.

“The masks have finally come off”

Interview with French decolonial activist Houria Bouteldja


Hello Houria. Thank you for talking to us. Could you briefly introduce yourself?

I am a decolonial activist. I co-founded the Parti des Indigènes de la République in 2005. It is a decolonial political party which broke with the French Left, which we criticised for having abandoned people with a colonial history and, more broadly, for collaborating with what I call the “integral racial state”. I develop this concept in my book Beaufs et Barbares, le pari du nous [Published in English as Rednecks and Barbarians: Uniting the White and Racialized Working Class]

What is your experience as a Franco-Algerian author and decolonial activist?

As a Franco-Algerian, that is to say a post-colonial subject, my experience is one of structural racism in French society. Fanon said, “A society is either racist or it is not”. French society, like German society, is structurally racist. That is why, no matter how hard I try to integrate, my efforts will always be in vain, because there is a glass ceiling that means I can never truly be French. As a decolonial activist, I am quite satisfied right now because I can see that our definition of racism is progressing. The political anti-racism that I espouse has made great strides on the left. 

You were recently disinvited from a conference organised by Historical Materialism (HM). Can you explain what happened and why? 

In France, our enemies have created a very negative image of us. When we denounce structural racism, we are accused of being anti-white racists; when we denounce colonial feminism, we are accused of being masculinists; when we denounce Israeli colonialism, we are called antisemites. The French reactionaries who run the universities today take advantage of this image to justify censoring us. This is what happened with Dauphine University, which hosted HM. 

We understand that Les Soulèvements de la Terre and Action antifasciste Paris-Banlieue were also affected? How do you interpret this? 

It’s very simple. What has been censored is the transformative left: anti-fascists, radical environmentalists and political anti-racists. In short, those who want to break with the capitalist order. 

HM issued a statement after the conference. Are you satisfied with their response? 

Their initial communiqué was timid, but people on social media were unhappy with this weakness. After that, the second statement from HM France was much better, as was the one from HM London. Overall, I am quite satisfied, because many allies protested, some by boycotting and others by denouncing the censorship from within.

Is this the first time one of your speeches has been cancelled? 

No. It happens to me frequently, in this country of human rights and freedom of expression.

Where does the current debate on Israel stand in France?

I would say that reactionary forces are running out of steam. The denying of genocide cannot withstand the reality of the facts. The moral bankruptcy of French leaders is complete, as is that of other Western leaders. This bankruptcy is all the more significant because its consequences are terrible. Antisemitism among the elites has never disappeared, to the point that the French and German police forces have begun to persecute anti-Zionist Jews. The masks have finally come off. 

How does this debate fit into the context of the implementation of various Islamophobic laws and the continued rise of the National Rally?

The far right no longer has anything to do, since the positions of the Islamophobic and imperialist government are completely taken up with serving or anticipating  the far-right agenda. 

Do you think that antisemitism is being exploited? 

It has been being exploited for a long time. It is simply more visible now than it was before. When the yellow vest uprising took place, the authorities immediately used accusations of antisemitism to destroy the movement. We decolonialists have always warned the left: if you let the government exploit antisemitism (which, incidentally, has never disappeared), you will end up being the victim. That is what is happening now. 

Would you say that you are part of the French Left? Why, or why not?

I would say that it is up to the French Left to decide whether the decolonial movement is on the left or not.

What kind of solidarity is possible between Jews, Arabs and the French Left? 

Rather than talking about solidarity, I prefer to ask how we can build a hegemonic bloc, as [Antonio] Gramsci advised us to do. It seems to me that in order to unite the working classes in a radical left-wing project, we need an anti-capitalist, anti-racist, ecological, and anti-imperialist programme. That is how we can unify the working classes and build a people’s movement. 

How can we support you in Germany? 

By supporting anti-Zionist Muslims and Jews in Germany who are mobilising for Palestine, by supporting anti-imperialist movements, by creating a decolonial international with us. This is what we are trying to do with the series of events we have entitled the ‘Bandung du nord’ (Bandung of the North), [in reference to the 1955 meeting of newly liberated colonies from Asia and Africa] which have already taken place in Paris, Brussels, Barcelona and Montreal. 

Translation from the French: John Mullen

Berlin lawyers issue open letter on Palestine slogans

Lawyers in Berlin are calling on the Berlin State Attorney’s Office and the city’s police headquarters to immediately decriminalise the slogan ‘From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will Be Free’


05/08/2025

Since October 7th, 2023, demonstrations, events and even online expressions of solidarity with Palestine have been ruthlessly repressed in the city of Berlin. On the streets, the police are brutally attacking and arresting people demonstrating against the genocide in Gaza. The police justify the charges and mass arrests on the grounds that criminal acts were committed. These criminal acts that give rise to the disproportionate police action are almost entirely the result of certain slogans being chanted, mainly ‘From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will Be Free’ or some of its variations. Police have also excused their own actions by declaring the phrases ‘Intifada’ and ‘Zionists are fascists, they kill children and civilians’ as well as ‘Child murderer Netanyahu’ and ‘Child murderer Israel’ to be illegal. Ignoring the fact that the latter slogans are simply descriptions of Netanyahu’s and Israel’s actions, and that a court case on ‘Zionists are fascists’ has already affirmed the legality of the phrase, the police continue to arrest people who chant them.

Particularly egregious is the continued criminalisation of ‘From the River to the Sea’. Even with seven cases won, each on their initial trials, in the city of Berlin, and with different Sections of the Prosecutor’s Office seeing no evidence of criminality in the slogan, the police and the state attorney’s office continue to act outside the law and persecute people who shout the phrase, or write this international cry for the freedom of the Palestinian people on their social media.

This has led a group of lawyers in solidarity to write an open letter to the Berlin police chief and the state attorney’s office, calling for an immediate end to the criminalisation of ‘From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will Be Free’.

International solidarity is needed from lawyers outside of Germany—in support of with their colleagues who have signed this letter, and, above all, with their clients in Germany. International pressure must be exerted on Germany, and especially on Berlin, to reflect on the authoritarian, violent and lawless image it is presenting to the world.

This is their letter:

Dear Ms Slowik Meisel, President of the Berlin Police; Dear Mr Raupach, Chief Public Prosecutor in Berlin; Dear Mr Kühn, Head of Department,

We, a group of lawyers defending individuals accused of using the slogan ‘From the River to the Sea’, or who are interested in the legal and social debate surrounding this issue, are writing this open letter to demand an immediate end to the criminal prosecution of this slogan.

On July 30th, 2025, Division 286 of the Tiergarten District Court once again acquitted an activist who had repeatedly used the slogan ‘From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will Be Free’ on the grounds that it was not a criminal offence. At a rally in front of the courthouse on the occasion of the same trial, news of the acquittal spreads and one person shouted the slogan. She was immediately arrested and taken to a detention centre for identification. How is this procedure compatible with the binding nature of the law for the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the police as laid down in Article 20(3) of the German Basic Law?

Since October 2023, Germany’s public prosecutors, led by the Berlin Public Prosecutor’s Office, have initiated a large number of criminal proceedings for shouting, displaying or publishing the slogan ‘From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will Be Free’ (or variations thereof). There are probably several thousand proceedings being conducted in Berlin and the rest of Germany.

As a result of these proceedings, people have been and continue to be arrested at demonstrations and subjected to identification procedures, penalty orders, and fines. Homes have been raided, hard drives and mobile phones have been confiscated, naturalisation and residence permits have been suspended, and demonstrations have been banned or broken up. In most cases, arrests at demonstrations are made using direct force, resulting in physical injury and deprivation of liberty for several hours.

In recent weeks, the Tiergarten District Court has repeatedly ruled, after extensive examination of the evidence, that the slogan ‘From the River to the Sea’ is not a symbol of Hamas. The accused persons, who had mostly used the slogan with the tagline ‘Palestine Will Be Free’ during public rallies against Israeli actions in the Gaza Strip, were therefore acquitted on factual grounds (see Tiergarten District Court, judgements of July 23rd, 2025 – 222 Cs 1135/24; of July 9th, 2025 – 235 Cs 1055/24 – Annex 1; of June 20th, 2025 – 255 Cs 1/25 – Annex 2; and of May 21st, 2025, – 238 Cs 1148/24 – Appendix 3). Following this, other divisions of the Tiergarten Local Court have now also refused to allow the Berlin Public Prosecutor’s Office to bring charges to trial in their decisions of July 21st, 2025 (394 Ds 3/25 – Appendix 4) and July 25th, 2025 (235 Ds 1077/24). This was followed by the aforementioned judgment of July 30th, 2025 (286 Ds 46/25).

The Tiergarten District Court proceeded very thoroughly in this matter. It had obtained an expert opinion from an expert at the Berlin State Criminal Police Office (LKA) on the history of the slogan and its current use. On this basis, it concluded in all cases that the assumption of the Public Prosecutor’s Office and the Federal Ministry of the Interior that the slogan was a symbol of Hamas was completely unfounded.

This also renders obsolete the ruling of the Berlin Regional Court of 8th November 2024, which the Berlin Public Prosecutor’s Office regularly refers to. At that time, the expert opinion of the Berlin State Criminal Police Office obtained by the Tiergarten Local Court was not yet known. Furthermore, this ruling contains a serious deficiency in its reasoning at the decisive point.

The Regional Court’s assumption that Hamas had adopted the slogan through practice is not empirically substantiated in the ruling (see the detailed discussion of the ruling by Brockhaus, Roberthttps://verfassungsblog.de/mehrdeutige-wortfolge-pauschale-kriminalisierung/).

In contrast, the expert opinion consulted by the Tiergarten District Court systematically analysed all apparent uses of the slogan since the organisation was founded and concluded that regular use of the slogan by Hamas as a distinguishing mark cannot be established.

The findings of the expert opinion and the Tiergarten District Court are clear: the use of the slogan is diverse and its meaning is multifaceted. Regular use that would allow it to be classified as a symbol of Hamas has been empirically refuted. Incidentally, no other country in the world has yet come up with the idea of prosecuting the slogan as a symbol of Hamas. Accordingly, another chamber of the Berlin Regional Court has now also expressed clear doubts about the criminality of the slogan (decision of April 23rd, 2025, 504 Qs 75/25).

However, the instructions given to the Berlin police remain unchanged, even though there are no longer grounds for the initial suspicion. Massive criminal prosecution and violent arrests continue—as if the recent rulings of the Tiergarten District Court had never been handed down. When will the point be reached at which this practice can be classified as persecution of innocent persons within the meaning of Section 344 of the German Criminal Code?

We therefore demand an immediate end to the persecution of people who use this protest slogan. A corresponding instruction must be issued without delay and made public for clarification. Pending charges and applications for penalty orders must be withdrawn. At the same time, we strongly reject the media smear campaign that is now being waged against the judge who handed down the acquittal on July 30th, 2025. The verdict was reached on the basis of objective and constitutional criteria. In this regard, too, a clarifying statement from the Berlin law enforcement authorities would be welcome.

Berlin, 5th of August, 2025

Lawyer Ahmed Abed

Lawyer Rina Ajeti

Lawyer Maja Beisenherz

Lawyer Yeelen Binh

Lawyer Dr Karoline Boerwick

Lawyer Michael Brenner

Lawyer Mathes Breuer

Lawyer Robert Brockhaus

Lawyer Ammar Bustami

Lawyer Christina Clemm

Lawyer Nevin Duran

Lawyer Benjamin Düsberg

Lawyer Christine Engels

Lawyer Jasmin El-Hussein

Lawyer Claus Förster

Lawyer Alexander Górski

Lawyer Jessica Grimm

Lawyer David Hölscher

Lawyer Julian Hölzel

Lawyer Nasrin Karimi

Lawyer Carolin Kaufmann

Lawyer Tilman Kohls

Lawyer Ulrich Kraft

Lawyer Tobias Krenzel

Lawyer Dr. Vivian Kube

Lawyer Anja Lederer

Lawyer Claudia Lichter

Lawyer Lilian Löwenbrück

Lawyer Roland Meister

Lawyer Nina Ogilvie

Lawyer Yaşar Ohle

Lawyer Nina Onèr

Lawyer Viktor Riad

Lawyer Loui Rickert

Lawyer Eike Richter

Lawyer Hannah Rainer

Lawyer Haress Sakhi

Lawyer Nadija Samour

Lawyer Yolanda Scheytt

Lawyer Niklas Schlindwein

Lawyer David Schumann

Lawyer Matthias Schuster

Lawyer Tuğba Sezer

Lawyer Monika Maria Sommer

Lawyer Michaela Streibelt

Lawyer Yener Sözen

Lawyer Dr. Lukas Theune

Lawyer Ada Tünnemann

Lawyer Dr. Eckart Wähner

Lawyer Ingrid Yeboah

Lawyer Dirk Zimmermann

Peace is not silence

Voices from the Hiroshima Palestine Vigil


A group of 17 people stand in front of the Hiroshima Atomic Bomb memorial holding various signs. There are candles and signs on the ground as well.

In Hiroshima, peace lives in monuments, museums, and school curricula. It’s woven into the city’s identity and offered to the world as a symbol of recovery, resilience, and moral clarity born from catastrophe. Every summer, children study the horrors of nuclear war, listen to the stories of the hibakusha (nuclear weapon survivors), and are taught that peace must be protected at all costs.

In practice, however, peace here is often treated as something already secured—memorialized, ritualized, and disconnected from the violence unfolding elsewhere. Hiroshima remembers, but rarely speaks out on anything besides nuclear issues; the past is preserved, while the present is overlooked.

In October 2023, just days after Israel began its genocide in Gaza, a group of artists, students, and activists began holding a nightly vigil in front of the Atomic Bomb Dome. What began with thirty people became a sustained act of mourning and resistance. Candles are lit. Names are read. Flyers are handed to strangers. Art is performed. Silence—the default posture in Hiroshima’s peace narrative—is deliberately broken.

To speak of Gaza in the shadow of the Dome is to interrupt a script many would prefer to keep intact. The Hiroshima Palestine Vigil refuses this quiet reflection, instead asking: what does it mean to mourn publicly, politically, in a place that clings to peace but recoils from justice? What happens when remembrance becomes an excuse not to see?

In this first part of our conversation, three members of the group—Rebecca Maria Goldschmidt, a Jewish and Filipino anti-Zionist artist; Sailor Kannako, an artist and clothing store clerk from Hiroshima; and Anndoe, a Hiroshima-based noise musician—reflect on how the vigil began, how it’s been received, and why peace must be redefined: not as the absence of war, but as a refusal to look away wherever in the world atrocities are happening.

Hello, can you give us a little background as to how the vigil started?

R: The vigil started on Friday, October 13, 2023, as a response to October 7th. Tanami Aoe, a professor at Hiroshima City University, and myself, a graduate student at the same university, gathered at the Atomic Bomb Dome in Hiroshima’s Peace Park with around 30 people, mostly students and anti-war activists, to honor the Palestinian and Jewish lives lost, and call for an end to the 75+ year occupation, Israeli apartheid and the ongoing genocide. Along with another professor, Masae Yuasa, and other community members, we decided to return every night for a week and hosted speakers, lit candles, sang and shared information. 

For me personally, I thought of it as a “sit-in shiva”, sitting shiva being the Jewish mourning period where you sit on the ground for a week and people come to your home to offer food and condolences. After a week, we kept coming back every night and it kept growing. We ended up standing in front of the dome for over 500 consecutive days, and then shifted to a less rigorous schedule, with some members still coming to stand three or four days a week. Now, we are there usually three days a week as a larger group to continue to make noise and to keep Palestine in the consciousness of every single person who passes through the Peace Park.

What is the main message or goal of this vigil? In other words, what do you hope it stands for and achieves?

SK: To appeal to the world that war, genocide, and colonialism are not things of the past, but continue to this day, at the Atomic Bomb Dome, which is a symbol of peace.

A:  FREE PALESTINE. FREE GAZA. STOP GENOCIDE RIGHT NOW. And FREE OURSELVES.

R: End Israeli Apartheid! Abolish Zionism! Abolish Israel! LandBack! And International Solidarity Forever! Our goal is to not let people forget about Palestine and Gaza, and to spread information about our collective responsibility.

What do you think Hiroshima represents and what do you believe it should represent today?

SK: When we stand at the Atomic Bomb Dome, many passersby avoid photographing us. They take a photo of the Dome, then quickly move on. This scene, which plays out almost every day, feels like a symbol of Hiroshima today.

Hiroshima calls itself a “City of Peace,” but when it talks about the atomic bomb or war, it speaks of them as things of the past and pays no attention to the genocide unfolding in Gaza right now. For example, every summer, children in Hiroshima—from elementary school to high school—participate in a program called “Peace Studies.” They listen to the voices of atomic bomb survivors and learn about the destruction caused by the bomb. The message they receive is: “To protect peace, we must never repeat the same suffering.” There is no doubt in this message. 

But still, we must ask: What is peace? Has peace really been achieved? In Hiroshima—and more broadly in Japan—the phrase “Let’s protect peace” is often repeated. But peace is not presented as something to be fought for or built; it’s treated as something we already have. From childhood, we’re taught that the war is over, full stop. Because of this, the suffering of the atomic bomb victims rarely overlaps—emotionally or politically—with the suffering of the people of Gaza. In Hiroshima today, “peace” has become an excuse not to think.

In that context, do you feel the Japanese government is doing enough, or saying enough, about what’s happening in Gaza?

SK: Not enough at all. First of all, the government should take action to put diplomatic or economic pressure on Israel to stop the genocide, but they still have established economic cooperation with Israel, have not imposed sanctions, and Japan’s Ministry of Defense is even planning to purchase weapons from Israel.

Basically, Japan’s policy decisions are always made while looking to the United States (just like how Japan has not ratified the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, despite being the only country to have suffered atomic bombings), and this is the same for Palestine and Israel. 

The most shocking moment was that when the United States stopped funding UNRWA in 2024, Japan simply followed suit and stopped contributing. Before October 7th, Japan had been working hard to provide humanitarian assistance in Palestine for many years, but now it easily betrayed the trust of the Palestinian people. Many schools and hospitals that Japan has built and operated using public funds (our taxes) have been destroyed by Israeli attacks, but the Japanese government has not protested to Israel about this. 

R: While the Japanese government has made miniscule gestures of concern for Gaza, the bottom line is that money talks. Recent data shows that Japan makes about $1.3 billion in both import and export trade with Israel, putting it in the top 10 countries doing business with the apartheid state. The general public is completely unaware of the fact that their own pension fund (the largest pension fund in the world!) is invested 227 billion yen (1.3 billion Euros) in Israeli bonds and another 874 billion yen (5 billion Euros) in complicit companies like Elbit Systems, Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems, Caterpillar, etc. Like most Western countries, the media is wholly complicit in obscuring the govt and Japanese companies’ own complicity. The newspapers still don’t use the word “genocide” and the issue is often portrayed as a problem of “terrorism” or “religious conflict.” Despite the widespread unawareness, in the past two years our movement has grown extensively all across the country and expanded to have small groups in most cities, even in rural areas, throughout Japan. 

Can  you tell us more about how the Japanese media and general public responded? 

SK: Just as the government makes decisions that depend on the United States, the media and citizens cannot stop making decisions that depend on others. It’s almost like a disease. Most TV stations and newspapers don’t write their own opinions. In every article and every news program, the same phrases are copy-and-pasted, and the subject of who is committing the genocide isn’t made clear. Also, vague expressions are used as if the people of Gaza are dying accidentally. This is because they [the media] are extremely afraid of making mistakes, receiving criticism, and being embarrassed by deviating from mainstream values. 

In addition, the media rarely mentions Israel’s long colonial rule over Palestine, and there is almost no reporting that positions the genocide as part of that colonial history. As a result, the phrase “Islamic organization Hamas” is overemphasized, and many Japanese interpret what is happening in Gaza as a religious war between Judaism and Islam. That framing makes it feel distant and incomprehensible, especially in a largely non-religious country like Japan. It becomes something people feel they don’t need to understand, and therefore don’t have to care about. By doing so, they don’t feel compelled to feel sad or guilty about their privileged lives. 

Articles that confront us with the bloodsoaked reality of Gaza aren’t welcome. The media avoids thinking for themselves and making decisions on their own responsibility, instead it clings to the performance of neutrality. This ultimately leads to concealing the reality and accelerating the genocide. Trying to be neutral is not harmless.

Under a capitalist and patriarchal social system, citizens are also domesticated so they can’t trust their own senses and make the choices they truly believe are right. The choices supported by those in power, such as economically successful or highly educated people, or people representing some organization, are interpreted as correct and chosen. The fact that there are almost no political statements among Japanese celebrities (actors, athletes, artists, etc.) is also a major reason why solidarity with Palestine doesn’t spread in this country. 

Many Japanese people cannot decide for themselves the answers to the questions, “Is it right for me to speak up for Palestine?”, “Is it cool?”, and “Is it necessary?” Concerned about the values of the majority that consider political statements to be taboo, they weigh their wish of “I don’t want anyone to be killed” against the risk of being humiliated and not being accepted by others, and ultimately choose to take no action.

So, have you faced any criticism or pressure to stay silent about the genocide? 

R: We are often told to shut up or turn it down. We seem to “ruin” the experience of an imagined, nostalgic post-nuclear “peace” landscape where people should be able to “contemplate mortality” without actually confronting the present-day-right-fucking-now Holocaust in Gaza. We often receive noise complaints to the city, the most revealing was someone who called the office and apparently, in a very small voice said: “Please make them stop, what they’re talking about is just too sad.”

The city’s emphasis on “silence” and “silently praying for peace” is part of the ongoing erasure of Japan’s own imperialist war crimes, occupation, sex slavery, dehumanization and genocide in multiple Asian countries, and also obscures Japan’s own rapid re-militarization and massive defense spending. Of course, that is also done in conjunction with Israel’s technology and weapons. Not to mention, Japan’s own commitment to nuclear power and nuclear weapons.

We have intentionally utilized noise, sound, loud vocals and music, and even cultivated an intentional visual clutter in front of the dome to make sure that it is impossible to not see us or not hear us. Yet we are still ignored by so many people. In Hiroshima, more people are likely to ignore us and maintain their own disturbing silence, than they are to speak out to silence us––even if they can’t stand us. Our loudest critics are zionists going berzerk and ranting about beheaded babies on October 7th, the same lies even after two years and actual beheaded babies in Gaza.

Do you feel supported by other activists or peace groups in Japan? 

R: In Hiroshima, representatives of the postal workers’ union, women’s groups, and many of the old guard anti-war and anti-nuclear activist groups were the first to join us at the vigil. Nihon Hidankyou (the Association of Atomic Bomb Survivors), the hibakusha group that won the Nobel Peace Prize last year, eventually showed their support and their members now stand with us at the dome. 

But it took time. From the beginning, many groups were unsure of what position they should take in the aftermath of October 7th and there was a lot of hesitance to join us. We felt the most solid and immediate support from the music community, specifically punks, elders, and honestly just individual people who have felt that what they’re seeing is wrong and they cannot bear to stay silent. I would say that we have more single individuals coming out to support than anyone who is representing an organization, although many of our members also participate in other activist groups.

Have you had any encounters with police during the vigil?

R: We are very privileged in the sense that the police do not harass us, and generally just monitor our presence in the park. Our situation is absolutely nothing like what you are dealing with in Berlin. We are very aware of the level of surveillance that our entire movement in Japan experiences, and all of our marches are escorted by the police. If we are too loud, sometimes they will come to tell us to turn it down, but it’s usually a mild interaction.

I am only aware of three arrests of people in relation to the Palestine movement, two were for vandalism––stickers and graffiti. But going to jail in Japan has very high social consequences: you can’t get a job, you shame your family, etc. So risking arrest in Japan is really quite a serious commitment that most people, even those who choose to be involved in politics, are not willing to take. I believe this has also put a limit to the possibility for actions here––there is no sense of the power of collective civil disobedience, despite Japan’s New Left history. Although the sit-in and demonstrations are the traditional ways that even the hibakusha who started the anti-nuclear movement in Hiroshima would––and still sometimes do––exercise their rights. Tokyo might have a completely different perspective because their police are much more aggressive and numerous. Hiroshima is quiet, but they know who we are.

Part 2 of the interview will be published soon. In the meantime, as the anniversary of the atomic bombing approaches, the vigil is hosting a series of events leading up to and on August 6th in Hiroshima. 

In Berlin, a commemorative rally will be held on August 9th at Praeser Platz to mark 80 years since the atomic bombing of Nagasaki, connecting struggles across time and geography through acts of remembrance and resistance.