Four Gaza protesters in Germany are set for deportations despite objections from an immigration official that none were convicted of crimes.

Berlin’s immigration authorities are moving to deport four young foreign residents on allegations related to participation in protests against Israel’s war on Gaza, an unprecedented move that raises serious concerns over civil liberties in Germany.

The deportation orders, issued under German migration law, were made amid political pressure and over internal objections from the head of the state of Berlin’s immigration agency.

The internal strife arose because three of those targeted for deportation are citizens of European Union member states who normally enjoy freedom of movement between E.U. countries. None of the four has been convicted of any crimes.

“What we’re seeing here is straight out of the far right’s playbook,” said Alexander Gorski, a lawyer representing two of the protesters. “You can see it in the U.S. and Germany, too: Political dissent is silenced by targeting the migration status of protesters.”

  • Quittenbrot@feddit.orgEnglish
    42·
    2 days ago

    Still now, half a century later, people in my country of birth remain quite sensitive and easilly alarmed by practices of those in power which are similar to the kind of things that those in power in the Fascist regime would do (for example, things like civil society surveillance).

    I expect exactly the same from Germans, maybe just less of it since their Fascist days have been gone for longer

    That’s something we also thought for a long time, that we are kind of bulletproof to something like this ever happening again.

    The problem/main difference to your country: yes, it’s been longer ago, but also, we had reunification, where two very different places became one and defacto a large population living in a socialist dictatorship for decades had to integrate into fully-running country of the former ‘class enemy’. This rift still isn’t fully closed and it is something you won’t find in most other countries. This lead to a smaller degree of cohesion and a larger portion of people having difficulties to identify with our national architecture.

    Furthermore, the people nowadays are way more influenced by the events of the German Partition and its aftermath than the Third Reich. And even there, those that themselves experienced mass surveillance and living in a state of injustice now seem to have no problems expanding surveillance and again oppressing the enemies, as long as it’s not them. In the end, people, irrespective of their nationality, can have a very short memory.