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The restrictions follow demonstrations during Passover that featured chants of ‘Death to Jews’ and ‘Death to Israel.’
By JNS
Police in Berlin have announced a ban on Palestinian terrorist flags and violent statements against Israel during Monday’s May Day demonstrations.
The move follows a march in the city during the Passover on April 8 co-organized by Palestinian NGO Samidoun where the mainly German Muslim participants chanted “Death to Jews” and “Death to Israel.”
Local law enforcement issued a statement on Saturday on restrictions related to the annual International Workers’ Day demonstrations according to which it is “forbidden to shout/utter and display slogans that are defamatory towards parts or individuals of an ethnic or religious group, incite hatred or impair the human dignity of others, as well as defamatory statements.”
Also prohibited are statements that “propagate the annihilation of the State of Israel and/or its inhabitants or are otherwise likely to convey a readiness to use violence.”
Participants in the protests are also banned from promoting the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), Hizb ut-Tahrir (HuT, the “Party of Liberation”) and Hamas as well as organizations related to these terrorist groups.
“Identification marks, symbols or emblems of these organizations may not be shown on flags and banners or on the clothing of the participants or in any other way,” the statement reads.
In comments to JNS, Samuel Salzborn, the antisemitism commissioner for the city-state of Berlin, said that the April 8 protests in the neighborhoods of Kreuzberg and Neukölln were antisemitic.
“The antisemitic character of the gathering … in Berlin is without question, based on the information available,” he noted.
The commissioner said that he requested that the public prosecutor’s office investigate any violations of criminal law during the gathering.
According to the Israeli Defense Ministry’s National Bureau for Counter Terror Financing (NBCTF), “The Samidoun organization was designated as a terrorist organization as it is part of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and was founded by members of the PFLP in 2012.”
The E.U. and the U.S. have also designated the PFLP as a foreign terrorist organization.
The International Legal Forum (ILF) recently released a 22-page report calling on Europe to designate Samidoun as a terrorist group.
At a rally in Brussels in October, Mohammed Khatib, the Europe coordinator for Samidoun, urged the destruction of Israel and the defeat of the U.S., E.U. and Canada.
“Defeating Israel means defeating the United States. Defeating Israel means defeating Canada. These settlements [that] exist on the back of the indigenous people and the black people,” said Khatib at the rally.
“We will not accept anymore, as Palestinians, this rhetoric of ‘two-state solution’ as a way to support Palestine. Only one free Palestine from the [Jordan] River to the [Mediterranean] Sea,” Khatib said.
NGO Monitor Vice President Olga Deutsch said about the restrictions announced by police in Berlin for Monday’s May Day events, “For more than a decade, we have highlighted the connections between the PFLP terror group and NGOs that spread antisemitism, hatred and incitement. Local authorities are right to act when civil society descends into terror support and incitement against Jewish communities.”
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