The European Legal Support Center (ELSC) launched a database on anti-Palestinian repression in Germany on May 13, with plans to expand it to include other European countries such as the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. The platform aims to expose how different actors and mechanisms contribute to the repression of Palestine solidarity in the region, revealing the broader system of European complicity in Israel’s crimes.
The database currently documents 766 incidents, detailing a wide range of violations. The most frequent are cases of censorship and smearing, legal repercussions, and police persecution, primarily targeting activists, students, and cultural organizations.
However, the ELSC warned against understanding repression as limited to specific events or groups. “Repression is a broader process by which certain ways of speaking about Palestinian liberation are delegitimized, criminalized, or rendered unspeakable through legal, cultural, and institutional mechanisms,” the organization stated. “In this sense, repression functions not only to censor but to shape what is acceptable discourse, producing a political reality in which solidarity with Palestine is marked as deviant, dangerous, or outside the bounds of democratic speech.”
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“Anti-Palestinian repression in Europe means being deported, kicked out of schools, universities or workplaces, beaten by the police or criminalized in the courts for calling out complicity in genocide and settler colonialism,” added Layla Kattermann of the ELSC. “Our data shows how state and non-state actors often align organically to perpetuate anti-Palestinian repression across all institutions and sectors of society: they are attacking people on the streets, in their homes and online to silence the Palestine solidarity movement.”
While attacks on Palestine solidarity efforts have intensified since October 7, 2023, the ELSC, along with partners Forensic Architecture and Forensis, emphasizes that the current wave is only building upon an older pattern. As outlined during the public presentation of the database by former Samidoun activists, German state institutions and media have long converged to delegitimize solidarity initiatives, paving the way for full bans on some associations. Similar patterns of intimidation and repression are now experienced by Samidoun chapters in other countries.
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The data also shows how campaigns of support for Palestinian rights, like the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement, are predominantly misrepresented as antisemitic. The same accusations are directed not only against activists but also academics, medics, and media workers. During Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza, this trend has only worsened: events focused on Palestinian liberation have been canceled or banned by universities and city authorities.
An important example was the Palestine Congress in April 2024, where historian Salman Abu Sitta and journalist Ali Abunimah faced political bans ahead of attending, while other guests such as surgeon Ghassan Abu Sitta and economist Yanis Varoufakis were denied entry into the country. During this time, ELSC’s work shows, several German universities suppressed Palestine solidarity efforts by involving law enforcement, which in some cases led to unlawful detentions and violence against students and staff.
”Widespread and extremely violent repression of Palestine solidarity has been enacted all over Europe for decades and is ever-growing as people call out complicity and demand an end to Israel’s genocidal violence,” ELSC Director Giovanni Fassina said ahead of the launch. “We are not talking about random or isolated cases. Our database clearly demonstrates: anti-Palestinian repression across Europe is systematic, institutional and undeniable.” As attacks on solidarity groups in the region escalate, the ELSC database offers an important tool for organizing resistance to such systemic repression.