Thousands of people gathered again in Berlin to celebrate the Palestinian Remembrance Day Nakba. The Police spoke about about 6,200 demonstrators on Saturday evening. However, the number of participants fluctuated as people came but others left the meeting, it said. About 2,000 participants were expected.

Police repeatedly cracked down on demonstrators. Fireworks were occasionally thrown and fireworks were set off, a police spokeswoman said. The protest march was stopped several times as a result. Because, according to the police, prohibited slogans were coming from the loudspeaker car in the front, the vehicle was no longer allowed to drive.

After consultation with the leaders of the meeting, the police allowed the procession to proceed. She previously called on participants to behave sensibly. Under the title ‘Palestine will be free’, the participants walked from the Oranienplatz in Kreuzberg towards the Red Town Hall.

About 500 police officers on duty

According to our own information, there were approximately 500 emergency services on site. A spokeswoman said some participants had been arrested to establish their identities. According to them, fireworks were thrown at police officers. Organizers asked participants to refrain from such actions, a dpa reporter reported. To make documenting incidents more difficult, banners were hung and umbrellas were set up, police said.

Many demonstrators carried Palestinian flags, others held up umbrellas shaped like watermelons. Their colors – red flesh, green-white skin and black seeds – can also be found on the Palestinian flag. Signs and banners read, among other things: “Stop the genocide Gaza» or “Stop occupation terror!”. Among the chants were “Free Palestine, Free Gaza.”

The police impose conditions

As usual, the police had imposed some conditions on the demonstration. For example, calls for acts of violence or defamatory slogans were prohibited. Statements calling for the destruction of the state were also banned Israel or display flags and signs of terrorist organizations such as the Islamist Hamas or the Samidoun organization, for which a ban on activities in Germany was imposed after the terrorist attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.

Calls for protest were posted on various internet portals in German, English and Arabic: “On this Nakba Day, no ban, no persecution, no repression can stop us from demanding justice and liberation. We are not free until Palestine is free.” Nakba Remembrance Day on May 15 commemorates the flight and expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in the first war in the Middle East in 1948 after the establishment of the state of Israel.

Tumult after demonstration on Wednesday

Last Wednesday evening, about 600 people demonstrated peacefully in Charlottenburg on the occasion of Nakba Remembrance Day. Afterwards, however, there was commotion in Neukölln. According to police, about 200 demonstrators gathered there. Some of them set garbage bins on fire, and fireworks and Bengali fires were also lit. In several places, people repeatedly threw objects such as bicycles and garbage cans onto the streets.

Since the terrorist attack by the Islamist Hamas on Israel on October 7, 2023, there have been… Berlin weekly demonstrations. According to its own information, the Berlin prosecutor’s office has handled approximately 1,040 cases so far (as of May 17) in the context of the Gaza war. Of these, about 210 cases involved crimes committed during demonstrations over the conflict in the Middle East, an authority spokeswoman said upon request. This often concerns incitement to hatred, damage to property, insults or the use of symbols of unconstitutional and terrorist organizations.

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