I was in Germany for only a few days last month, and as I told one event I spoke at, I had never felt such a sense of lacking oxygen as I did there.
I was in the country to give a number of lectures and participate in several debates in my official capacity as the UN special rapporteur for human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. While I was aware of the challenges of discussing Palestine/Israel in Germany, I was expecting it to be not unlike my last visit in May 2024, when I – then the main UN voice denouncing Israel’s genocide in Gaza – met with dozens of think tanks and civil society representatives eager to discuss my work. But instead, my five-day visit descended into a chaotic trip full of harassment, cancellations, attacks on organizers, changing venues, and even threats of arrest over my comments.
While my work has remained largely unchanged, in less than a year, the space for debate in Germany had dramatically diminished. What I witnessed was a harsh deviation from democratic values and a troubling shrinking landscape for freedom of expression and other fundamental rights. ….more
