From the River to the Sea, We Do Not Quote
How Berlin tries to criminalize the language of protest against genocide.
Chants from the crowd drowned out shouted commands from police officers. From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will Be Free rang out clearly in front of Berlin’s Criminal Court in Moabit. The police swarmed protesters, attempting to disband them as they perpetrated the same “crime” that was scheduled to be heard in court.
Everyone present in the crowd knew that chanting From the River to the Sea was the very reason why Daria, a student activist, was being tried that day. She faced charges for using “symbols of unconstitutional and terrorist organizations” at a demonstration back on March 9th. Her trial, August 22nd 2024, was the first in Berlin to address this charge since Germany tried to ban the slogan in November 2023.
The charge is controversial. It is “an attack on freedom of expression and freedom of assembly”, and it “stands on a shaky legal basis,” said Nadija Samour, one of Daria's lawyers.
There is more to Daria’s case than just her charge. It’s about the attitude of the German legal and political system towards Palestinian resistance and solidarity. “Their attempt to delegitimize our movement by connecting it to Hamas is atrocious. This scandalous campaign is based on the premise that Palestinians don't have a right to armed resistance and therefore their resistance is terrorism,” Daria told The Student Intifada.
“This premise needs to be rejected loudly and clearly. Because what would our solidarity mean if we only supported Palestinians as they are being annihilated and not when they rise and resist?”
Daria had no idea that the first challenge of the day would hit before her case was even called. In a last-minute decision, the judge moved the case to a high-security courtroom with only 30 seats for public audience, a measure usually reserved for dangerous offenders. There were strict security measures for members of the public who wanted to attend the trial to observe the proceedings: they were searched with metal detectors, and required to leave their bags and cameras outside the courtroom.
As usual, these ‘security’ measures targeted some more than others. Khaled, a comrade who came to witness the trial, was racially profiled by the Court’s security officers. He was told he had to either remove his keffiyeh to enter, or stay outside.
“I hate when they ban the keffiyeh,” Khaled commented, “and it was really unfair because others were allowed to keep theirs.” Banning the scarf in the courtroom is unlawful unless it covers the face, according to Alexander Gorski, lawyer on Daria’s defense team. The intensity of security measures is the prerogative of the judge, Gorski explained. “What we've seen with Daria's trial is obviously unpleasant, and it smells like racism. But heightened security is not unusual for political trials,” Gorski told TSI.
Daria’s case is political, marking the first time a Berlin court must decide whether the chant From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will Be Free is the symbol of a banned or terrorist organization – if the court decides it is, it is punishable by up to three years in prison.
All of Hamas’s activity was banned by the German Ministry of the Interior in November 2023. The Ministry’s ban also listed expressions which were deemed symbols of Hamas. In the case of From the River to the Sea, Hamas used it in their 2017 charter. But many others have too: “Everyone is using it. Jewish people, right wing Jewish Israelis, leftists, Islamists. Saying that From the River to the Sea is a symbol of Hamas is just wrong,” Gorski maintains.
The German Ministry of the Interior’s decision is far-reaching: according to Legal Tribune Online, a quarter of the Federal Prosecutor’s Offices – 4 of the 16 – have adjusted their practices and are now pressing charges for the chant, citing it as a symbol of a banned terrorist organization. A Baden-Württemberg court has even based a conviction on the Ministry’s decree.
The Ministry gave no reasoning for its decision. Legal scholars and courts are questioning whether the Ministry ignored basic rights such as freedom of assembly and expression, and whether it exceeded its powers. While the Ministry of the Interior can ban groups and organizations, determining whether certain symbols belong to those groups or not is up to the courts.
“You just need one person to shout the phrase, and it gives the police a great deal of power,” Gorski said. While the state cannot ban all demonstrations outright because of the right of freedom of assembly, targeting the chant has become a powerful tool to criminalize the movement.
Based on the ban, demonstrators are attacked, arrested, and injured – harrowing consequences regardless of whether protesters are later exonerated from wrongdoing. “It’s a strategy to silence a movement and take away the space where people can express pro-Palestinian opinions,” Gorski added.
The ban empowers police to suppress demonstrations, enact violence, and flood the movement with criminal proceedings, while also fueling broader hostile migration policies.
Daria’s trial drew a great deal of public interest and attention. Everyone present at the trial was aware of its significance except, it appeared, the judge. He scheduled a mere 45 minutes for the hearing, and postponed it when the defense team announced that they had prepared several motions.
Gorski criticized the decision: “The assumption that something like this, where you have one witness and two lawyers, can be dealt with in 45 minutes, is obviously wrong. Obviously the judge didn't think it was possible. He just didn't want to hear the case that day. For us, it’s not a win. It’s just a show of power and of personal disinterest by the judge.”
Two hundred protesters remained outside the courthouse after the postponement. When Daria finally left the courthouse, she approached the microphone.
“Thank you,” she began, “for the truly overwhelming support.” Daria had elected to remain silent during the trial but planned to give a speech to the crowd who had gathered in solidarity.
Regardless of the legal outcome, her goal remained unchanged: to reject Germany’s genocidal narrative and draw attention to the mechanisms of dehumanization behind capitalist and white supremacist propaganda.
“The public prosecutor's office attributes the slogan From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will Be Free – I do not quote – to Hamas, and accuses me of spreading propaganda from terrorist organizations. Many argue that the slogan is and was used by many groups long before Hamas came into existence. But that is not the point.”
“Armed resistance is not terrorism. The colonial institutions of Germany, the US, and Europe are not a moral authority, but the biggest perpetrators when it comes to terrorism. If they were to apply their own criteria, they would have to put themselves first and foremost on the terror list; infinitely higher than anyone else. Palestinians who fight for their lives and their dignity are not terrorists. The settler-colonial entity that calls itself Israel and has been massacring and robbing Palestinians for over 120 years with the support of the West is the terrorist.”
Before the trial day, Daria told TSI: “The criminalization reinforces the idea in people's minds that it's criminal to call for land back and the right of return, so it is imperative to not comply with the ridiculous, hypocritical norms set by colonial Germany. At protests, chanting then becomes a popular tool of non-compliance, “the strongest [way] we can verbally oppose what Germany and the Zionists are doing.”
"But first and foremost, we must oppose in ways that actually change the material conditions and directly contribute to the dismantling of the system - by disrupting the flow of capital and destabilizing the institutions. To actually challenge the state's narratives, we need organized recklessness.”
Daria’s actions are “the definition of using her privilege for good,” says Amira, an activist who lives in Berlin. Amira also spoke outside the court at Daria’s trial. “For me, as a Palestinian, I feel like we're being listened to for the first time in 76 years, and we should really use this moment.”
For Amira, it was important to highlight how the narrative of Palestinians is being hijacked by Germany. “They are telling us what this slogan is supposed to mean without really understanding it, which is quite racist. This slogan has a long history of Palestinian resistance, so we're the ones to tell what it means, and whether it incites hatred, or it is a call for liberation.”
After Amira’s speech the police made their announcement: since Daria chanted From the River to the Sea, she would either need to go to them freely to be arrested, or they would storm into the crowd to get her.
“We decided that we will stay together, because we are in this fight together. They're trying to criminalize all of us, and single us out to make us feel like we have to deal with everything alone. But we don't,” said Ophelia, a comrade who came to support Daria.
When the police surrounded the crowd and prevented the protesters from leaving together, everybody remained united. Human chains formed throughout the crowd, protecting Daria.
The rally continued, with supporters from across the street throwing Böller (firecrackers). The police, visibly irritated, announced they would dissolve the rally. They violently forced their way into the crowd, and stopped the speeches by confiscating the sound system.
Uli, one of the demonstration organizers, recounted the commotion: “The head of operations changed the reason for dissolving the demo several times, citing violation of the conditions, then the alleged ongoing commission of crimes – that is, chanting From the River to the Sea – and, finally, the alleged lack of control over the demonstration.”
The police rushed in from multiple sides to arrest people, throwing them onto the ground, shoving them against bikes and the walls of the courthouse. Amira thought she would get arrested too, as a cop was trying to separate her from the chain. Her comrades held on to her, refusing to let the officer take her. “And then he just stopped trying,” she remembered. That day, even though the police were brutal, people still protected each other, and they weren’t able to arrest everyone.
Police went for Daria’s neck when they reached her. “They started choking me, pushing me backwards, even though they were arresting me from the front. They always find ways to outmatch what we are used to, and that day, there were a lot of people whom they took with this chokehold – both palms on people’s faces, covering their eyes, nose and mouth.”
Ophelia was hand in hand with Daria, at the front of the chain. They recounted trying to defend a comrade who was being punched by a cop, and their effort to de-escalate was then met with another punch in the throat. “That’s a threatening thing to do. There’s really different ways of creating space, if you feel like you have to do it”, Ophelia told TSI
“Take her with you,” they heard an officer say. The next thing they remembered is that they could neither see nor breathe. Their keffiyeh was inside their mouth, caught under the cop’s hand. Their ear was shot through with pain, as cops ripped off a piercing that started bleeding, and one of their arms was immobilized behind their back, hurting. “Then I understood that every kind of movement will just make it worse. So I used my other hand to show a peace sign, and tried to say as loud as I could, again and again, starting to panic, ‘I can’t breathe.’ Because I couldn't.”
"Using these words was a crazy reality check," they continued, recalling the murder of George Floyd in 2020. “I know that the police are a racist institution, and it's not the first time I experienced their violence, but inherently being perceived as a threat remains for me unexplainable, especially since I've worked my whole life against it”, they added.
After police brought them to the van and they were able to take their keffiyeh out of their mouth, Ophelia uttered a ‘thank you’ to the cop. They didn't realize it at the time, but later heard it themselves in a video recording their arrest. “How deeply is racism not only ingrained into them, but also into me, to think that I still have to be nice when a man decides to rob me of my right to breathe.”
For the brutality Ophelia experienced, they got charged with resisting arrest, attacking a police officer and physical assault. “One thing I understood while being on the streets is that if police arrested you violently, or did something wrong, they will pull up the worst charges to legitimize it,” they explained.
This kind of police violence is not unusual in the context of protests in solidarity with Palestine. Over the past year, Germany has developed a reputation for being particularly repressive and violent towards marginalized communities, especially those involved in the Palestine solidarity movement. Police systematically target vulnerable groups, particularly racialized and Palestinian youth, and those who have fled to Germany from Gaza.
Research highlights that German police practices foster racial bias and systemic discrimination. Organizations such as Amnesty Deutschland, KOP, as well as Professor Tobias Singelnstein have repeatedly warned of a surge of violence against protesters.
In a statement published on September 16th, activists called for the presence of independent paramedics during demonstrations, an immediate investigation into police violence, and the suspension of officers involved in these acts.
Should we trust the courts to bring us justice?
Lawyers and activists doubt it. The courts have failed to bring justice to Palestinians between the river and the sea. The courts have only succeeded in furthering the suffering of those criminalized by the German state for not being white and wealthy. As Daria sarcastically put it outside of the courthouse, “the most blatant crimes of all in this system.”
In Germany, activists must fight for their lives with their lives: “For the oppressed people, the danger is always there, not just in the demonstrations. So I am in awe and honor seeing queer and racialized bodies literally fighting for their right to live. But we need people to understand that even if the system is hurting you less than others, every human is worth fighting for. It can't be on the backs of the ones that are always being hurt the most”, Ophelia told TSI.
The court system is about power, not justice. And our power lies in numbers: “You don't even know how important it is that publicity is created here, that solidarity is lived, that public pressure on the justice system and the authorities increases, not only in Germany but also internationally,” another of Daria’s lawyers, Samour, told the crowd outside the courthouse.
Daria is positive about the events of August 22nd, despite the violence and uncertainty surrounding the day. “If the judge was hoping to quiet us down by postponing, it did the opposite. People were fierce, and the mood was revolutionary.”
From the river to the sea – we do not quote – Palestine will be free.
Daria’s trial has initially been rescheduled for November 11th, 2024, then postponed again, indefinitely. Follow @handsoffstudentrights for updates on the trials students are facing in Berlin.