In reality, with its resolution of May 17, Germany’s ruling grand coalition has adopted the policy of the AfD. It is utilising the resolution to undermine the democratic right of freedom of expression and association and repress leftist organisations and individuals.
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This was previously demonstrated by the case of the Palestinian journalist Khaled Barakat, who has Canadian citizenship and has lived in Germany for the past four years. Barakat had planned to speak on Donald Trump’s Middle East policy at the Sudanese community center in Berlin-Schöneberg on June 22, when he and his companion were stopped by police at the exit of a subway. The police handed him an eight-page document, which banned him from speaking at the meeting and also revoked his residency permit. Apparently, Germany’s intelligence agencies had informed the immigration authorities about the meeting in Berlin.
Barakat was accused of being an official of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), an accusation he denies. Moreover, the PFLP is not banned in Germany. In a speech last year Barakat declared his support for the BDS campaign. “If you do not subordinate yourself one hundred percent to the official Israeli discourse, if you refuse to accept racism, colonialism and occupation,” Barakat said in an interview with the paper Junge Welt, “then you’re branded a terrorist, a savage, a barbarian, or an anti-Semite.”
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