Reporting Under Threat

This piece was originally written and published in Catalan for report.cat. What follows is an authorized English translation.

German police in a pro-palestinian protest in Berlin, august 2025 | Personal archive

Almost a year ago, German journalist Jakob Reimann published a thirty-second excerpt on his X account from an interview between Anna Staroselski – a member of the right-wing, pro-Israel conservative association Werte-Initiative – and FDP (Free Democratic Party) activist Karoline Preissler. In his post, the journalist quoted Preissler verbatim, who, when asked about accusations of rape against Israeli soldiers at Sde Teiman prison in the Negev desert, stated: “Even here, Israel remains the most humane actor.”

A few months later, Reimann received a notification from the regional court warning him that the case would go to trial. “They say I misquoted her. And that led to incitement, because according to them, my intention was to stir up hatred against her,” explains the journalist, now declared guilty. He received the ruling a month ago: if he republishes the same post, he will have to pay €250,000 or spend six months in prison.

Reimann, who lived for a year in Palestine and another in Israel, has for years denounced abuse and torture in Israeli prisons, particularly cases of sexual violence against Palestinian prisoners. “Despite everything, I continue working rigorously as a journalist and I don’t intend to let them silence me,” he declares. And he’s not joking.

He describes the trial as a farce, with a biased judge who from the beginning constantly interrupted his lawyer and accepted manipulated evidence from the opposing side without proper review. He is convinced that “if this conflict were somewhere else, like Congo or Sudan, it probably wouldn’t have ended up in court.”

Other Cases

Ignacio Rosalanda, journalist for Junge Welt, received Mexican consular protection in May 2024 after suffering assaults by German police, who prevented him from doing his work covering the eviction of Humboldt University in Berlin. This happened while he was reporting on a student occupation protesting “the German government’s inaction and its active participation in the genocide in Gaza.”

One year later, Rosalanda still faces pending trials with both the authorities and his employer. Regarding his case, he remains silent today because he fears more severe legal consequences, such as losing the visa that allows him to work in Germany as a Mexican journalist. The students who took part in the occupation were branded “terrorist sympathizers” for opposing Israel’s war on Gaza.

A third case: in April 2025, the German television channel Südwestrundfunk (SWR) suspended the talk show hosted by journalist Helen Fares after she promoted on Instagram an app to boycott Israeli products. This unleashed a wave of political pressure, death threats, and deportation threats against her. The channel argued that Fares had violated the principle of neutrality, while she defended her right to political expression.

Reimann, Rosalanda, and Fares are three journalists with different paths but a common denominator: all of them showed solidarity with the Palestinian cause and were censored.

Rising Repression

“These are not isolated incidents,” says Karim Bonhoff, spokesperson for the European Legal Support Center (ELSC), the organization that provides data on repression of Palestinian solidarity in Germany, recording incidents since around 2020.

“We can prove it with our data,” notes the expert. “We’ve built a database with 766 cases of anti-Palestinian repression in Germany. And that’s only the tip of the iceberg.” This refers to the first substantial report on the subject, presented to the media in July this year, with ELSC collaborating alongside various social and civil organizations. The report documents cases of anti-Palestinian repression in Germany since 2010.

The report shows that repression of Palestinian solidarity in Germany has escalated since October 2023 – and in all its forms. Examples include restrictions on protests such as the Nakba Day march, the cancellation of talks like that of senior UN official Francesca Albanese, bans within the Schengen area against Palestinians such as Ghassan Abu-Sittah (rector of the University of Glasgow), and unprecedented deportations of EU and US citizens who had been active in defending Palestine.

Legal Issues and Self-Censorship

“Demonstrations and events in solidarity with Palestine are ruthlessly repressed in Berlin,” says Roser Garí Pérez, a writer critical of the occupation and genocide who has witnessed events firsthand in the German capital over the past two years. Garí describes repression that “has become institutionalized through protest bans, budget cuts for all kinds of organizations, violent police actions, and legal ambiguities in the courts.”

She also explains that many of her journalist colleagues were not only physically attacked while covering demonstrations, but also faced legal consequences, were forced to self-censor, or shut down their social media accounts. Most, she insists, especially migrant journalists, do not dare to take a position for fear of losing their jobs or legal status.

At protests in Berlin, pro-Palestinian journalists reported being singled out “face-to-face” by pro-Israel journalists who, unlike them, had police protection. So, is state intervention neutral? “In Berlin, the Israeli embassy openly intervenes in the German media debate,” says Bonhoff, “by pointing fingers at specific journalists.”

Independent journalist Wael Eskandarovich has also seen his work affected. He declares that at demonstrations, “the police did not respect my press accreditation; they only respect journalists they know – and those are clearly doing very unethical journalism.”

Germany’s Historical Context

In Germany, “the social climate is extremely polarized,” describes Attila Mong, spokesperson for the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), with strong clashes both in the streets and online. However, in the media, this confrontation is not reflected.

Organizations such as Reporters Without Borders and CPJ speak of a “media opinion corridor,” where certain things can be said about the conflict but others cannot, as they would be considered antisemitic or hate speech. And here lies the key, explains Mong. “Other countries also have opinion corridors and different levels of free expression, but Germany’s strict hate speech laws and historical context make its situation unique.”

On the one hand, the German Penal Code (Strafgesetzbuch, StGB) criminalizes incitement to hatred (Volksverhetzung) and penalizes various forms of incitement against national, ethnic, or religious groups, or based on sexual orientation. It was this law’s application – or interpretation – that the judge relied on in the Reimann case, as do those who label pro-Palestinian statements as antisemitic.

On the other hand, context is essential. After World War II and the trauma for many Germans of discovering the full extent of the Holocaust, Germany, in ruins and excluded from the “club of civilized nations,” sought re-entry. Meanwhile, Israel, newly created in 1948, needed to rapidly build its state to absorb millions of immigrants. This is where the connection arises, says Jakob. “Germany obtained absolution from Israel in exchange for trains, factories, and industry – it was a survival pact for both states,” he explains.

This historical interdependence between the two states persists today and likely explains not only the current repression of the pro-Palestinian movement in Germany but also Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s refusal to recognize Palestine as a state.

In this repression, ELSC’s spokesperson insists, “even the media are active actors.” Most are publicly funded. They often justify themselves under the Staatsräson: a concept “from the feudal era” that refers to “actions an authority undertakes outside the law and morality to preserve itself,” explains Reimann. In Germany, this translates into “a state commitment to Israel’s security as part of its own national interest.”

“The Staatsräson prioritizes a racist ideology over the rule of law,” argues Wael Eskandarovich. Although repeatedly invoked in media and courts, “it has no legal basis,” clarifies Bonhoff. According to him, “it is merely a phrase from Merkel turned into an unconstitutional dogma,” because it allows authorities to act outside the law with total impunity.

Fear of Repeating History

For Jakob Reimann, his native country is becoming increasingly authoritarian. In German, the term autoritärer staatsumbau is used, meaning “authoritarian restructuring of the state.” According to him, this is “what we have been witnessing for ten or fifteen years.” An authoritarianism that, he says, “has accelerated excessively in the last two years.” Wael Eskandarovich agrees: “The future is dark: the far right is growing, and even the most progressive parties are adopting fascist rhetoric that clashes with democratic values, international law, and even the constitution,” he warns.

And so Germany, under the cover of a benevolent narrative and convinced in it is acting with pure intentions to avoid repeating history, ends up, precisely, repeating it. All this, making institutions and authorities harden against those who question them; shrinking civic space for Palestinians and their supporters; and creating increasingly treacherous ground for those reporting on the repression of Palestinian solidarity in the country.