Irish activist in Berlin welcomes decision to pause his removal over Palestine protests

Berlin-based Irish activist Shane O’Brien has welcomed an emergency injunction pausing his looming expulsion from Germany.

Last month Mr O’Brien was served with an order to leave by April 21st, claiming he was a public security risk over his behaviour and utterances at pro-Palestinian demonstrations in the German capital.

An emergency ruling by Berlin’s state administrative court in his favour means the 29 year-old can remain until a full hearing into his case. Mr O’Brien told The Irish Times this would allow him “refocus my energy into directly organising and resisting against the genocide”.

Alexander Gorski, a lawyer working across this and other deportation cases, called the injunction a “slap in the face” for Berlin’s state government. He expressed confidence similar rulings would come soon to pause the immediate expulsion orders against Bert Murray, another Irish citizen, and Polish citizen Kasia Wlaszczyk.

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Mr Gorski said the emergency injunction came “as little surprise” given high legal hurdles that exist for an EU member state to restrict the freedom of movement of another member state’s citizens.

He argued that Berlin’s state government was “bending the law” to “make an example” of non-German pro-Palestine protesters, but that courts had proven “able to halt this executive action”.

On March 3rd Berlin’s state migration authority issued Mr O’Brien with a notice to leave Germany by April 21st, calling him a risk to public order on foot of charges brought against him during and on the fringes of a pro-Palestinian event in Berlin. It argued that a conviction was not necessary for the order under German public order law, a point confirmed by the administrative court.

However the court ruled in favour of O’Brien, saying the authority had failed to “fulfil sufficiently its official duty of investigation” when deciding to withdraw his EU freedom of movement rights. It singled out as problematic its arguments against Mr O’Brien relating to a demonstration and attempted occupation of a building at Berlin’s Free University (FU) last October.

Criminal charges have been filed against 20 people but the court said the authority did not have enough documents at its disposal to make a decision on the extent of Mr O’Brien’s involvement in the incident.

Berlin’s state ministry for the interior, which oversees the state migration authority, said it would not appeal the emergency ruling but would seek additional prosecutors’ files on the FU incident “as soon as this is possible without endangering the investigation”.

The court also challenged the authority’s grounds for expulsion citing the slogan “from the river to the sea” as an illegal show of support for Hamas, classified by Germany as a terrorist organisation. Citing several contradictory rulings, the court said “the question of whether and when the use of this slogan is punishable under the German criminal code ... raises considerable legal difficulties”.

The case of Mr O’Brien, Bert Murray and two others has drawn attention of politicians both in Berlin state politics and at federal level.

For Ferat Kocak, a Berlin MP for the opposition Left Party in the Bundestag, the cases against Mr O’Brien are attacks on fundamental rights, including freedom of expression and assembly and EU right of residence.

“These cases are about suppressing legitimate protest, shoving disagreeable opinions out of the public space,” he said.

The Berlin Green Party’s interior spokesman Vasili Franco said: “This only reinforces the impression that they want to force deportations on a flimsy basis motivated solely by political motives.”

Berlin’s expulsion cases have attracted support of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) at federal level.

“The state of Berlin is right in taking decisive action as the allegations against those affected are serious,” said Daniela Ludwig, CDU/CSU parliamentary group spokeswoman for Jewish life in Germany and for relations with the state of Israel.