Media outlets reported that Berlin’s police carried out several raids targeting the headquarters of a left-wing feminist group for allegedly supporting an armed Palestinian organization, one week after an administrative court refused to fund a cultural center after it was accused of anti-Semitism.
The Deutsche Welle website said that the police searched six apartments and two other rooms belonging to members of the Zora group on December 20, according to what a police spokesman said.
“Zora” describes itself on a website as “an anti-capitalist, internationalist, and anti-fascist organization for young women.”
News reports indicated that the group’s members strongly support the left-wing Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, which the European Union and the United States classify as a terrorist organization.
According to a report in the Berliner Zeitung – BZ newspaper, 170 police officers were deployed in Berlin to carry out the raids. Members of the feminist group are accused of using the slogans of “unconstitutional and terrorist organizations.”
On November 2, Germany banned activities linked to the Hamas movement, which it classifies as terrorist, on its territory, especially those carried out by the Samidoun organization, a network that says it supports Palestinian prisoners.
Last week, the Berlin Administrative Court rejected the request of the leftist Oyoun Cultural Center for continued government funding for its activities during the next year.
The court pointed out that the Ministry of Culture’s decision to stop funding the center has nothing to do with accusing the center of anti-Semitism and hosting events calling for a boycott of Israel.
The leftist cultural center “Oyoun” had succeeded in raising 72 thousand euros from donors defending freedom of art in Germany to begin a legal battle against the municipality of Berlin, after the Senate’s controversial decision to stop funding the center under the pretext of practicing “anti-Semitic” activities.
In a message on Instagram, the center’s management described this step as more than just a closure, but rather setting a precedent that frightens all state-funded institutions, stressing that its repercussions will affect “the essence of freedom of art and expression.”
Decisions to cancel pro-Palestinian events on charges of “anti-Semitism and hatred of Israel” have become almost daily news in Germany since the beginning of the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip, after a surprise attack by Hamas on the seventh of last October, especially since Berlin considers Israel’s security and support a national “reason of state.”
