In the first week of January, I received a letter from the Berlin Immigration Office, informing me that I had lost my right of freedom of movement in Germany, due to allegations around my involvement in the pro-Palestine movement. Since I’m a Polish citizen living in Berlin, I knew that deporting an EU national from another EU country is practically impossible. I contacted a lawyer and, given the lack of substantial legal reasoning behind the order, we filed a lawsuit against it, after which I didn’t think much of it.
I later found out that three other people active in the Palestine movement in Berlin, Roberta Murray, Shane O’Brien and Cooper Longbottom, received the same letters. Murray and O’Brien are Irish nationals, Longbottom is American. We understood this as yet another intimidation tactic from the state, which has also violently suppressed protests and arrested activists, and expected a long and dreary but not at all urgent process of fighting our deportation orders.
Then, at the beginning of March, each of our lawyers received on our behalf another letter, declaring that we are to be given until 21 April to voluntarily leave the country or we will be forcibly removed. The letters cite charges arising from our involvement in protests against the ongoing genocide in Gaza. None of the charges have yet led to a court hearing, yet the deportation letters conclude that we are a threat to public order and national security.
By law they can be deported for severe enough infractions without going through the whole chain and several legal instances until finally convicted. We could discuss if that makes sense… but that’s not the point here.
The point is that they are accused of illegal occupation of university facilities (inclusing property damage), obstruction of arrests, insulting police officers as fascists, chanting “From the river to the sea”-slogans (illegal in Germany)… all well documented.
And yet they don’t even try to argue about the law or the circumstances. They just straight out lie telling everyone that they did nothing and are deported because they are pro-Palestine. Seriously I’m impressed that none of those “reports” has started to talk about “thought crimes” and similiar bullshit yet just to divert from what they actually did.
You can be deported, even as a EU citizen, for being a threat to public safety. That can be as low bar as being homeless without a job, “go back home, apply for welfare there”. Neither being homeless nor unemployed is a crime but member states don’t want foreign citizens homeless and unemployed on their streets, nor pick up the bill, so they deport you.
There’s still charges of sorts but they’re not criminal, they’re administrative. You can still appeal to courts but it’s going to be administrative, not criminal, proceedings.
I’d say it’s a bit iffy to go the administrative route when criminal charges are already up in the air, and act on the administrative charges before the criminal ones are though but ultimately I think the courts will have an eye on that. Criminal proceedings take a long time because they’re quite detailed when it comes to establishing the degree of guilt which influences degree of punishment and stuff, all this is irrelevant here the administration just has to show that the verdict will be guilty, not get into the weeds of “a bit guilty” or “really guilty”. Also, that the crime actually concerns public safety they’d have a hard time arguing that for, say, fare evasion.
Hiding behind the law in answer to a moral question is utter cowardice. Just answer the damn question: “Yes, I do believe suspicion should be enough to get you deported.”
I sure hope you are never suspected of anything that would result in a similiar treatment.
Reducing EU citizens with the priviledge of studying in Germany for free and involved in well documented illegal behavior to “simple suspicion should be enough to deport anyone” is a perfect example of reductio ad absurdum.
Also I did in no way hide behind the law but talked about the fact that we SHOULD discuss the actual laws, while those people instead chose to just lie and spread a narrative.
And so I will simply ignore you, as you obviously have no interest in arguing in good faith.
It’s not well documented until it’s proven in court…
Wait so them being on video committing the offence, for example, wouldn’t be “well documented” to you?
If it was well documented, then there would be no reason not to have things taken to court.
Also risk of reoffending would be a valid reason for keeping them in jail on remand, so there is also no argument to be made for public safety.
The fact that they are walking free shows that the German judiciary does not consider them to be a danger to the public. Which is the entire reason why instead they are threatened with deportation as a replacement punishment while proper court proceedings do not grant the result wished by the government.
This kind of proceeding also isn’t new in Germany in its principle. There is a long history of people who were found with small amounts of cannabis, insufficient for a criminal charge, that then had their driving license revoked and faced other repressions by the executive branch, because the executive branch wanted to punish people for whom there is no evidence for a criminal conviction by a court of law.
These proceedings are fundamentally designed to undermine the rule of law and the principle of division of power.
Or they don’t want to waste money on a legal case and they is why they gave them the option to voluntarily leave. If they don’t they get arrested go to court possibly get a criminal record.
You say “suspicion” like they weren’t literally caught in the act. They did it, it’s just a matter of if they’ll charge them. There’s no “suspicion”.
I was using the words of the oc commenter
Then we should wait not only until they are charged but until they are convicted. Unless you don’t believe in innocent until proven guilty.
Whatever their law says they can do then they can do. If that says they can be deported while under investigation like someone has said then that’s what they can do.
I believe in innocent until proven guilty, and when you’re arrested in the act and there’s no doubt whatsoever then that’s proven guilty already.
The question was what the oc commenter thought should happen, not what the law says.
But then again, I shouldn’t expect reading comprehension from someone that says
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