Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Citing post-Holocaust doctrine, Germany seeks to deport 4 pro-Palestinian protesters, including one American

One of the people who has been ordered to leave the country is a U.S. citizen.

(JTA) — Germany is moving to deport four foreign residents of Berlin over their alleged activity at pro-Palestinian protests, in a move that appears likely to test a foundational law enacted in the wake of the Holocaust.

Three of the residents are citizens of the European Union, which normally allows free movement between member states. Kasia Wlaszczyk is a citizen of Poland, and Shane O’Brien and Roberta Murray are citizens of Ireland.

The fourth, Cooper Longbottom, is a 27-year-old U.S. citizen from Seattle who faces a ban from all 29 European countries in the Schengen Zone for two years after leaving Germany.

German immigration authorities ordered this group’s expulsion based on separate allegations tied to pro-Palestinian demonstrations, including a sit-in at the Berlin central train station, a road blockade and the occupation of a building at the Free University, according to information obtained by the left-wing news organization The Intercept.

The deportation orders say that two of the protesters called a police officer “fascist” — insulting an officer is illegal in Germany — and three demonstrated with groups that chanted “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” a slogan the country outlawed last year as antisemitic. All of them are also accused of “indirectly” supporting Hamas and pro-Hamas organizations in Europe.

They have been given a deadline of April 21 to leave Germany or be forcibly deported.

None of them has been convicted of a crime. A conviction is not required for deportation under German law, but authorities are still expected to provide justifications proportional to the punishment.

As part of this reasoning, three of the deportation orders reference Germany’s “Staatsräson,” or “reason of state.” According to this doctrine, which weighs heavily on German politics, the history of the Holocaust makes it imperative for Germany to defend Israel as a justification for its own existence.

But Staatsräson is not typically used in legal settings. Lawyer Thomas Oberhäuser, who is not involved in the cases, told The Intercept that invoking the principle for deportation proceedings was “impermissible under constitutional law.”

Alexander Gorski, a lawyer who represents two of the people facing deportation, compared their cases to the arrests and deportation of pro-Palestinian activists in the United States, especially those tied to protests at universities.

“From a legal perspective, we were alarmed by the reasoning, which reminded us of the case of Mahmoud Khalil,” Gorski said to The Intercept. Khalil, a recent Columbia University graduate and pro-Palestinian activist who holds a green card, was arrested by ICE in March and is being held in a Louisiana detention facility.

The Forward is free to read, but it isn’t free to produce

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. We’ve started our Passover Fundraising Drive, and we need 1,800 readers like you to step up to support the Forward by April 21. Members of the Forward board are even matching the first 1,000 gifts, up to $70,000.

This is a great time to support independent Jewish journalism, because every dollar goes twice as far.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

2X match on all Passover gifts!

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines.
You must comply with the following:

  • Credit the Forward
  • Retain our pixel
  • Preserve our canonical link in Google search
  • Add a noindex tag in Google search

See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.