A German court ruled Monday that pro-Palestinian demonstrators are legally permitted to question Israel’s right to exist, overturning a police ban.
The Higher Administrative Court in Münster said Düsseldorf police should not have prohibited the organizers of a protest last weekend from rejecting Israel's right to exist during the gathering.
Denying Israel's right to exist is not in itself a criminal offense, the court said. Critical discussion of the founding of Israel and the demand for peaceful change to the existing situation in the Middle East are fundamentally protected by freedom of expression, it added.
The judges also took issue with a ban on the use of three slogans that police had insisted could only be read out once at the beginning of the protest.
According to the court, the slogan "There is only one state - Palestine 48" should not have been banned because it lacks any concrete connection to the Palestinian resistance group Hamas, which is prohibited in Germany.
