Pro-Palestinian activists sue Germany before the Federal Administrative Court
The lawsuit filed by the “Bundestags3 für Palästina” BT3P is entering a new instance. On March 26, 2025 at 10:00 a.m., the lawsuit, which is directed against the Federal Republic of Germany, will be heard at the Federal Administrative Court in Leipzig.
An alliance of Handala Leipzig, Trade Unionists for Gaza, BDS Berlin and Palestine Speaks has called for a solidarity demonstration on the preceding Saturday, March 22, 2025 at 2pm. Speakers include a representative of Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in the Middle East, the politician Melanie Schweitzer (Mera25) and Amir Ali as plaintiff of BT3P.
The BT3P lawsuit is based on the anti-BDS resolution passed by the German Bundestag in 2019. The plaintiffs Judith Bernstein, Amir Ali and Christoph Glanz support the BDS campaign and are aiming to have the resolution legally annulled with their lawsuit.
The Bundestag resolution portrays the campaign for Palestinian human rights as “anti-Semitic” and calls, among other things, for BDS activists and their events to be excluded from public institutions. This has happened hundreds of times since then. The BT3P argue that the resolution represents a serious encroachment on the fundamental democratic rights (Article 1 (1) of the Basic Law, Article 5 (1) of the Basic Law, Article 8 (1) of the Basic Law and Article 9 (1) of the Basic Law) of pro-Palestinian activists.
Artwork: Mafish & Sozi36. The use of the artwork does not constitute an endorsement of the BDS movement.
The BT3P comment:
“We see our lawsuit as an attack on the inhumane German reason of state. In the name of this shadow constitution, the Israeli state and its crimes are protected in terms of foreign policy and fundamental rights are torpedoed internally.
Two developments contribute to the fact that our complaint is more necessary today than ever: firstly, the genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza and the ongoing ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian territories in the West Bank. We refuse to watch in silence as the German state once again becomes an enabler and supporter of genocide. Not in our name!
In terms of domestic policy, the Bundestag has passed further resolutions with a similar thrust since 2019, which severely restrict fundamental rights. The legal vagueness of the resolutions is systematic - the aim is to silence internationalist and left-wing voices. Our lawsuit makes an important contribution to putting a stop to this.
We assume that the Federal Administrative Court will make a conservative decision and reject our complaint. We also assume that it will only be in the next instance, the Federal Constitutional Court, that concrete negotiations on political content will take place. We will continue on this path together and take the case all the way to the European Court of Human Rights, if needed.”
Press requests to: press@bt3p.org