Nael Ibrahim: On 16 May – Nakba Day – I was riding a train from Heidelberg back to Berlin when friends sent me photos of two people I knew being strip-searched by police, just off Hermannplatz, Neukölln. A video followed. "They took my ID without permission," one woman screams in the footage, as officers pin her to the wall. "I am living here legally." I began frantically searching Twitter and checking in with friends. It was only later that I learned that the video showed two of 170 arrests made by the 1,000 police officers deployed in Berlin that day, with prominent Palestinian activists Majed Abusalama and Ramsy Kilani among those detained. The police claimed the arrestees were breaching the ban on pro-Palestinian protests put in place for Nakba Day, despite the fact that no organised demonstrations had taken place (even requests to hold a vigil for Shireen Abu Akleh, the American-Palestinian journalist murdered by Israeli forces that week, were denied). It appears that the only crime committed by activists was to stand on Hermannplatz while wearing their keffiyehs. Just another day in the German capital, home to the largest Palestinian population in Europe. |