German parliament requests Berlin Court to dismiss BT3P’s legal action against anti-BDS resolution
In May 2020, the Palestinian-Jewish-German initiative Bundestag 3 for Palestine (BT3P) sued the German parliament (Bundestag) for its anti-BDS resolution passed on May 17, 2019. The responsible court in this matter is the Berlin Administrative Court (Berliner Verwaltungsgericht, 2. Kammer, case number: VG 2 K 79/20). The goal of the BT3P is to have the resolution nullified by the court.
The BT3P support the Palestinian-led BDS campaign and argue that the resolution of the Bundestag exclude them from public venues and diffames them as "antisemitic". The initiative sees their democratic basic rights for human rights work infringed by the resolution. Besides that, the resolution undermines international law and is anti-Palestinian in nature.
The Bundestag hired the international law firm Redeker Sellner Dahs to represent them in court. On April 16, 2021, the law firm requested the Berlin Administrative Court in Berlin to dismiss the BT3P’s lawsuit. The BT3P’s lawyer, Ahmed Abed, will submit the response to the court in the coming weeks. After that, the court will make a decision on the initiation of a court hearing.
Statement of the BT3P plaintiffs (Judith Bernstein, Amir Ali, Christoph Glanz)
"Our legal claim submitted to the court contained 19 cases of discrimination against BDS activists and supporters of the Palestinian cause triggered by the Bundestag resolution. The authority of the Bundestag turns the "non-binding resolution" de facto into a law - a law which diffames human rights work for Palestinians as antisemitic and thereby ousts us from any public venue or space. This situation is continuing, even after we have appealed to the court. The mayor of Frankfurt and head of the German Israeli Society (DIG), Uwe Becker, for example, tried to have our December 2020 event banned while explicitly referring to the Bundestag resolution as a legal basis.
We cannot accept that democratic basic rights of us and other supporters of the Palestinian cause are being infringed upon again and again and that we are prohibited from speaking out in public against Israeli apartheid policies and in favour of Palestinian human rights. Calling things by their name is essential for a positive change in Palestine/ Israel -just like the Israeli human rights organisation B’tselem and the international NGO Human Rights Watch have done when referring to Israel as an apartheid regime. Distributing relevant information and being active against these conditions must be self-explanatory in a democratic society."
Ahemd Abed, lawyer of the BT3P:
"One year after the BT3P handed in their comprehensive lawsuit, the Bundestag answers with a 63 pages replica issued by the international law firm Redeker Sellner Dahs. The Bundestag claims that the resolution had no legal effect whatsoever and that the BT3P’s rights have not been infringed upon. De facto though, my clients and many other individuals and groups have had their public events cancelled and have partially even been physically attacked and slandered as antisemitic. This way, my clients’ human rights activism is made impossible. I am confident that the Berlin Administrative Court will rule in favour of my clients as the infringement on the freedom of speech of the BT3P is incompatible with the German constitution and the European Charter of Human Rights."
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