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German Students Convicted of Antisemitism Could Face Expulsion from Universities, Education Minister Says
Students at Berlin’s UdK University display palms stained with red to symbolize blood during a Nov. 13 pro-Hamas protest. Photo: Screenshot
German students who engage in antisemitic agitation could face expulsion from their universities, the country’s education minister said on Thursday as she addressed concerns voiced by the Jewish student union.
“What before Oct. 7 was perhaps only thought and not lived is now very public – also in the universities,” Federal Education Minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger told the Augsburger Allgemeine news outlet, referring to the Hamas pogrom in southern Israel in which more than 1,200 people were murdered and over 200 kidnapped, triggering a heavy Israeli military response.
Germany’s Jewish student union, the JSUD, has pointed to a handful of high profile incidents that underline the growing insecurity faced by Jewish students. Earlier this month, police were forced to clear a lecture hall at the Free University of Berlin occupied by pro-Hamas activists, while at the end of November, dozens of students at the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK) staged a protest that involved them sitting around a table with their palms facing outwards painted in red ink to symbolize blood. While the gesture was apparently intended to condemn the German government’s support for Israel’s defensive military operation, several observers noted a striking similarity with the notorious lynching of two IDF reservists, Vadim Nurzhitz and Yosef Avrahami, in the West Bank city of Ramallah in Oct. 2000, when one of their killers appeared at the window of the police station delightedly displaying his blood-stained palms to the appreciative crowd gathered outside following the murder of the two Israelis.
In a Dec. 15 interview with the NZZ news outlet, Hanna Veiler, the JSUD’s president, warned that there had been “a veritable explosion of antisemitic ideas” in the weeks since the Hamas atrocities. She criticized the management of the universities for “reacting far too slowly.” Students convicted of antisemitism should be deregistered, she asserted, along with a ban on “antisemitic, anti-democratic and extremist” groups.
In her interview on Thursday, Stark-Watzinger seemingly expressed agreement with these demands, saying that universities should not shy away from deregistering those students involved in “particularly difficult cases.” She argued that while universities should be centers of open debate, antisemitism could not be considered as a legitimate opinion but as an “expression of hatred and conspiracy theories.”
Nearly 5,000 antisemitic incidents have been reported in Germany since the Hamas atrocities, while earlier this month, German police arrested four men allegedly dispatched by Hamas to carry out terrorist attacks on Jewish targets in Europe.
The post German Students Convicted of Antisemitism Could Face Expulsion from Universities, Education Minister Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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‘With or Without Russia’s Help’: Iran Pledges to Block South Caucasus Route Opened Up By Peace Deal
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 8, 2025. Photo: Kevin Lamarque via Reuters Connect.
i24 News – Iran will block the establishment of a US-backed transit corridor in the South Caucasus region with or without Moscow’s help, a senior adviser to Iran’s supreme leader was quoted as saying on Saturday by the Iran International website, one day after the historic peace agreement between Azerbaijan and Armenia.
“Mr. Trump thinks the Caucasus is a piece of real estate he can lease for 99 years,” Ali Akbar Velayati said of the so-called Zangezur corridor, the establishment of which is stipulated in the peace deal unveiled on Friday by US President Donald Trump. The White House said the transit route would facilitate greater exports of energy and other resources.
“This passage will not become a gateway for Trump’s mercenaries — it will become their graveyard,” the Khamenei advisor added.
Baku and Yerevan have been at loggerheads since the late 1980s when Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous Azerbaijani region mostly populated by ethnic Armenians, broke away from Azerbaijan with support from Armenia. Azerbaijan took back full control of the region in 2023, prompting or forcing almost all of the territory’s 100,000 ethnic Armenians to flee to Armenia.
Yet that painful history was put to the side on Friday at the White House, as Trump oversaw a signing ceremony, flanked by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.
The peace deal with Azerbaijan—a pro-Western ally of Israel—is expected to pull Armenia out of the Russian and Iranian sphere of influence and could transform the South Caucasus, an energy-producing region neighboring Russia, Europe, Turkey and Iran.
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UK Police Arrest 150 at Protest for Banned Palestine Action Group
People holding signs sit during a rally organised by Defend Our Juries, challenging the British government’s proscription of “Palestine Action” under anti-terrorism laws, in Parliament Square, in London, Britain, August 9, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Jaimi Joy
London’s Metropolitan Police said on Saturday it had arrested 150 people at a protest against Britain’s decision to ban the group Palestine Action, adding it was making further arrests.
Officers made arrests after crowds, waving placards expressing support for the group, gathered in Parliament Square, the force said on X.
Protesters, some wearing black and white Palestinian scarves, chanted “shame on you” and “hands off Gaza,” and held signs such as “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action,” video taken by Reuters at the scene showed.
In July, British lawmakers banned Palestine Action under anti-terrorism legislation after some of its members broke into a Royal Air Force base and damaged planes in protest against Britain’s support for Israel.
The ban makes it a crime to be a member of the group, carrying a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison.
The co-founder of Palestine Action, Huda Ammori, last week won a bid to bring a legal challenge against the ban.
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‘No Leniency’: Iran Announces Arrest of 20 ‘Zionist Agents’
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi addresses a special session of the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, June 20, 2025. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
i24 News – Iranian authorities have in recent months arrested 20 people charged with being “Israeli Mossad operatives,” the judiciary said, adding that the Islamic regime will mete out the harshest punishments.
“The judiciary will show no leniency toward spies and agents of the Zionist regime, and with firm rulings, will make an example of them all,” spokesperson Asghar Jahangiri told Iranian media. However, it is understood that an unspecified number of detainees were released, apparently after the charges against them could not be substantiated.
The Islamic Republic was left reeling by a devastating 12-day war with Israel earlier in the summer that left a significant proportion of its military arsenal in ruins and dealt a serious setback to its uranium enrichment program. The fallout included an uptick in executions of Iranians convicted of spying for Israel, with at least eight death sentences carried out in recent months. Hit with international sanctions, the country is in dire economic straights, with frequent energy outages and skyrocketing unemployment.
In recent weeks Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi affirmed that Tehran cannot give up on its nuclear enrichment program even as it was severely damaged during the war.
“It is stopped because, yes, damages are serious and severe. But obviously we cannot give up of enrichment because it is an achievement of our own scientists. And now, more than that, it is a question of national pride,” the official told Fox News.