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Germany Orders Deportation of Four Hamas Sympathizers Over Anti-Israel Agitation
Anti-Israel protesters march in Germany, March 26, 2025. Photo: Sebastian Willnow/dpa via Reuters Connect
German authorities have issued deportation orders for three EU citizens and one US citizen living in Berlin over their participation in raucous anti-Israel protests, stating that they “pose a threat to public order,” according to local media.
The German State Office for Immigration has issued “residence termination notices” against two Irish citizens, a Polish citizen, and an American citizen for their participation in pro-Hamas demonstrations, including a sit-in at Berlin’s central train station, a road blockade, and the occupation of a building at the Free University of Berlin (FU), the German newspaper BILD reported.
The four deportees, identified as Hamas sympathizers, have until April 21 to leave Germany or risk being forcibly removed.
According to the deportation notice, they “pose a threat to public order” and “indirectly supported” terrorist groups like Hamas.
An appeal against the decision has been filed with the Supreme Court, according to a spokesperson for the German Senate Department for the Interior.
Last year, 40 individuals led an anti-Israel protest at FU, attempting to break into university buildings. Although the attempt to occupy the building was brief, as police quickly arrived and dispersed the group, the protesters were able to destroy furniture, computers, and other university property, while also spraying pro-Hamas slogans on the staircases and facade of the president’s office.
“According to the FU, the employees who were in the building were physically and psychologically threatened by those who had entered,” Berlin State Secretary for Higher Education and Research, Henry Marx, said in a statement at the time.
“The occupiers attempted to forcibly remove the employees from their offices,” Marx said. “The attackers were also masked and armed with axes, saws, crowbars, and clubs.”
One of the deportees, 29-year-old Irish citizen Shane O’Brien, an organizer of anti-Israel protests in Berlin, has several outstanding charges against him.
He was previously charged with insulting a police officer after allegedly calling him a “fascist,” but he was acquitted. The deportation order against him also highlights his expression of antisemitic views.
Roberta Murray, a 31-year-old Irish citizen, was another of the four deportees. She has been accused of using “banned slogans,” including “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” which German authorities prohibited last year for promoting the ethnic cleansing of Jews.
According to BILD, the criminal investigations into the four foreigners are still underway. Murray and O’Brien have both denied the allegations made against them.
While legal representatives and experts have expressed concerns that the deportation orders violate civil liberties for EU citizens in Germany, as neither individual has been convicted of a criminal offense, German law does not require a conviction for deportation.
Germany has experienced a sharp spike in antisemitism amid the war in Gaza. In just the first six months of 2024 alone, the number of antisemitic incidents in Berlin, for example, surpassed the total for all of the prior year and reached the highest annual count on record, according to Germany’s Federal Association of Departments for Research and Information on Antisemitism (RIAS).
The figures compiled by RIAS were the highest count for a single year since the federally funded body began monitoring antisemitic incidents in 2015, showing the German capital averaged nearly eight anti-Jewish outrages a day from January to June last year.
According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), police registered 5,154 antisemitic incidents in Germany in 2023, a 95 percent increase compared to the previous year.
The post Germany Orders Deportation of Four Hamas Sympathizers Over Anti-Israel Agitation first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Iran’s Supreme Leader Says Trump Is Lying When He Speaks of Peace
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks during a meeting with government officials in Tehran, Iran, April 15, 2025. Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)/Handout via REUTERS/File Photo
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei accused Donald Trump on Saturday of lying when the US president said during his Gulf tour this week that he wanted peace in the region.
On the contrary, said Khamenei, the United States uses its power to give “10-ton bombs to the Zionist (Israeli) regime to drop on the heads of Gaza’s children.”
Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One after departing the United Arab Emirates on Friday that Iran had to move quickly on a US proposal for its nuclear program or “something bad’s going to happen.”
His remarks, said Khamenei, “aren’t even worth responding to.” They are an “embarrassment to the speaker and the American people,” Khamenei added.
“Undoubtedly, the source of corruption, war, and conflict in this region is the Zionist regime — a dangerous, deadly cancerous tumor that must be uprooted; it will be uprooted,” he said at an event at a religious center in Tehran, according to state media.
Earlier on Saturday, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said Trump speaks about peace while simultaneously making threats.
“Which should we believe?” Pezeshkian said at a naval event in Tehran. “On the one hand, he speaks of peace and on the other, he threatens with the most advanced tools of mass killing.”
Tehran would continue Iran-US nuclear talks but is not afraid of threats. “We are not seeking war,” Pezeshkian said.
While Trump said on Friday that Iran had a US proposal about its nuclear program, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi in a post on X said Tehran had not received any such proposal. “There is no scenario in which Iran abandons its hard-earned right to (uranium) enrichment for peaceful purposes…” he said.
Araqchi warned on Saturday that Washington’s constant change of stance prolongs nuclear talks, state TV reported.
“It is absolutely unacceptable that America repeatedly defines a new framework for negotiations that prolongs the process,” the broadcast quoted Araqchi as saying.
Pezeshkian said Iran would not “back down from our legitimate rights”.
“Because we refuse to bow to bullying, they say we are source of instability in the region,” he said.
A fourth round of Iran-U.S. talks ended in Oman last Sunday. A new round has not been scheduled yet.
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Hamas Confirms New Gaza Ceasefire Talks with Israel in Qatar on Saturday
Doha, Qatar. Photo: StellarD via Wikimedia Commons.
A new round of Gaza ceasefire negotiations between Hamas and Israel is underway in Qatar’s Doha, Hamas official Taher al-Nono told Reuters on Saturday.
He said the two sides were discussing all issues without “pre-conditions.”
Nono said Hamas was “keen to exert all the effort needed” to help mediators make the negotiations a success, adding there was “no certain offer on the table.”
The negotiations come despite Israel preparing to expand operations in the Gaza Strip as they seek “operational control” in some areas of the war-torn enclave.
The return to negotiations also comes after US President Donald Trump ended a Middle East tour on Friday with no apparent progress towards a new ceasefire, although he acknowledged Gaza’s growing hunger crisis and the need for aid deliveries.
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Report: ICC’s Khan Goes on Administrative Leave Amid Sexual Misconduct Probe
International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan speaks during an interview with Reuters in The Hague, Netherlands, Feb. 12, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Piroschka van de Wouw
i24 News – Chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court Karim Khan has stepped down temporarily as an investigation into his alleged sexual misconduct by United Nations investigators is nearing its final phase, Reuters reported on Friday citing sources from the international court.
Khan allegedly forced sexual intercourse upon a member of staff on multiple occasions, the Wall Street Journal reported last week, linking the allegations to Khan’s decision to issue arrest warrants for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then-defense minister Yoav Gallant.
A statement is expected later today announcing that Khan is going on administrative leave, according to a source in the prosecutor’s office.
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