Germany: Reaction All Along the Line – Restricted Civil Liberties

We hereby share an unofficial translation of an article published by Dem Volke Dienen.

The State of German financial capital is becoming increasingly reactionary. The organization “Civicus” has downgraded Germany once again in its latest global annual report on civil liberties, from “impaired” to “restricted”.

The reason for this is particularly the enormous State repression against the Palestine solidarity. According to the report, the Berlin police alone have filed almost 9,000 criminal charges in this context.

Various organizations faced funding cuts, raids, and surveillance when they expressed criticism of the Israeli genocide in Gaza.

The so-called “Civicus Monitor” assesses the state of civil liberties – including freedom of expression, freedom of association, and freedom of assembly. Civicus uses five categories: open, impaired, restricted, suppressed, or closed.

In 2023, Germany was downgraded from “open” to “impaired.” Now it has deteriorated further. According to Civicus, the decline in the civil society environment in Germany has occurred at an alarming pace. Germany is now on par with Hungary, Brazil, and South Africa.

Germany is at the forefront of the attempt to silence those who speak out against the genocide. The German response relies on nationwide intimidation and restrictions on freedom of expression, as well as excessive police violence at demonstrations against the war in Gaza – kettling, pepper spray, beatings, and chokeholds. The demonstrations are allegedly subjected to excessive regulation, and any perceived violation leads to violent police intervention.

In January 2025, for example, a demonstration was violently dispersed after people spoke Arabic, violating a regulation prohibiting it. Two events with UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese in Berlin were moved to another location due to political pressure and were accompanied by a massive police presence.

Antifascist protests, especially those of young people, also face similar suppression in Germany.

Lenin already explained this in 1917, which should be recalled here:

“Since the specific political features of imperialism are reaction everywhere and increased national oppression due to the oppression of the financial oligarchy and the elimination of free competition, a petty-bourgeois-democratic opposition to imperialism arose at the beginning of the twentieth century in nearly all imperialist countries. Kautsky not only did not trouble to oppose, was not only unable to oppose this petty-bourgeois reformist opposition, which is really reactionary in its economic basis, but became merged with it in practice, and this is precisely where Kautsky and the broad international Kautskian trend deserted Marxism.”