German court finds DW’s decision to dismiss Palestinian journalist “invalid”

Berlin (QNN)- The Labor Court in Bonn has found that the German public state-owned international broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW) decision to dismiss a Palestinian journalist after accusing her of “anti-Semitism” and “anti-Israel” is “invalid and illegal.”

Maram Salem, the Palestinian journalist, said in a statement posted on her Facebook account on Thursday that the Labor Court in Bonn, a court of labor jurisdiction, has found the DW February’s decision to “dismiss me on the pretext of anti-Semitic publications is invalid and illegal and the court did not find anything anti-Semitic in my publications.

“I demand DW to take responsibility, publicly apologize and withdraw the allegations, and it should stop terminating the employment contracts of Palestinians because of their talk about Israeli human rights violations against Palestinians”.

“It was obvious from the beginning that I am innocent. However, they used me as a scapegoat and endangered my career and my mental health.”

What Happened?

On February 7, 2022, the German public state-owned broadcaster fired Salem who is a Palestinian journalist based in Germany, accusing her of “anti-Semitism” and “anti-Israel” over a Facebook post.

“I have just been informed that I was let go from my job at the Deutsche Welle, after a journalist from Germany had published a report accusing me and other colleagues of Anti-Semitism and being Anti-Israel based on posts, we published on our personal Facebook accounts,” Salem said in a statement that time.

Salem added, “In my case, my post had no expression explicit or implicit of Anti-Semitism and did not mention Israel at all.” “My post only spoke of the freedom of expression in Europe.”

The post, which Salem posted, is translated from Arabic as, “The freedom of expression in Europe is an illusion. Many red lines can be crossed if we spoke of it. The tricks we usually use (such as coding certain words) do not aim at hiding posts from Facebook, but at preventing automated translation from exposing what we say to some people here who are always looking to monitor us and stalk us in order to get us fired from our jobs or deported from the country.”

The Palestinian journalist said in her statemnet that she expresses her “concerns that the arbitrary measures taken against me were the result of internal work interest conflicts and some dishonest rumors of which I found myself placed in the middle of, and due to which I was scapegoated by Deutsche Welle to find a way out of its current crisis.”

“How is it at all possible that an international media company that supposedly calls for freedoms would expel an employee for criticizing freedom of expression in Europe?” Salem questioned.

The Palestinian journalist noted that even the investigation process was not objective as an Israeli person was hired on the external investigation committee.

In addition to that, the investigation questions were “racist, discriminatory, and placed me as a site of accusation just on the basis of my identity as a Palestinian,” Salem said.

“All of that took place without any regard to the historical particularity of the conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis and the power dynamics of the continuing conflict.”

In this case, Salem said, DW considered itself the only party to set the criteria for “the truth about the conflict”, and who is right within it, “ironically despite the whole Arab and international community not succeeding at solving the crisis between the two parties for over 70 years.”

At the internal investigation, Salem said it was asked a “surprising question” by the jury, that she would only expect to come from a “security apparatus working for a dictatorship.”

“How would you write that there are no freedoms while you work for Deutsche Welle?” the jury asked Salem.

Salem said that such a “question that is very similar to the security forces officers exclaiming: “How dare you speak of the lack of freedom in this country?””

The Palestinian journalist said that the investigation results at the DW has proven that “one’s mere identity as a Palestinian is sufficient to be accused of Anti-Semitism, and therefore I hereby hold Deutsche Welle responsible for my mental, psychological, and physiological health during the investigation process and the upcoming period and any consequences related to my professional future and career.”

Salem said she has come to Germany in order to “save my freedom which has always been my strongest weapon.”

“I have previously faced several attempts of oppression and several threats in my country, and I had always thought that working with an international media broadcaster who has always spoken of freedoms would be different.”

“Nevertheless, I was proven wrong; the media is not actually free, and a journalist would be persecuted publicly just for saying: “there is no freedom of expression.”

“Deutsche Welle has oppressed my freedom to express my opinion!” the Palestinian journalist wrote.

“What is happening now is a blatant attack on the freedom of expression, on journalists, and on me just for being a Palestinian.. Being Palestinian is not Anti-Semitic!”

Last December, the DW said that it was suspending four employees and one freelancer during an investigation into allegations that they expressed “anti-Israel and antisemitic views.”

That time, the DW decided to form a commission of inquiry, consisting of the former German Minister of Justice Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger and the Palestinian psychiatrist Ahmad Mansour.

The suspended journalists are DW’s office director in Beirut Basel Aridi, in addition to the journalists Dawood Ibrahim, Murhaf Mahmoud, Farah Maraqa, and Maram Salem, the Palestinian journalist.

German media sources said the charges against the journalists were related to posts that they shared on their personal accounts on social media in addition to old articles published on their personal blogs and Arabic newspapers. Some of the writings date back to 2000 and some were deleted.

The writings criticize the behavior of the occupation state of ‘Israel’ and its settlers’ violence.

Basel Aridi was suspended based on a tweet he had written in 2014. In his 7 years old now-removed tweet, Aridi had expressed his support for the prosecution of Lebanese citizens who admitted to cooperating with ‘Israel’ against Lebanese interests.

DW’s Bias

DW has long been criticized for its biased reporting on Israeli violations against Palestinians.

Last May, during Israel’s deadly aggression on the Gaza Strip, DW distributed an internal memo to its journalists, forbidding them to make, or let any guest make any connection between the state of ‘Israel’ and colonialism.

In the reporting guide sent to the staff, DW’s editorial board banned its reporters and editors from covering Israeli crimes of “apartheid” and persecution of Palestinians.

The two-page reporting guide, which was leaked and shared on social media, underlined that the Holocaust’s legacy and Germany’s special responsibility towards ‘Israel’ remain cornerstones of the country’s constitution and its foreign policy.

“As DW, we never question Israel’s right to exist as a state or allow people in our coverage to do so,” the broadcaster’s Editor-in-Chief Manuela Kasper-Claridge told the staff.

“We never refer to an Israeli ‘apartheid’ or an ‘apartheid regime’ in Israel. We also avoid referring to ‘colonialism’ or ‘colonialists’,” the document also noted.

“We respect freedom of speech and opinion and people’s right to criticize any of the sides involved. However, criticism of Israel becomes antisemitism when it attempts to tarnish, discredit and delegitimize the state of Israel or Jewish people and culture per se.”

In the same context, an Israeli flag was put up in front of the headquarters of Axel Springer, a Berlin-based agency, as there were pro-Palestinian demonstrations across Germany, chanting slogans in support of Palestine following the latest Israeli aggression on Gaza.

Following the incident, the CEO of Axel Springer told the company’s 16,000 employees to find another job if they have a problem with an Israeli flag being raised outside the company headquarters in Berlin.

Workers who complained about an Israeli flag being posted outside Europe’s largest digital publishing house should look for new jobs, Axel Springer CEO told the employees on June 17.

Germany’s Guilt is Used to Silence Palestinians

There are several cases highlighting the shrinking space for Palestine advocacy in Germany, where pro-Palestinian speech is dismissed and framed almost automatically as antisemitic.

Pro-Palestine censorship in Germany escalated following the passage of an anti-BDS resolution in the German parliament in 2019.

By categorizing the movement as antisemitic, the resolution effectively restricted all organizations that endorse BDS from accessing public funds and public space.

The silencing of Palestine advocates also goes beyond the BDS debate, as it is rooted in Germany’s long standing ideological support for ‘Israel’. It is partly in Germany’s efforts to atone for the Holocaust.

In 2017, Germany adopted the contoversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) Working Definition of Antisemitism. In 2020, Germany took over the chairmanship of IHRA.

The IHRA definition includes problematic examples of antisemitism that have been criticised by human rights groups as well as some liberal Zionist organisations. Some of the most controversial examples of antisemitism provided by the IHRA include banning anyone from “applying double standards by requiring of Israel a behaviour not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation”. Another example presented in the IHRA definition: “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, eg, by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.”

The definition is simply designed to silence criticism of ‘Israel’ and of Zionism by equating this criticism with antisemitism. The examples have also been used by Israel lobby groups to disrupt the activities of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement around the world by claiming that a boycott of Israel is anti-Semitic.

Last May, Berlin’s police banned several Nakba Day protests. When hundreds of activists took to the street despite the ban, they were faced with brutal attacks by the police, who detained scores of them. In one clip, shared by Human Rights Watch, an officer tells a woman she is being held because “she shouted ‘Free Palestine'”.

Most recently, the Goethe Institut, a German state-funded cultural association, disinvited in June prominent Palestinian writer and journalist Mohammed el-Kurd from speaking at its conference “Beyond the Lone Offender”, saying el-Kurd had made previous posts and comments on social media “about ‘Israel’ in a way the Goethe-Institut does not find acceptable.”

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