Statement from students of the Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin (dffb)

We, a group of students of DFFB, stand with the Palestinian people in their struggle for freedom and demand Germany to stop its unconditional support for the Israeli government. We cannot stay silent about the ongoing genocide and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians within Gaza and the occupied West Bank.We mourn all loss of innocent lives, both Palestinian and Israeli. Yet this loss of life can not and should not be used to justify more loss and suffering.The ongoing bombing of Gaza and the killing and forced displacement of its residents has been condemned by Amnesty International, the UN, World Health Organization, and Action Aid. These, among other global bodies, have indicated that the collective punishment of Gaza civilians amounts to a war crime. We demand an immediate end of the siege of Gaza and state-sponsored violence against Palestinians in the West Bank. In writing this statement, we condemn the disturbing crackdown on freedom of speech and expression unfolding across Germany. The German state not only holds the position of suppressing any criticism towards the state of Israel in the name of its history, but also actively pressures cultural institutions, universities and schools to censor critical voices. Police violence and the one-sided coverage of the public media seen in the last weeks has shown the necessity to reflect upon the dominant narrative. Led by Western governments and media outlets, this narrative dismisses the decades-long oppression of Palestinian lives under a settler-colonialist occupation and apartheid and actively fuels racism against the Arab, Muslim and Migrant communities. We are extremely concerned about the brutal suppression of freedom of speech and people’s right to assembly and find the banning of demonstrations in solidarity with the Palestinian people unacceptable. We have witnessed officially registered protests, including those organized by Jewish activists, being prohibited minutes before they began and later met with police brutality. We are against all and any forms of antisemitism and racism. Considering that the majority of antisemitic crimes in Germany are committed by right-wing nationalists, we find the reasoning used by the German government to ban these demonstrations insincere. Concerns of antisemitic hatred should not be instrumentalized to silence voices that call out war crimes against the Palestinian people. People must not be denied spaces to come together in solidarity and grief. We believe in the right for demonstrations demanding the end of the occupation and apartheid. The unnecessarily heavy police presence in migrant-majority neighborhoods in Berlin is creating a climate of fear within already targeted communities. We are outraged by the detainment of people - especially of minors - and the disruption of people’s businesses and daily lives. The demonization of the immigrant community will lead to increasing xenophobia and islamophobia within German society and feed into the increasing support for right-wing policy making — consequently affecting all of us, including our Jewish community. As filmmakers, it is our responsibility to think critically about our role in producing images and constructing narratives, defending the freedom of expression in our cultural organizations and community. We stand in solidarity with our friends who have lost work due to the existing systematic silencing. We urge other students, filmmakers, actors, artists, writers and cultural workers to join us in demanding:

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