A German university has lodged a criminal complaint against several BDS activists who violently disrupted an event featuring speeches by an Israeli lawmaker and a Holocaust survivor in June, the Jerusalem Post reported.
Humboldt University in Berlin filed the complaint against BDS activists Ronnie Barkan, Majed Abusalama and Stavit Sinai for trespassing when they entered the event, featuring MK Aliza Lavie, and engaged in what the Post described as "alleged anti-Semitic...verbal tirades.”
There is already an ongoing police investigation due to a complaint by the German-Israel Friendship Society that one of the activists “swung [her fists] wildly around her and attendees” as she was escorted out of the event and “continuously attempted to reenter the lecture hall and pounded on the door.”
In an online post, the three activists wrote that they had "engaged an act of political protest, which was directed at an official Israeli state representative, MK Aliza Lavie (Yesh Atid political party). The aim of action was twofold: first, to protest Lavie’s ‘Hasbara’ event, which was hosted by Humboldt University, and second, to raise public awareness to Israel’s criminal responsibility in perpetuating an apartheid regime.”
In another post on the BDS website, Barkan wrote that people should “pray for the Germans who desperately need a non-Zionist media outlet.”
After receiving a letter from the university’s president apologizing and noting that criminal charges had been filed, Lavie responded that she was "sure that the University is doing all that it can to prevent such events that attack freedom of speech and intellectual debate. I look forward to cooperation and hope that academic institutions everywhere will continue to uphold the principles of fair and dignified discussion. Falling to prey to rabble-rousing tactics does not uphold the principles of academia and brings ill repute on our educational systems worldwide.”
