Berlin Police Brutalise Women at Anti-Violence Demonstration

A peaceful Berlin demonstration called on Monday to mark the international day for the elimination of violence against women ended in city police violence choking, pepper-spraying and kettling the crowd, shoving a clearly marked woman journalist and choking a demonstration organiser.

One demonstrator told Novara Media he was beaten unconscious, while another was reportedly refused medical attention by the police, though they deny this.

The protesters gathered in Kreuzberg – a district with a large ethnic minority, particularly Arab population – on Monday evening to march and hear speeches commemorating the international day for the elimination of violence against women.

The demonstration had an explicitly intersectional bent: its organisers, the Alliance of International Feminists, is a loose coalition of feminist groups linked to pro-Palestine campaigning. “We stand tall with our siblings and the resistance across historic Palestine,” the organisers wrote in an Instagram post advertising the demonstration.

Some demonstrators anticipated that this might attract the police’s attention, as German police have for years – though with particular intensity following 7 October – cracked down on pro-Palestine protests. Shortly after the protesters began to gather, dozens of police vans began arriving, and multiple demonstrators told Novara that there was tension from the start. A video seen by Novara Media shows a demonstrator being violently choked. Novara Media’s reporter saw the police kettling protesters, using pepper spray and pushing demonstrators and a woman journalist. Another photojournalist told Novara Media that he was pepper-sprayed.

One apparently unconscious woman demonstrator was surrounded by around a dozen police officers. Paramedics at the scene told Novara Media that medical staff were refused access to her. The police press office disputed this version of events, claiming in an email to Novara Media that the woman “was cared for throughout by emergency personnel and a police paramedic” adding that that “she vehemently refused [the] first aid … requested by the police”. Speaking to Novara Media on condition of anonymity, a doctor who attended the scene said this was impossible: “As far as I could see she was either unconscious or at the edge of unconsciousness and she never made comments about not wanting medical assistance,” they told Novara Media.

One demonstrator, who asked to remain anonymous, told Novara Media via a translator that he was filming on his phone when a “policeman attacked me and beat me very, very violently and then he put me in the police car and beat me. I was telling him I did nothing and I was very tired and I fainted and he hit me in the face.” His friends reported that the man was hospitalised with a fractured nose. The police did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

Another demonstrator told Novara Media she had accompanied a friend to hospital who had had her knee fractured by police. The police did not reply to a request to comment.

“It almost felt like sexual violence,” protester Eleanor Brooks told Novara Media. Though Brooks was uninjured, she felt “it could have happened to me.”

“The fact that this protest was against violence against women – irony is wearing thin here in Germany,” she added.

Shirin Abedi, a prize-winning German-Iranian photojournalist, was at the protest wearing a fluorescent green press jacket. “It was very turbulent, they pushed everyone who was coming to help the people who fell onto the ground,” she told Novara Media. Abedi was also pushed forcefully by the police, adding that she now sometimes wears a helmet at demonstrations. “Germany is always condemning Iran, but the first time I was ever injured by police it was in Berlin,” she said.

Though the speeches were about feminism and violence against women, it was likely the protesters’ solidarity with Palestine that provoked the police response, said protester Matt de Vlieger. “The police have been particularly eager to attack peaceful protests related to Palestine,” he told Novara Media.

Pro-Palestine protests have been policed heavily in Germany for years – Nakba Day demonstrations have been banned since 2022, the year Israel killed Al-Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu-Akleh. Human rights group Amnesty has registered “serious doubts” about such blanket ban. The crackdown has significantly intensified since 7 October, with pro-Palestine protesters regularly beaten by police.

Police arrested 17 men and 12 women at Monday’s demonstration, officials told Novara Media in an email, for offences including “for particularly serious breach of the peace, physical attack on and resistance against law enforcement officers [and the] use of symbols of unconstitutional and terrorist organisations.” The latter offence is often used to refer to the chant “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” which Berlin police categorise as a pro-Hamas chant, which was chanted by some individuals at the demonstration (Abedi said she did not hear the chant at Monday’s demonstration). One demonstrator was seen wearing a pro-Hamas T-shirt.