AhlulBayt News Agency (ABNA): More than 500 artists, filmmakers, writers and other cultural figures from around the world have joined a campaign to protest Germany’s position on the Israeli regime’s war in Gaza and to urge their peers to stop working with German state-funded institutions.
The campaign, called Strike Germany, was launched this week with the support of Annie Ernaux, a French writer and Nobel laureate in literature, and Mohammed El-Kurd, a Palestinian poet and activist. They accused Germany of adopting “McCarthyist policies that suppress freedom of expression, specifically expressions of solidarity with Palestine.”
Among the other artists who signed the campaign’s statement were Indya Moore, an American actress; Tai Shani, a British winner of the Turner Prize; and Hamed Sinno, a Lebanese singer and former member of the band Mashrou’ Leila.
The statement said that Germany’s actions during the 97-day war in Gaza, which began on Oct. 7 and has killed more than 23,000 Palestinians, nearly 10,000 of them children, had a chilling effect on the arts in the country. It cited examples of symbols of pro-Palestinian support being banned, rallies in Berlin being prohibited and the German president asking Arabs to distance themselves from Hamas resistance movement.
The statement also denounced Germany’s “unequivocal support of Israel,” which it said was complicit in a “genocidal campaign” against the Palestinians in Gaza.
“It is more important now than ever that good people reject anti-Palestinian racism assertively and publicly, and boycott the organizations that spread or give cover to that racism,” Mr. El-Kurd said in an interview with Al Jazeera. “There can be no business as usual during genocide and there can be no collaboration with those who deny, justify or partake in it. It’s our moral responsibility.”
The campaign called on German authorities to protect artistic freedom and to stop “surveilling” cultural workers for expressions of solidarity with Palestine on social media, petitions, open letters and public statements.
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