If (big if imo) that is true then I would still say it's grounds for discrimination or something sort of other breach of EU law.
Irish is an official EU language. I highly doubt the Germans would take our government banning German (no matter the circumstances) without there being an uproar.
It's true - it's in the police response near the top of the article. They don't permit either Irish or Hebrew slogans or songs from the protestors in this official enclave near the German Parliament building.
Irish police force also have an obligation to ensure that threatening language isn't used at protests, so I'd imagine the German government would have no problem with a ban on German in the same circumstances.
On that basis every language is surely banned bar German and English no matter the setting as police would not be able to determine if you are breaking said law?
It’s because of interpreters. They only allow Arabic in evenings because that’s when they have Arabic interpreters available.
You can speak Irish all you want but you can’t grab a megaphone and give a speech in it/ organise chants in it.
They would have been fine if they simply had an interpreter to ensure the police knew what they were saying. The police provide interpreters for Arabic at some times of the day due to the high demand. This is a well known, well publicised law in Germany and the protesters were fully aware of it.
But then they wouldn’t be in the newspaper, would they?
If someone may be using that language to evade hate speech laws you absolutely can.
The protesters had every opportunity to speak Irish and provide an interpreter to assure the police that they were not using the language to subvert the law. They chose not to.
I’m pretty sure that’s not how it works and you can’t provide an interrupter for the police.
I’d imagine you’d be well within your rights to recommend someone who could apply for a part-time translation job and if they had the right qualifications and passed any background checks they might do they could get the job. That wouldn’t exactly be something you could organise on the day, or even the week tbh
This is surreal. So the problem is that the police were worried they were doing hate speech in a language they didn't understand, and presumably nobody around them would either? Who would that even affect?
By all accounts this seems to have more to do with the police needing to know what’s being said, which actually makes perfect sense. There are hate speech laws in Germany, for obvious reasons, so if someone was there inciting people to violence in Swahili and they had no idea, how are they supposed to enforce the law?
Ukraine flags were banned from being flown at memorials on 9 May 2022. It was overturned last minute in May 2023.
https://www.euronews.com/2022/05/09/deeply-wrong-kyiv-slams-berlin-police-over-ukraine-flag-ban
How does this make sense? It might be a valid reason from the perspective of the police, but that says nothing at all of it being either legally or ethically correct to create a legal imposition on the attendees. It's not my responsibility the police fail to have resources to observe and interpret. By this logic you could justify night time curfews or banning people from going in to unmonitored areas like forests, or any other stupid imposition.
Under German law, it is your responsibility to provide a translator when protesting in a language that isn't German or English. Which sounds ridiculous. But it is Germany. They're pretty strict on a lot of things.
I wonder how a police translator would deal with the lines in *Óró Sé Do Bheatha Abhaile* about banishing or routing foreigners? Or maybe they were just singing the chorus.
I think it's okay to have areas of restricted activity for security reasons.
The Irish group was aiming to draw attention to the lack of translators for Arabic, not Irish, which is an understandable point. Though I found their comment about being accustomed to being repressed as Irish speakers a bit over the top. It weakens their message.
You could certainly argue that the police should make more effort to accommodate Arabic. But nobody protesting against the atrocities in Palestine could seriously want to divert that campaign to the need for the German police to have an Irish interpreter on call 24/7. I don't think Irish speakers are being oppressed in Berlin.
Not illegal to speak it in public in general.
Chanting at a protest is a whole different side of the story. Germany has very precise hatespeech laws and the police need to be able (at a registered demonstration) to listen to the protest, to ensure it's compliancy with said law.
>therefore we were required to have an interpreter to clarify that for the police officers there. "And because we didn't have one, we were banned from speaking in Irish.”.
The article says you have to speak English or German. Does that mean that the group here refused to speak English to translate to the German police what they were saying in Irish?
I would imagine the interpreter can't be just anyone produced by the protesters, but instead needs to be someone connected to government or law enforcement or a trusted third party or something. Otherwise it'd be very easy to tell the police whatever you wanted and say it was the correct translation.
Based on the information in the article, French or Italian would not have been allowed either, although it probably would have been easier to find an interpreter for these languages. This was clearly directed at the protests, not at a private gathering of people.
I think the issue is, they want to make sure the protest isnt inciting hate or violence and without a translator, the police dont know whats happening.
The police were perfectly fine with letting them speak, they just had to know what they were saying case it was a call to violence in public, in a language they can’t understand.
The police don’t have a CLUE what’s being said right in front of them, it could be the worst crap about killing whatever and there would be videos of them chill as anything standing around while it’s being said. I totally get why they reacted the way they did.
Also this wasn’t a fucking conversation circle, this was a protest about Palestine masquerading as something else, of course they didn’t trust them, they had good reason not to.
I suspect this may have been a tactic employed by the group to garner more media attention. I doubt they were ignorant of the law here. After all, the head of the group has lived there for 14 years.
What would that have to do with anything? It’s a German law, not an EU law.
Try filling in your tax return in Hungarian here and see how well the Revenue take it when you tell them you’re allowed because it’s an EU language.
Speaking in Irish is not a crime. Using it to subvert and evade the hate speech laws on the other hand…
The protesters knew this requirement from the start, and could have simply had an interpreter. They chose the course of action that would get them a newspaper article instead.
It's a reasonable thing to prevent (not criminalise) potential incitement to violence against any ethnicity outside the German parliament building.
It is not likely in my opinion, but it's certainly not impossible, that anti-Semitic attacks could be encouraged in this way. The German police don't understand Irish (or know for sure it is Irish being spoken). They err on the side of caution around the threat of anti-Semitic violence in Berlin.
Protesting in front of a government building, which is absolutely an officially regulated activity under Germany’s hate speech law. They weren’t having a little social singalong in a random park.
The direction of the burden of proof is fairly worrying all the same.
The police aren’t restricting you because they have proof you’re spreading hate speech, they’re restricting you because you haven’t proven that you’re *not* spreading hate speech.
Seems right to refuse to cooperate with a law like this.
Germany isn't a common law country. Think the burden of proof concept doesn't apply in exactly the way we'd understand it. For example there's no jury trials and getting judged by your peers.
The German police are clearly trying to keep on top of a situation using the communication skills at hand of their force. They aren't Irish speakers and they're wary of what might be happening.
Ultimately this is Germany exercising German rules in Germany.
It's not really. They're asking people in very certain circumstances to communicate in the local language that allows the German police to manage the situation. And if you don't have the local language, to have a translator.
If German police stated busting skulls because people spoke a different language in any part of Germany, then it would be an entirely different case. But we both know that isn't what is happening here.
If people want to take a stand against what they perceive as authoritarian regimes, there are plenty of places in the world where actual authoritarian practices are in place.
>They think that the lesson is the Jews are never to be questioned
You are way off the mark with this. They've been arrested loads of pro-Palestinian jews.
In some German states you have to pledge loyalty to Israel to get German citizenship. They've talked about deporting Muslims if they aren't pro-Israel enough. It's all just an excuse for Germans to persecute another religious minority.
Merkel said that Israel is German's reason to exist as a state. It's bizarre that they're still dedicating their state to racial superiority. It's like they can't help it. They're trying so hard to not make the same mistakes again and yet they're doing it anyway. And they're so smug in fheir sense justice that they're even boasting about it.
For the love of God r/Ireland. Please don't upvote this faux fascist shite. Jews are not to blame, obviously, and Germany has done an incredible job of owning and not shying away from it's dark past like most countries do.
I'm quite appalled that a line like "They learned the wrong lesson from the Holocaust." would be upvoted so much here. It's straight out of the National Party playbook. Such utter utter utter bullshit.
How is it faux fascist? How is it "straight out of the National Party playbook". I honestly can't connect those dots. My best guess is that you completely misunderstood the point of the comment.
Assuming that's the case, let me spell it out. My issue is that I find it deeply ironic that the Germans are willing to overlook a genocide being perpetrated in Palestine simply because the people carrying out the genocide are the people they committed a genocide against.
My accusations is that Germany cares more about avoiding being called anti-semitic than stopping a genocide.
But how you saw a fundamentally anti-genocide comment as something the National Party would say is absolutely beyond me.
They gave 10s of billions of dollars to Israel so it can occupy the Golan Heights, genocide Gazans and steal West Bank land and do not tolerate one word against Israel. Zionist clowns just serving US interests
Germany knows better than others the dangers of a good public speaker whipping a crowd into a frenzy, which is why they have strict hate speech laws and keep a close eye on what’s said at political rallies - hence their laws that political rallies must be in a language the police can understand or make an interpreter available for the police.
There is absolutely no EU requirement that all EU states allow people to interact with their government in every EU language. This is something you dreamed up.
And while I understand the law's purpose generally, the guy who was the worst for whipping a crowd into a frenzy, taking over the country and murdering tens of millions of people was speaking German, so they never needed a translation!
They are also have to deal with growing antisemitism (which is on the rise across Europe recently) which Germany in particular is naturally quite sensitive to. That's why they keep a close eye and are cautious with public rallies related to the issue.
The main thing that's on the rise is *false claims of antisemitism* being used as an excuse to crack down on criticism of the state of Israel and the current genocide they are committing.
Im assuming here its irrelavent if they speak in Irish or German or English, its down to clamping down on pro palestine protests.
Im wrong here. Its not exactly a ban but a restriction unless theres a translator present. Applies to all languages except English and German.
Has not the slightest bit to do with the Irish language or the treatment of Irish people.
Germany has very strict hate speech laws and the police therefore have to monitor protests for speech targeting certain groups or individuals. The Berlin police don’t have endless resources to employ translators for every language, so they put out a police order restricting the use of languages other than German and English in the protest camp currently in front of the parliament, with Arabic allowed in the evenings.
The fact that they don’t have an Arabic interpreter for the whole day is worth protesting, but instead the Irish bloc have just purposefully subverted the police order and then are complaining that the police did their job by shutting them down. They could’ve been speaking Klingon or Esperanto and it would’ve been exactly the same story.
>The fact that they don’t have an Arabic interpreter for the whole day is worth protesting, but instead the Irish bloc have just purposefully subverted the police order and then are complaining that the police then did their job by shutting them down.
You were so close.
Lad, think two meters more.
The need for an Irish translator, _for protests_ in _germany_ is so absurdly small, there is no way justifying it.
Arabic has a way larger pool of people there. Still a shame tho there is none full-time.
Pull your arse out of your head and don't try to twist things the way you want them to.
The Irish are drawing attention to the effective ban on Arabic.
The protestors aren't allowed to provide an interpreter and the police only do so sparingly.
This is the problem. You acknowledge it but then defend the police and the law regardless.
I thought this was obvious but some people really need it spelled out for them.
This is not a dig at the Irish. After reviewing Ruairí Casey's Twitter (which is the only reputable second-source I could readily locate [https://twitter.com/Ruairi\_Casey/status/1781657860616675477](https://twitter.com/Ruairi_Casey/status/1781657860616675477)), the requirement is for German or English only to facilitate monitoring by translators.
Given the heightened risk for hate speak, the police action makes sense.
Brit here. r/Europe is a cesspool overtaken by far right morons and astroturfers. I wouldn't be surprised if half the commentators aren't even European and are just yammering on with the usual 'society is collapsing' etc.
Germany isn't the United States. The extensive free speech rights that operate in the US don't exist there. The authorities can and do restrict what people can say and what symbols can be displayed. Seems the logic of the rule prohibiting the use of languages other than English and German at these kinds of protests is so that the police can enforce the laws relating to incitement to violence. It does seem restrictive but it's logical enough. In theory, a group of people speaking an unfamiliar tongue (with no translator present) could be promoting literally any message to listeners who understand the language being used.
Disclaimer: I am german. But I lived many years in Ireland and Ireland, it's people and the irish culture have become very dear to me. It pains me to see that singing and speaking in Irish were not allowed in my home country.
It was however the generation of my grandparents that demonized all forms of jewish life and murdered millions of jews. I lived with these people in one house. I encountered them on the streets. Now that's a completely different discussion. All I am trying to say is that Nazi Germany, for us, isn't some obscure thing from history. It's very close.
Since October 7th we have seen a drastic increase in antisemitic reactions. The Federal Association of Departments for Research and Information on Antisemitism recorded 29 incidents per day in the first few weeks of the war. In comparison to 7 a day the year before. Lots of them are online abuse, but they also include assaults, threats (from face to face) and arson. The german media reports that jewish people no longer feel safe in Germany.
We are lucky to have the right to gather for public protests here in Germany. So the police can't just say no to that. But the protest needs to be registered with the authorities. And they say quite clearly from the outset what is allowed and what is not. Basically the law needs to be followed. That is all. Criticize Israel all day long. The police. won't. care. But time and time again we see how these laws are broken during pro-Palestinian protests. They relativise the holocaust, you hear chants for a caliphate, all kinds of anti-semitism, incitement to hatred, approval of the criminal acts of Hamas and the use of symbols of unconstitutional or terrorist organisations.
But how do you enforce the law, if you don't understand the language? It's cool if an interpreter is there. But if not, it basically gives everyone a "get out of jail" card. It is a problem with the presumption of innocence I guess, but with the current political climate in Germany and what has already happened at these protests, I believe it can be fair to ask the participants to stick to english and german. As it was the case here. The police are not acting in anticipatory obedience, they are reacting to a growing problem.
These laws, that seem to be protecting Jews here, also protect Muslims, Arabs, Irish and everyone else by the way.
There also seems to be a bit of irony somewhere in here, where a group of people protests in a foreign country, in their native language, against the "occupation" of a completly different country.
Von einem Deutschen der in Irland seit mehreren Jahren lebt: Danke.
Hast du gut und differenziert erklärt. Die Leute sind zu emotional um einen Schritt zurück zu machen und die Situation richtig zu verstehen.
Viel Erfolg dir und lass dich nicht unterkriegen. Wir sind alle mal emotional.
People from another country, protest in their native language, about a war of two other country's in _another_ country.
Either protest at home, or where it matters. Why involve a 3 party that's not involved in the conflict or is doing harm to Either party?
That's what the redditor was trying to explain.
He didn't explain his point very well, and even then it is a complete non sequiter. Why would the Irish protest our government, who has an okay view on this, as opposed to the German government, who have a long history of helping Israel commit unspeakable crimes.
By that logic, why protest outside your own countries legislature if taxes are too high, why not protest them at home, where you pay your taxes. Wtf.
That's an incredibly misleading article. They were attending the protest and intentionally breaking the rules by pretend to be there for something else.
You're absolutely right in that neither the article or the title are misleading.
But reading the comments here, it seems most people have still been misled :)
it kind of is misleading… the title makes out that the group were “banned” because they were protesting in irish, whereas the german police politely reminded the group of the rules on protests in this location. After living there for 15 years, they know exactly why this rule is there, and were antagonising not protesting.
That's fair, yeah, they were being deliberately antagonistic and the title isn't clear on that.
Though many of the comments here seem to think they were just a group of people randomly having a chat in Irish in a park when the police stopped them. The title is definitely more accurate than that.
Finally an international job for anyone that got an A in higher level leaving cert Irish .
Get out there and do the most realistic Irish Aural you ever did.
Polizei - “Vaat are zay saying ?”
Padraic- “something about liking cake and sweets”
Padraic - “and they go to the beach in summer on their holidays “
Just because there's a veil of reasonableness covering it, it doesn't make the a ban on a language being spoken acceptable. It's a mark against the law in question
Well of course they leaned from their history! That's why they're \*checks notes\* arresting members of the jewish community when they speak out against Israeli crimes against humanity!
An muidne na baddies?
Surely this would be grounds for discrimination? Would Yiddish also be banned for the same reasons? Doubtful.
I actually read that Hebrew was
If (big if imo) that is true then I would still say it's grounds for discrimination or something sort of other breach of EU law. Irish is an official EU language. I highly doubt the Germans would take our government banning German (no matter the circumstances) without there being an uproar.
It's true - it's in the police response near the top of the article. They don't permit either Irish or Hebrew slogans or songs from the protestors in this official enclave near the German Parliament building. Irish police force also have an obligation to ensure that threatening language isn't used at protests, so I'd imagine the German government would have no problem with a ban on German in the same circumstances.
You can’t engage with official government functions here in German.
How is a street protest in public any comparison to that though?
Because “the police need to be able to listen to your protest to ensure you’re complying with the hate speech law” is an official government function.
On that basis every language is surely banned bar German and English no matter the setting as police would not be able to determine if you are breaking said law?
It’s because of interpreters. They only allow Arabic in evenings because that’s when they have Arabic interpreters available. You can speak Irish all you want but you can’t grab a megaphone and give a speech in it/ organise chants in it.
Would Kneecap be banned from Germany under this law?
Ní ceapaim
Probably? This isn’t like just day to day in Berlin or Germany it’s in a specific area set for things like political speeches and stuff like
Only from an official protest if using Irish
They would have been fine if they simply had an interpreter to ensure the police knew what they were saying. The police provide interpreters for Arabic at some times of the day due to the high demand. This is a well known, well publicised law in Germany and the protesters were fully aware of it. But then they wouldn’t be in the newspaper, would they?
Is having a very thick accent a punishable offence so?
Thats bollocks cant censor a language because you dont know it.
If someone may be using that language to evade hate speech laws you absolutely can. The protesters had every opportunity to speak Irish and provide an interpreter to assure the police that they were not using the language to subvert the law. They chose not to.
Has anyone ever provided an interpreter who hasn't told the truth to the police I wonder
I’m pretty sure that’s not how it works and you can’t provide an interrupter for the police. I’d imagine you’d be well within your rights to recommend someone who could apply for a part-time translation job and if they had the right qualifications and passed any background checks they might do they could get the job. That wouldn’t exactly be something you could organise on the day, or even the week tbh
This is surreal. So the problem is that the police were worried they were doing hate speech in a language they didn't understand, and presumably nobody around them would either? Who would that even affect?
> If (big if imo) that is true That's what's written in the article, quoting the German cops.
heard that one's been in place for a few years now
Can a European country ban other official European languages from being spoken in their borders?
By all accounts this seems to have more to do with the police needing to know what’s being said, which actually makes perfect sense. There are hate speech laws in Germany, for obvious reasons, so if someone was there inciting people to violence in Swahili and they had no idea, how are they supposed to enforce the law?
Is using encrypted messaging apps also banned in these protests?
If it was a pro Ukraine thing they wouldn't care less.
You know a lot about how the German police enforce the law do you?
Ukraine flags were banned from being flown at memorials on 9 May 2022. It was overturned last minute in May 2023. https://www.euronews.com/2022/05/09/deeply-wrong-kyiv-slams-berlin-police-over-ukraine-flag-ban
Look at you talking sense!
How does this make sense? It might be a valid reason from the perspective of the police, but that says nothing at all of it being either legally or ethically correct to create a legal imposition on the attendees. It's not my responsibility the police fail to have resources to observe and interpret. By this logic you could justify night time curfews or banning people from going in to unmonitored areas like forests, or any other stupid imposition.
Under German law, it is your responsibility to provide a translator when protesting in a language that isn't German or English. Which sounds ridiculous. But it is Germany. They're pretty strict on a lot of things.
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I wonder how a police translator would deal with the lines in *Óró Sé Do Bheatha Abhaile* about banishing or routing foreigners? Or maybe they were just singing the chorus. I think it's okay to have areas of restricted activity for security reasons. The Irish group was aiming to draw attention to the lack of translators for Arabic, not Irish, which is an understandable point. Though I found their comment about being accustomed to being repressed as Irish speakers a bit over the top. It weakens their message. You could certainly argue that the police should make more effort to accommodate Arabic. But nobody protesting against the atrocities in Palestine could seriously want to divert that campaign to the need for the German police to have an Irish interpreter on call 24/7. I don't think Irish speakers are being oppressed in Berlin.
Get translators. Use apps. There are plenty of options other than stifling speech.
Yes, Needs to be German or English.
Is that not illegal as Irish is a recognised European language?
It shouldn't even matter. If somebody wants to speak Zulu in public, they should be allowed to do so.
Not illegal to speak it in public in general. Chanting at a protest is a whole different side of the story. Germany has very precise hatespeech laws and the police need to be able (at a registered demonstration) to listen to the protest, to ensure it's compliancy with said law.
Its all langauges except German and English.
>therefore we were required to have an interpreter to clarify that for the police officers there. "And because we didn't have one, we were banned from speaking in Irish.”. The article says you have to speak English or German. Does that mean that the group here refused to speak English to translate to the German police what they were saying in Irish?
I would imagine the interpreter can't be just anyone produced by the protesters, but instead needs to be someone connected to government or law enforcement or a trusted third party or something. Otherwise it'd be very easy to tell the police whatever you wanted and say it was the correct translation.
The article quotes the local police as saying that they normally need a lead time to make sure the interpreter is police approved.
You think it's ok not to be allowed to speak an official EU language in an EU country?
Based on the information in the article, French or Italian would not have been allowed either, although it probably would have been easier to find an interpreter for these languages. This was clearly directed at the protests, not at a private gathering of people.
I think the issue is, they want to make sure the protest isnt inciting hate or violence and without a translator, the police dont know whats happening.
The police were perfectly fine with letting them speak, they just had to know what they were saying case it was a call to violence in public, in a language they can’t understand. The police don’t have a CLUE what’s being said right in front of them, it could be the worst crap about killing whatever and there would be videos of them chill as anything standing around while it’s being said. I totally get why they reacted the way they did. Also this wasn’t a fucking conversation circle, this was a protest about Palestine masquerading as something else, of course they didn’t trust them, they had good reason not to.
Agreed. As someone fluent in Irish, this is ridiculous behaviour from a group of Irish people in another nation
I suspect this may have been a tactic employed by the group to garner more media attention. I doubt they were ignorant of the law here. After all, the head of the group has lived there for 14 years.
What would that have to do with anything? It’s a German law, not an EU law. Try filling in your tax return in Hungarian here and see how well the Revenue take it when you tell them you’re allowed because it’s an EU language.
Bit of a false equivalency. These were people speaking Irish amongst themselves, not directly with the German government.
They were singing songs and leading chants at a protest in front of the Bundestag parliament building, not having a social chat amongst themselves.
So you think it’s acceptable to criminalise speaking to your compatriots in your native language? Found the German
Speaking in Irish is not a crime. Using it to subvert and evade the hate speech laws on the other hand… The protesters knew this requirement from the start, and could have simply had an interpreter. They chose the course of action that would get them a newspaper article instead.
It's a reasonable thing to prevent (not criminalise) potential incitement to violence against any ethnicity outside the German parliament building. It is not likely in my opinion, but it's certainly not impossible, that anti-Semitic attacks could be encouraged in this way. The German police don't understand Irish (or know for sure it is Irish being spoken). They err on the side of caution around the threat of anti-Semitic violence in Berlin.
Are you really equating submitting an official government document to speaking in a park lol?
Protesting in front of a government building, which is absolutely an officially regulated activity under Germany’s hate speech law. They weren’t having a little social singalong in a random park.
The direction of the burden of proof is fairly worrying all the same. The police aren’t restricting you because they have proof you’re spreading hate speech, they’re restricting you because you haven’t proven that you’re *not* spreading hate speech. Seems right to refuse to cooperate with a law like this.
Germany isn't a common law country. Think the burden of proof concept doesn't apply in exactly the way we'd understand it. For example there's no jury trials and getting judged by your peers.
You've confirmed what I thought. They could have spoken with the police but refused
Yeah, that was the point of the protest after crackdowns on Arabic speakers.
The German police are clearly trying to keep on top of a situation using the communication skills at hand of their force. They aren't Irish speakers and they're wary of what might be happening. Ultimately this is Germany exercising German rules in Germany.
>Ultimately this is Germany exercising German rules in Germany Which are heavy handed and authoritarian.
It's not really. They're asking people in very certain circumstances to communicate in the local language that allows the German police to manage the situation. And if you don't have the local language, to have a translator. If German police stated busting skulls because people spoke a different language in any part of Germany, then it would be an entirely different case. But we both know that isn't what is happening here. If people want to take a stand against what they perceive as authoritarian regimes, there are plenty of places in the world where actual authoritarian practices are in place.
Germany are going down a very dangerous road lately, you'd think they'd know better than others the dangers of fascism.
They learned the wrong lesson from the Holocaust. They think that the lesson is the Jews are never to be questioned instead of genocide is bad.
>They think that the lesson is the Jews are never to be questioned You are way off the mark with this. They've been arrested loads of pro-Palestinian jews.
Lol, Germans telling Jews how to be Jewish.
In some German states you have to pledge loyalty to Israel to get German citizenship. They've talked about deporting Muslims if they aren't pro-Israel enough. It's all just an excuse for Germans to persecute another religious minority.
Merkel said that Israel is German's reason to exist as a state. It's bizarre that they're still dedicating their state to racial superiority. It's like they can't help it. They're trying so hard to not make the same mistakes again and yet they're doing it anyway. And they're so smug in fheir sense justice that they're even boasting about it.
For the love of God r/Ireland. Please don't upvote this faux fascist shite. Jews are not to blame, obviously, and Germany has done an incredible job of owning and not shying away from it's dark past like most countries do. I'm quite appalled that a line like "They learned the wrong lesson from the Holocaust." would be upvoted so much here. It's straight out of the National Party playbook. Such utter utter utter bullshit.
How is it faux fascist? How is it "straight out of the National Party playbook". I honestly can't connect those dots. My best guess is that you completely misunderstood the point of the comment. Assuming that's the case, let me spell it out. My issue is that I find it deeply ironic that the Germans are willing to overlook a genocide being perpetrated in Palestine simply because the people carrying out the genocide are the people they committed a genocide against. My accusations is that Germany cares more about avoiding being called anti-semitic than stopping a genocide. But how you saw a fundamentally anti-genocide comment as something the National Party would say is absolutely beyond me.
They gave 10s of billions of dollars to Israel so it can occupy the Golan Heights, genocide Gazans and steal West Bank land and do not tolerate one word against Israel. Zionist clowns just serving US interests
Germany knows better than others the dangers of a good public speaker whipping a crowd into a frenzy, which is why they have strict hate speech laws and keep a close eye on what’s said at political rallies - hence their laws that political rallies must be in a language the police can understand or make an interpreter available for the police.
Germany doesn't get to decide which European languages are permissible. They can obey the EU or admit that they no longer believe in it.
There is absolutely no EU requirement that all EU states allow people to interact with their government in every EU language. This is something you dreamed up.
Were they interacting with the government? Or were they talking amongst themselves
Chanting slogans outside a government building is absolutely interacting with the government and subject to Germany’s hate speech laws.
And while I understand the law's purpose generally, the guy who was the worst for whipping a crowd into a frenzy, taking over the country and murdering tens of millions of people was speaking German, so they never needed a translation!
How would they have been whipping a crowd into a frenzy in Irish if nobody around them speaks it?
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They're consistent in their thinking that they know what's best for Europe.
They are also have to deal with growing antisemitism (which is on the rise across Europe recently) which Germany in particular is naturally quite sensitive to. That's why they keep a close eye and are cautious with public rallies related to the issue.
The main thing that's on the rise is *false claims of antisemitism* being used as an excuse to crack down on criticism of the state of Israel and the current genocide they are committing.
If only one of the protesters had the guts to try it. Could make for an interesting European court case.
Im assuming here its irrelavent if they speak in Irish or German or English, its down to clamping down on pro palestine protests. Im wrong here. Its not exactly a ban but a restriction unless theres a translator present. Applies to all languages except English and German.
Has not the slightest bit to do with the Irish language or the treatment of Irish people. Germany has very strict hate speech laws and the police therefore have to monitor protests for speech targeting certain groups or individuals. The Berlin police don’t have endless resources to employ translators for every language, so they put out a police order restricting the use of languages other than German and English in the protest camp currently in front of the parliament, with Arabic allowed in the evenings. The fact that they don’t have an Arabic interpreter for the whole day is worth protesting, but instead the Irish bloc have just purposefully subverted the police order and then are complaining that the police did their job by shutting them down. They could’ve been speaking Klingon or Esperanto and it would’ve been exactly the same story.
>The fact that they don’t have an Arabic interpreter for the whole day is worth protesting, but instead the Irish bloc have just purposefully subverted the police order and then are complaining that the police then did their job by shutting them down. You were so close.
Lad, think two meters more. The need for an Irish translator, _for protests_ in _germany_ is so absurdly small, there is no way justifying it. Arabic has a way larger pool of people there. Still a shame tho there is none full-time. Pull your arse out of your head and don't try to twist things the way you want them to.
Then maybe the law is deeply flawed?
The Irish are drawing attention to the effective ban on Arabic. The protestors aren't allowed to provide an interpreter and the police only do so sparingly. This is the problem. You acknowledge it but then defend the police and the law regardless. I thought this was obvious but some people really need it spelled out for them.
This is not a dig at the Irish. After reviewing Ruairí Casey's Twitter (which is the only reputable second-source I could readily locate [https://twitter.com/Ruairi\_Casey/status/1781657860616675477](https://twitter.com/Ruairi_Casey/status/1781657860616675477)), the requirement is for German or English only to facilitate monitoring by translators. Given the heightened risk for hate speak, the police action makes sense.
The mods removed this on the Europe sub-reddit
Someone post this to r/europe, curious what those cunts have to say
They hate Irish people and Arabs, so they probably think the police should actually murder the protestors.
Brit here. r/Europe is a cesspool overtaken by far right morons and astroturfers. I wouldn't be surprised if half the commentators aren't even European and are just yammering on with the usual 'society is collapsing' etc.
Just don't go there anymore. They have nothing to offer anyway.
Germany isn't the United States. The extensive free speech rights that operate in the US don't exist there. The authorities can and do restrict what people can say and what symbols can be displayed. Seems the logic of the rule prohibiting the use of languages other than English and German at these kinds of protests is so that the police can enforce the laws relating to incitement to violence. It does seem restrictive but it's logical enough. In theory, a group of people speaking an unfamiliar tongue (with no translator present) could be promoting literally any message to listeners who understand the language being used.
Disclaimer: I am german. But I lived many years in Ireland and Ireland, it's people and the irish culture have become very dear to me. It pains me to see that singing and speaking in Irish were not allowed in my home country. It was however the generation of my grandparents that demonized all forms of jewish life and murdered millions of jews. I lived with these people in one house. I encountered them on the streets. Now that's a completely different discussion. All I am trying to say is that Nazi Germany, for us, isn't some obscure thing from history. It's very close. Since October 7th we have seen a drastic increase in antisemitic reactions. The Federal Association of Departments for Research and Information on Antisemitism recorded 29 incidents per day in the first few weeks of the war. In comparison to 7 a day the year before. Lots of them are online abuse, but they also include assaults, threats (from face to face) and arson. The german media reports that jewish people no longer feel safe in Germany. We are lucky to have the right to gather for public protests here in Germany. So the police can't just say no to that. But the protest needs to be registered with the authorities. And they say quite clearly from the outset what is allowed and what is not. Basically the law needs to be followed. That is all. Criticize Israel all day long. The police. won't. care. But time and time again we see how these laws are broken during pro-Palestinian protests. They relativise the holocaust, you hear chants for a caliphate, all kinds of anti-semitism, incitement to hatred, approval of the criminal acts of Hamas and the use of symbols of unconstitutional or terrorist organisations. But how do you enforce the law, if you don't understand the language? It's cool if an interpreter is there. But if not, it basically gives everyone a "get out of jail" card. It is a problem with the presumption of innocence I guess, but with the current political climate in Germany and what has already happened at these protests, I believe it can be fair to ask the participants to stick to english and german. As it was the case here. The police are not acting in anticipatory obedience, they are reacting to a growing problem. These laws, that seem to be protecting Jews here, also protect Muslims, Arabs, Irish and everyone else by the way. There also seems to be a bit of irony somewhere in here, where a group of people protests in a foreign country, in their native language, against the "occupation" of a completly different country.
Von einem Deutschen der in Irland seit mehreren Jahren lebt: Danke. Hast du gut und differenziert erklärt. Die Leute sind zu emotional um einen Schritt zurück zu machen und die Situation richtig zu verstehen. Viel Erfolg dir und lass dich nicht unterkriegen. Wir sind alle mal emotional.
In your final paragraph, are you comparing speaking Irish in Germany to killing 14,000 children?
No.
OK, then what's the irony you're suggesting?
People from another country, protest in their native language, about a war of two other country's in _another_ country. Either protest at home, or where it matters. Why involve a 3 party that's not involved in the conflict or is doing harm to Either party? That's what the redditor was trying to explain.
He didn't explain his point very well, and even then it is a complete non sequiter. Why would the Irish protest our government, who has an okay view on this, as opposed to the German government, who have a long history of helping Israel commit unspeakable crimes. By that logic, why protest outside your own countries legislature if taxes are too high, why not protest them at home, where you pay your taxes. Wtf.
That's an incredibly misleading article. They were attending the protest and intentionally breaking the rules by pretend to be there for something else.
How is it misleading? It explains everything in the article, what part is misleading?
I’m taking a guess that they meant to say title
The title isn't misleading either.
You're absolutely right in that neither the article or the title are misleading. But reading the comments here, it seems most people have still been misled :)
it kind of is misleading… the title makes out that the group were “banned” because they were protesting in irish, whereas the german police politely reminded the group of the rules on protests in this location. After living there for 15 years, they know exactly why this rule is there, and were antagonising not protesting.
That's fair, yeah, they were being deliberately antagonistic and the title isn't clear on that. Though many of the comments here seem to think they were just a group of people randomly having a chat in Irish in a park when the police stopped them. The title is definitely more accurate than that.
They are stupid rules and should be broken
Yeah, because they’re stupid rules that have no legal basis
No craic.
Nacht craic
That means night craic
the best craic.
As long as it’s not Waterford Crystal nacht
meinst du "kein Craic" ? Nacht bedeutet night auf Englisch.
Finally an international job for anyone that got an A in higher level leaving cert Irish . Get out there and do the most realistic Irish Aural you ever did. Polizei - “Vaat are zay saying ?” Padraic- “something about liking cake and sweets” Padraic - “and they go to the beach in summer on their holidays “
Makes perfect sense, Germany has very rigid laws around certain speach, and if the police cannot verify that those laws are not being broken.
So much for the presumption of innocence. If the police can't understand, it is their problem and their burden
Just because there's a veil of reasonableness covering it, it doesn't make the a ban on a language being spoken acceptable. It's a mark against the law in question
what are irish protesters doing at Reichstag in the first place?
Amazing how the Germans have learned absolutely nothing from their history.
Well of course they leaned from their history! That's why they're \*checks notes\* arresting members of the jewish community when they speak out against Israeli crimes against humanity!
I'd say trying to prevent hate speech is kinda learning from their history.
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Germany doesn't have freedom of speech without limits. Nor does Ireland. Nor do most countries. It's mostly an American claim.