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Lawyers plan to challenge a British-Palestinian surgeon’s ban from entering Germany to speak at an anti-Israel rally that was broken up by more than 800 police over anti-Semitism fears.
Ghassan Abu Sitta says he was detained at a Berlin airport and “forcibly prevented” from entering the country for the duration of the planned three-day Palestine Congress.
Police cut off power to the event after a video message was played from Salman Abu Sitta, the surgeon’s uncle, who was banned from political activity in Germany and has expressed sympathy for Hamas.
The rally was then shut down because of a risk of anti-Semitism and glorification of violence, said Berlin police, with further bans handed out to guests including former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis.
Leading politicians praised the police intervention, which Dr Abu Sitta described as an attempt to “silence the voices of witnesses” to the war fought in Gaza by Germany’s ally Israel.
Dr Abu Sitta, the student-elected rector of Britain’s University of Glasgow, flew to London where his UK lawyers said Germany had made no claim of impropriety against him.
“As his lawyers, we will be taking up his removal from Germany with the authorities and will expect a full explanation for the manner in which he was treated,” said solicitor Tayab Ali of Bindmans law firm.
In a speech last week on taking office as Glasgow’s rector, Dr Abu Sitta accused Germany and western allies including the US and Britain of being part of an “axis of genocide” in Gaza.
His appointment caused controversy after pro-Israeli lawyers accused him of celebrating terrorists. He quoted Irish republican hunger striker Bobby Sands in his speech.
He says he planned to give the Berlin congress a first-hand account of working in Gaza hospitals during the six-month conflict, in which Israel says it is fighting Hamas and denies the claim of genocide.
Working in Gaza hospitals, he gained online prominence in the early days of the Israel-Gaza war with first-hand accounts of injuries, bombings and grief on the front line.
Germany also denies being complicit in genocide, saying it is trying to do right by both Israelis and Palestinians in a complex situation.
Activists say pro-Palestinian voices are being silenced in a largely pro-Israel environment in Germany, shaped by remorse for the Holocaust.
A pro-Palestinian “lawyers’ collective” in Berlin said police had gone too far by shutting down the rally without evidence of crimes being committed.
They said police had “torpedoed” offers to continue the rally peacefully without the offending live stream, raising suspicions they acted “under political pressure”.
Berlin’s mayor Kai Wegner had described the planned congress as “intolerable” and subsequently praised police for their intervention, after 850 officers were deployed from around Germany to enforce the ban.
“We have made clear that hatred towards Israel has no place in Berlin,” Mr Wegner said. "Anyone who does not abide by that will feel the consequences."
Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said authorities would go after “anyone who spreads Islamist propaganda and hatred against Jews”.
The lawyers said organisers of the Palestine Congress were unaware of the ban concerning Salman Abu Sitta, the speaker whose live stream was cut off.
Mr Abu Sitta, a cartographer whose maps leave out Israel, had planned to give a speech on the “right of return to free Palestine”.
His speech would have described Gaza as a “concentration camp” and accused Israel of an “unprecedented genocide”, according to the text he published in Egyptian media.
Israel’s “single mission is to free 150 Israeli hostages held in Gaza”, it says. “Did anybody tell you about the other hostages, much larger in number, and much longer in captivity? They are the Palestinians, held hostages for 76 years.”
In an article in January, Mr Abu Sitta had hailed the "determination and courage" of militants who attacked Israel on October 7, saying he might have been one of them if he was younger.
Mr Varoufakis said he was issued a ban on political activity that covered both events in Germany and online appearances by Zoom.
In his own planned speech to the congress, he wrote he would happily attend a Jewish solidarity congress if he felt Israelis were being subjected to the same fate as Palestinians.
Organisers of the Palestine Congress issued a resolution late on Sunday that called for Germany to cut off support for Israel and pay reparations to Palestinians.
They called for “strikes, blockades, occupations or civil disobedience” in Germany to fight against “support for genocide in any form”.
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Aged just 11, Khulood Al Najjar’s daughter, Nora, bravely attempted to fight off Philip Spence. Her finger was injured when she put her hand in between the claw hammer and her mother’s head.
As a vital witness, she was forced to relive the ordeal by police who needed to identify the attacker and ensure he was found guilty.
Now aged 16, Nora has decided she wants to dedicate her career to helping other victims of crime.
“It was very horrible for her. She saw her mum, dying, just next to her eyes. But now she just wants to go forward,” said Khulood, speaking about how her eldest daughter was dealing with the trauma of the incident five years ago. “She is saying, 'mama, I want to be a lawyer, I want to help people achieve justice'.”
Khulood’s youngest daughter, Fatima, was seven at the time of the attack and attempted to help paramedics responding to the incident.
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This article is part of a guide on where to live in the UAE. Our reporters will profile some of the country’s most desirable districts, provide an estimate of rental prices and introduce you to some of the residents who call each area home.
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
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