Western countries accused of silencing pro-Palestine protests

Disproportionate restrictions imposed by US, UK, France and Germany, claims report

Pro-Palestine protesters in Berlin. A new report says western governments are using the issues surrounding the conflict as a means of stifling dissent. EPA

Antiterrorism laws and the fight against anti-Semitism have been used by governments in the West to gag pro-Palestine protests in the past two years, the Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights has said.

A 56-page report by the group examined the “disproportionate restrictions” imposed in the US, the UK, Germany and France to expressions of solidarity with the Palestinian people since the war in Gaza began.

Israel forces have killed almost 68,000 people in the aftermath of the Hamas-led attacks of October 7, 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed.

“These mobilisations reflect a universal demand for justice, freedom, and human dignity,” said the report. “The crackdown on solidarity with Palestinians reveals a profound crisis: not only of human rights in the occupied territories, but of freedom itself in societies that claim to be democratic.”

The report's purpose, its authors said, was to “highlight rights violations against solidarity and anti-atrocity crime protests undertaken against the genocide in Gaza and in solidarity with Palestinians around the world.”

In the month following the October 2023 attacks, there were demonstrations in support of Palestine in about 60 countries.

Repression of political speech has contributed to the worsening of long-standing problems including growing Islamophobia and racial profiling, the report said. It added that it has created a chilling effect among academics, elected officials and civil society groups, many from Muslim, Arab or migrant backgrounds, which threatens democratic discourse.

A central concern is the “growing conflation of anti-Semitism with legitimate criticism of Israeli state policies”, it said. “This deliberate confusion has allowed authorities to delegitimise and penalise a wide range of actors … who publicly denounce Israeli actions in Gaza or advocate for Palestinian liberation,” it added.

The adoption by a growing number of countries of the contested International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-Semitism has censored critiques based on the ideologies that underpinned the creation of the Israeli state, the report said.

'Hate marches'

It says one example of repression of free speech in the US has been the detention of Palestinian student Mahmoud Khalil, whose green card was revoked. The government also issued sanctions against institutions and people perceived to be critical of Israel, including judges at the International Criminal Court. The report said the US also failed to uphold free speech after 38 media workers at the Los Angeles Times newspaper were restricted in December 2023 from covering topics related to Palestine after signing letters condemning the killing of journalists in Gaza.

An example of repression of free speech in the US was the detention of Palestinian student Mahmoud Khalil, centre, says the report. AFP

The report said that in the UK the depiction of protest movements as “hate marches” by then home secretary Suella Braverman in a letter to the Metropolitan police on October 30, 2023 was “stigmatising”.

At least 1,000 people were arrested between October 2023 and August 2025 at pro-Palestine events in Britain. Most recently, hundreds have been arrested at demonstrations for showing support for the proscribed group Palestine Action.

It said that in France politicians used the Israel-Palestine conflict to attack rivals during July 2024's snap elections, where pro-Palestine protests have taken place despite attempts to ban them. A representative of the populist far-right framed the election as a struggle between “those who love France … and those who love Hamas”.

Terrorism laws, which were strengthened after the 2015 Charlie Hebdo attacks, are increasingly used to stifle free speech, the report said. Examples quoted include the summoning of left-wing politicians by police as part of antiterrorism investigations after they made statements on the Gaza conflict.

In Germany, where the relation with Israel is shaped by the events of the 1930s and the Holocaust that followed, the concept of “imported anti-Semitism” has gained traction in the past decades as a reference to Muslim migrants.

German authorities have been strongly driven by a desire to silence dissenting voices, the report said, pointing at political attacks against the Palestinian and Israeli co-directors of the documentary No Other Land which addressed apartheid in Israel. About half of all pro-Palestine protests have been banned.

However, the report also pointed at inconsistent court rulings in Germany notably when it comes to the interpretation of the slogan “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”.