The frontman of British punk rap band Bob Vylan was denied entry to Germany, detained at the Berlin airport, and ultimately deported to the United Kingdom last month due to his pro-Palestine statements.
German federal police justified deporting the band’s vocalist on June 15, referencing a performance at the Glastonbury Festival in England in 2025 where Bob Vylan led a chant of “Death, death to the IDF,” or the Israel Defense Forces.
A police file on Robinson-Foster obtained by The Intercept alleges that he disseminated antisemitic narratives and Hamas propaganda that could “radicalise certain segments of the [German] population” and serve as “ideological justification” for terrorist groups or individuals. It also says that Robinson-Foster poses a threat to Germany’s public security and public order. Allowing him into the country would cause “considerable reputational damage” by creating the impression that Germany was making “no effort to prevent the spread of the propagated antisemitism and the associated calls to violence.”
@Flatworm7591@lemmy.dbzer0.com @db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com I hope that I’m being clear. I am not promoting a free speech community, nor do I accept what right-wing shitheads. People who engage in bigotry and harmful rhetoric (including Zionism) here will be banned from the space. I simply think they shouldn’t be arrested for it. Cops have zero accountability, you can’t correct them, you can’t legally fight against them. People already weaponize the law against protestors in places where speech is a protected right.
Speech itself being policed is beyond dangerous, and unneeded since we as a society have systems to control hateful speech through ostracization and social stigma. Using force and law only when safety or physical boundaries are transgressed (i.e. forcing their way into a store after being asked by the owner to leave).