5 mo. ago • 88%

Germany bans Yanis Varoufakis from entering the country - DiEM25 Communications

diem25.org Germany bans Yanis Varoufakis from entering the country - DiEM25 Communications

The German Ministry of the Interior has issued a ban against Yanis after the police shut down the Palestine Congress

German police shut down pro-Palestinian conference - DW

Conservative @lemm.ee Germany bans Yanis Varoufakis from entering the country - DiEM25 Communications

31 comments

Context for DiEM25:

They partially blame NATO for the Ukrainian war for playing "geopolitical games": https://diem25.org/diem-tv/how-to-end-the-war-in-ukraine/

All Ukrainian territory occupied up to February 2022 should fall to Russia with Ukraine expected to give up further 100km inland along this border for a demilitarized zone: https://diem25.org/diem25-has-plan-for-peace-ukraine/

I'm all for calling out the Netanyahu government in particular for the treatment of the civilian population in Gaza and fully support ending all Western military support for that campaign but I don't trust DiEM25 based on what I know about them. That said, unless there is definitive proof of "Volksverhetzung", a liberal democracy should even let wackos speak out their opinions.
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- In the past I allways kept my eyes on DiEM25 as a possible party to vote at some point in future. But in my opinion they went the completly wrong way for a while now. You brought some good reminders for why to better let them stay unimportant.
  
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  IIRC Volt is still out there if you're looking for a Pan Euro party, I don't know their policies other than federal europe but that's what Diem25 was before they evidently went loco sooooo...
  
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  Yes I agree. I went to some Diem25 events a couple of years ago (before all the recent crises) and their program for Europe did seem interesting. But this is just stupid, thanks for showing me why I shouldn't vote for you
  
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- We have Sarah Wagenknecht to output that kind of drivel on Ukraine, no need to import Varoufakis. This ban is based on the same paragraph in the FreiG that the ban against that Austrian Nazi speaking at the AfD congress is based on: If you endanger the public order in Germany having a EU passport won't help you you still can't enter.
  
  Though it has to be said that the Berlin (as in the state, not federal) police and interior ministry is very trigger-happy when it comes to Israel/Palestine, and I guess they are who issued the ban, press alas isn't being particularly detailed about any of this. Alongside with Varoufakis a couple of other planned speakers got the same treatment, among other things for saying that they would've participated in the October 7th attacks given the chance. Maybe he got caught in the cross-fire and courts will overturn the ban, maybe they won't, maybe he isn't even going to try and instead just milk the issue for political points.
  
  EDIT: GOD FUCKING DAMNIT it seems that there never has been a ban in the first place and some police officer just made it up. The term you're looking for is "Dienstaufsichtsbeschwerde".
  
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- Ok so I've looked into various sources, and it looks like the police is concerned for the safety of ppl at the DiEM as well as civilians around it.
  
  Because of that, they prohibited specific inflammatory and incendiary words and language as to prevent the discussion from escalating into violence in Berlin.
  
  Listening to some of the things that were said before they issued the ban, it is clear that some of the speeches were radical or very much pushing the envelope.
  
  Now there is some confusion about where the ban on specific language came from - police refers to the Senate, Senate refers to other parties (and that's not great), but it's not as if the police just felt like it or as if there was some shady stuff going on behind the scenes.
  
  I am a German from Berlin, so I am very concerned when I hear stuff like this, and that's why I had to look it up and dig into it to some degree. I wish the international press did a more thorough job, because if it didn't take me that long to find a different account, that means they didn't do their job and I don't like that.
  
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  Doing a thorough job risks the sensational headlines though.
  
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- '200km on either side' 400km total.
  
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This is the kind of stuff he said:

thrown out of their homes and into an open-air prison eighty years ago, still being kept in that open-air prison, without access to the outside world, with minimal food and water, with no chance of a normal life or of traveling anywhere, while being bombed periodically for these eighty years

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Germany hast lost the plot.

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- Germany didn't do shit, the police made it up: https://diem25.org/chronicle-of-the-betatigungsverbot-against-yanis-varoufakis/
  
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- It’s goosestepping backwards at an alarming rate.
  
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- Maybe read what he wrote first.
  
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  I did. Big fan of him. He’s anti genocide, that’s the problem Germany has with him and all the other critics.
  
  Never again for Germany means never again genociding Jews. That’s the lesson they’ve learned. They did not draw any universal learnings from the atrocities their grandparents committed.
  
  It’s insane how the country is backing Istael when they’re committing a genocide and how they go full fascist even against Jewish people speaking out against the genocide. And having the audacity to say they do that „to protect Jews“.
  
  Germany is completely lost. The public will go out on the streets to protest against the AFD, but they’re literally backing up a genocidal ethno supremacist apartheid state. The only line that AFD seems to cross is that they’re also against leftist white Germans and that they’re antisemites. Brown people do not seem to fit into that equation.
  
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  Yeah, what 'did' he write to get this reaction? Was it just asking for human rights for Palestinians?
  
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Yanis is having a wild time with his life, the man's worked for valve, been the greek ~~economy~~ minister of finance, some other shit, now this?

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Are there other sources on this? It sounds outrageous but would be nice to have an independent confirmation.

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- It’s confusing the taz asked the responsible authorities. The important part is the update at the end:
  
  An earlier version stated that the BMI [Federal Ministry for Interior] and the Berlin police had confirmed the ban to the taz. The police had initially referred the taz to the BMI, the BMI to the Berlin Senate Department of the Interior. However, neither had initially denied that Varoufakis had been banned. A spokeswoman for the Berlin Interior Administration responded to a corresponding query on Saturday evening, stating that a ban on Mr. Varoufakis had not been issued by the LEA (State Office for Immigration) as a subordinate authority of the Senate Department for Interior and Sport. (Translated with deepl.)
  
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  Thank you for this.
  
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- Nothing outrageous about banning a liar and propagandist from spreading lies and propaganda in our country.
  
  Ffs... he even published the speech he was going to give there and it was hard to swallow so much bullshit. On the plus side, he basically answered questions about Hamas atrocities and their threat to Israel with (paraphrasing) "I condemn atrocities in general but here I celebrate the people that attacked Israel" and "What threat? Israel is only afraid because of rampant anti-semitism in Europe and America".
  
  So we know were he stands and if you ask me he can go get fucked with the Hamas buddies he supports.
  
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  Found the Nazi
  
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Hasn’t Germany had a beef with him since he pointed out their economic bullying as Greece’s finance minister?

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- Define "Germany" - we had different governments over the years with different stances towards him
  
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  Fair point and my apologies. The Merkel government seemed to have issues with him. And he had issues with her.
  
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Germany and this guy never had a particularly good relationship, to be honest. If you're not a Krauti, there's english subtitles available.

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- Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
  
  Germany and this guy never had a particularly good relationship, to be honest.
  
  Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
  
  I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.
  
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