A disturbing pattern of repression is emerging in Europe

In November, the Dutch political elite overwhelmingly sided with Israeli football fans after they went on a rampage in Amsterdam and provoked violence with local residents. The injustice did not stop at the twisted narrative Dutch politicians chose to adopt.

The clashes gave the ruling Dutch right-wing coalition a convenient excuse to table a host of measures that clearly target the country’s Muslim community. These proposals – which they had likely had up their sleeves for a long time – included stripping dual nationals of their passports and migrants of their temporary residency permit if they are deemed to be “anti-Semitic” – with the caveat that in today’s political climate, almost any statement criticising Israel’s genocide in Gaza is being labelled as anti-Semitic or terrorist.

Other measures include barring so-called anti-Semitic organisations from public funding, labelling them as terrorist entities, and placing them on sanctions lists, banning the Palestinian prisoner support network Samidoun, and criminalising the “glorification of terrorism”.

So far, the government has implemented only one of these proposals – the establishment of a “taskforce for the fight against anti-Semitism”. It remains to be seen if and when the others will be put into practice.

To anyone who has followed closely what Germany has done over the past 15 months, the rhetoric and actions of the Dutch government may sound familiar. For over a year now, the German government has gone out of its way not only to support Israel, but also to criminalise and scapegoat its Muslim, refugee and immigrant communities. In doing so, it has set a precedent that other European countries are now following.

In June, the German parliament passed a new citizenship law that mandates an “anti-Semitism check” for applicants and rules out granting citizenship to anyone deemed “anti-Semitic” or not committed to Germany’s raison d’etat for its unconditional support for the Israeli state. The criteria rely on the problematic IHRA definition that conflates anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism.

Liking a social media post with slogans like “From the river to the sea” or one that accuses Israel of murdering children could be enough for applicants to be denied citizenship. Dual citizens may not be safe either – German law allows authorities to revoke citizenship up to 10 years after it was granted, though the threshold for doing so remains high and largely untested.

In October, German lawmakers also approved new immigration policies, allowing the state to revoke the refugee status of individuals who are deemed to espouse “anti-Semitism”.

In November, the German parliament passed a resolution targeting individuals and groups critical of Israel. Those deemed to be “anti-Semitic” under the IHRA definition or found to be supporting the Boycott, Divest and Sanction (BDS) movement are to be excluded from any public funding initiatives – even if their work is completely unrelated to Palestine.

The resolution also calls for “utilising repressive options” and using “criminal, residence, asylum and nationality law” against those perceived to be “anti-Semitic”.

While the resolution is non-binding, it also cannot be legally challenged, and will likely have a massive chilling effect on a civil society highly dependent on government funding and normalise encroachment on the rights of asylum seekers and migrants. As Nadija Samour, senior legal adviser for the European Legal Support Centre, warns, the resolution “is going to cement the use of migration law as a form of persecution”.

Less than two weeks after the resolution was voted, a German foundation referred to it in its decision to rescind an architecture award given to an artist who had signed a letter condemning Israel.

The threat of “repressive measures” is nothing new for groups and organisations focusing on Palestinian solidarity in Germany. Since October 7, 2023, they have been facing massive repression, police violence and surveillance, have had their bank accounts frozen and demonstrations and events cancelled, or been outright banned, like Samidoun.

Rights groups have sounded the alarm about Germany’s authoritarian trajectory. They have warned that freedom of opinion, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of the arts and academic freedoms are being violated. In a statement, major civil society organisations called out the resolution for enabling “serious violations of fundamental and human rights and considerable legal uncertainty”.

In asylum policy, we have witnessed how one country’s most devastating antimigration measures are initially criticised, then normalised, and eventually adopted by others. A similar pattern appears to be unfolding with the suppression of protests against Israel, as the Netherlands seems to be following Germany’s slide towards authoritarianism. And it is not alone in that.

In December, France passed a bill that, if approved by the Senate, would deny citizenship, naturalisation, or residency to foreigners convicted of discriminatory acts based on race, religion or national origin. This follows a proposed law from October that would make “terrorist apologism”, denying Israel’s existence, and the comparison of Jews or Israel to the Holocaust illegal.

In what has been called an attempt to silence pro-Palestinian campaigners, the UK introduced a new extremism definition in March last year that blocks “extremist” groups from receiving government funding and meeting officials.

Worryingly, there has not been enough public reaction against these authoritarian tendencies. In the Netherlands, public outrage focused on racist remarks that Dutch officials made in the aftermath of the violence.

There was some pushback when at the end of November, the Dutch parliament accepted a motion asking the government to collect data on the “norms and values” of Dutch citizens with a migration background. These data were supposed to “offer insights into [their] cultural integration” and help “address problems in a targeted manner”. Following outrage on social media about the clearly discriminatory proposal, the Dutch prime minister promised not to act on the motion.

But there has not been a larger scale mobilisation to protest against and stop any of the other repressive measures from being implemented. This is the case elsewhere in Europe, as well.

Europeans have to understand that defending freedom of speech concerns not only Palestinians and those expressing solidarity with them. European history is full of examples where repression targeting one group expands to include others as well.

We must demand that our governments protect people’s rights to speak up and take action against Israel’s genocide in Gaza, as well as European complicity in it. Ignoring the issue would allow authoritarianism to spread in Europe unabated.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

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