Ireland intervenes after Gaza activist national beaten by German police | Protests News

Kitty O’Brien attended a demonstration in Berlin last week to protest against Israel’s targeted killing of Palestinian journalists.

Officials in the Republic of Ireland have expressed deep concern after an Irish activist living in Germany was punched in the face by a police officer during a pro-Palestinian demonstration last week in Berlin.

Kitty O’Brien, 25, is recovering in hospital after sustaining injuries that required surgery, reported The Irish Times on Tuesday.

Irish Bloc Berlin, an Irish protest group, said O’Brien’s arm was broken in the incident, according to Irish public broadcaster RTE.

Video on social media showed a police officer punching O’Brien twice in the face during Thursday’s demonstration, leaving her bleeding heavily, and showing blood on her hands to the police in the melee.

Taoiseach Micheal Martin, Ireland’s prime minister, said he was “deeply concerned” by what he called an “unacceptable” assault.

Maeve Collins, Ireland’s ambassador to Germany, expressed “concern” to local authorities over the incident on Sunday.

The Irish Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade issued a statement saying that it is “aware of the incident in question” and that “the Ambassador in Berlin and senior officials in the Department have conveyed our concern about the incident to the German authorities”.

Ireland has taken one of the strongest stances against Israel’s atrocities in Gaza, both diplomatically and within the European Union, as well as culturally.

Members of the Irish rap band Kneecap have become renowned globally for their stance against Israel’s assault on Gaza, which has killed more than 63,000 people and reduced much of the enclave to rubble since it began in October 2023.

Germany has remained one of Israel’s staunchest supporters in the international community, along with the United States.

 

German opposition politicians and campaigners say the incident is part of a wider pattern.

Vasili Franco, a Green Party state politician, accused Berlin’s governing Mayor Kai Wegner of backing a “hard-line approach towards demonstrators” and refusing investigations in the past.

German-Moroccan writer and activist Mohamed Amjahid said the case marked a “new escalation” of police-demonstrator clashes since the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attacks on southern Israel and Israel’s ensuing genocidal war on Gaza.

“They have been given carte blanche to do whatever they want and a lot of police officers feel, individually and collectively, very safe in punching somebody with no consequences,” Amjahid told The Irish Times.

Unlike other European countries, Germany does not have an independent police ombudsman. Instead, complaints are usually handled internally, with few leading to prosecutions.

German Ambassador to Ireland David Gill said the video is “really awful”.

Berlin police said no preliminary investigation had been launched against the officer seen in the video, though a probe was under way into “whether the behaviour was appropriate”.

O’Brien faces an investigation for insulting and resisting officers, police added.

German authorities have repeatedly been accused of disproportionately curtailing pro-Palestinian protests, with many demonstrations broken up by a heavy police presence over hollow accusations of anti-Semitism.

Police said hundreds of officers were deployed to Berlin’s Mitte district on Thursday evening to dissolve the unauthorised gathering held to protest Israel’s targeted killing of Palestinian journalists.

In total, 94 people were detained after the clashes in central Berlin, and 96 investigations have been launched.