Waves of protesters are refusing to comply with the latest crackdowns on dissent, but the penalties are higher in Starmer’s Labour Britain than in Trump’s autocratic United States, writes LINDA PENTZ GUNTER

LAST THURSDAY, April 11 2024, Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah, the British-Palestinian war surgeon, gave his first address as the newly appointed rector of Glasgow University, chosen in recognition of his work at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza.
The following day he flew to Berlin, where he had been invited to address a major conference about Palestine. On arrival, he was taken away by police, interrogated for several hours and eventually told he had to leave Germany and wouldn’t be allowed to return until at least the end of April.
Any attempt to speak to the conference via Zoom could result in a fine or even a year’s prison sentence. By the time he was released, he couldn’t have taken part in the conference anyway, since it had been already invaded by at least 900 police and closed down. Berlin’s mayor said that it was “intolerable” that the conference was taking place at all.




A judge in a German court ruled that the ban activity imposed on renowned Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah was unlawful, reports LEON WYSTRYCHOWSKI


