Overview

• Mayor Daria Henning used an Allgemeinverfügung to outlaw gatherings with placards or speeches near the Evangelical Martinskirche
• Officials pointed to recent hand-to-hand altercations and a year of antisemitic insults and graffiti as grounds for the prohibition
• Pastor Ralf Sedlak’s October 2023 sermon expressing solidarity with Israeli victims of Hamas has triggered weekly pro-Palestine protests that escalated over months
• City authorities said they only met the legal threshold for restricting demonstrations after balancing the right to assembly against the right to religious freedom
• Landesbischof Ernst-Wilhelm Gohl welcomed the order and prosecutors are pursuing multiple insult charges against the protests’ main organizer