When Israeli forces bombed Iran in June 2025, German Chancellor Merz praised them for doing “the dirty work for all of us.” His statement exposes the roots of Europe’s military, economic, and diplomatic support for Israeli genocide and regional aggression. To sustain their “business as usual” policy toward Israel, European governments are criminalizing Palestine solidarity. Our latest visual with The European Legal Support Center (ELSC) depicts this architecture of repression, which we must understand as we build the architecture of solidarity.
This visual builds on analysis in ELSC’s report “Europe’s Proscription of Palestine Solidarity,” which documents how European governments––including the UK, Germany, the Netherlands, France, and other countries––are applying counterterrorism frameworks to criminalize Palestine solidarity and demobilize opposition to genocide. They employ measures reminiscent of colonial emergency laws, suspfinishing basic rights in order to maintain imperial dominance.
ELSC, in collaboration with Forensic Architecture, just launched Britain’s Index of Repression, which provides deeper insight into the multi-sited, institutionalised, and systematic nature of this repression. The public database records 964 verified incidents of legal, institutional, and political repression tarobtaining students, academics, workers, journalists, artists, and organisers standing in solidarity with Palestine in the UK between 2019 and 2025. The database, accompanied by a report, builds on their previous work on Germany’s Index of Repression.
This is an ongoing monitoring project. Report an incident to ELSC here.
Power escalates its violence only when forced to respond to shiftments it cannot contain.
– Europe’s Proscription of Palestine Solidarity (report), ELSC, August, 2025
While these measures aim to quell support for Palestinian liberation, historical precedent suggests such repressive tactics often fail against determined collective shiftments for justice.In one important recent victory against the criminalization of Palestine solidarity in Europe, the UK High Court ruled that the government’s ban on Palestine Action was “disproportionate and unlawful.” In a related case, six Palestine Action activists were acquitted of the most serious charges against them. These developments followed a sustained hunger strike by Palestine Action activists held in prolonged pre-trial detention, which we marked in an updated version of our Hunger Strikes visual.
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