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    • “Shame on you”: defendants speak in court – Notes from the Ulm5 Trial, 27 and 29 July

      “Shame on you”: defendants speak in court – Notes from the Ulm5 Trial, 27 and 29 July

      Old as the olive trees, July 29, video: Judith Scheytt

      This follow-up report covering trial days 13 and 14 on the ongoing Ulm5 proceedings is based on the trial observation by Insa Lee Koch on Monday 27 July and Aino Korvensyrjä on Wednesday 29 July. Insa was able to take notes during the trial due to a press accreditation, while Aino had to write up her observations after the trial. The report is also based on reconstructions developed in consultation with other court observers and attendants. All quotations are approximate rather than verbatim.

      Trial Day 13, 27th July (Insa)

      When I arrive at court on the morning of 27th July, the solidarity is once again running strong. A coach has arrived from Berlin carrying friends of the defendants and activists, some dressed as colourful clowns and charlatans in white puffy skirts, red and black tops, with their noses painted red. They are not the only ones who have come for today’s hearing. As I make my way into court and into the public gallery, I can see it is packed once again with family members, friends and members of the public. Vi’s brother is there. Vi cries when they spot their loved one in the public gallery. They did not know their brother would come. Two women who were imprisoned with Zo have also come, standing up and waving with big smiles as Zo is brought in. Zo’s face lights up when their eyes meet across the courtroom.

      The two women tell me that they have been banned from visiting Zo in prison, so the court hearings are their only opportunity to see and to support them. While we are chatting before proceedings begin, one of the court officers wearing riot-like gear approaches us and tells one of them that she cannot wear her tinted glasses in court. “Why?”, she asks. “Not allowed” is the brisk response, before he takes her out to hand her glasses to another officer who will lock them away for the court day (Later that day, a similar scene will unfold when officers ask another member of the public to remove their bandana, explaining that head coverings are permitted only for religious reasons.).

      Applications

      Proceedings begin late again, at 10.30 am. The court opens with a moving statement from Vi about the seating arrangements – something that the lawyers have made applications about many times before. With a clear and loud voice, composed and calm, Vi speaks about how, on the thirteenth day of the trial, she and her comrades still remain cut off from their own trial, separated from both their lawyers and the proceedings by a glass wall.

      Vi describes the arrangement as “shameful” (beschämend), arguing that it continues to dehumanise them while, outside, Germany’s largest aerospace exhibition (ILA) is taking place, where Elbit Systems is exhibiting military technology promoted as “battle-tested”. While attendees enjoy the exhibition as a family-friendly event, Vi tells the court, the same military technology on display is used to kill children and families elsewhere. Vi’s statement, which also functions as yet another application for the defendants to sit with their lawyers, is followed by the defence’s usual applications: to allow the proceedings to be transcribed by a designated transcriber seated with the lawyers; to permit members of the public to take notes (and, in particular, to allow MoP Nicole Gohlke from Die Linke to do so during her trial observation today).

      The ruling

      None of these applications are new. Yet today, for the first time, out of the blue and for no evident reason, Kathrin Lauchstädt, the presiding judge, has more to say, issuing a ruling (Verfügung) in relation to two of them: previous applications concerning the courtroom seating arrangements and the defendants’ request to speak with their lawyers in the holding cells during breaks without a separation wall. Everyone listens attentively as the presiding judge begins her ruling by rejecting both requests, along with a previous application by lawyer Düsberg to stay the proceedings. The seating arrangement, she says, reflects the spatial design of the courtroom, which was built for defendants to sit behind a glass wall. To change these arrangements, she argues, would create too great a risk that the lawyers would disregard the court’s rules.

      She then lists what she describes as examples of alleged misconduct: on the first day of trial, the defence lawyers staged a collective walkout and, upon returning, seated themselves in the dock. More evidence of alleged misconduct follows. The lawyers have repeatedly addressed the public, despite knowing that the gallery had twice been cleared because of disturbances. Rejected applications are routinely met with comments bordering on insulting behaviour, she continues, while the defendants themselves have repeatedly initiated contact through silent applause (“stiller Applaus” – waving both hands in the air), and communicated with one another from within the dock, including by exchanging notes. Therefore, she concludes, she sees no reason to ‘relax’ the seating arrangements.

      Disciplining and punishing

      The audience is stunned. This is the first time the judge has given a substantive ruling on these applications, yet it sounds less like a legal decision than an act of discipline and punishment—the lawyers later use both words in court to describe her ruling.  They request a three-hour break and, when they return—while the mothers and other family members, clowns and other supporters had spent the time seeking shade from the scorching sun in a nearby café and the gazebo outside—the lawyers are prepared.

      Speaking collectively, passing the floor from one to another, they present a forceful rebuttal. None of the reasons given by the judge, they argue, can be justified on grounds of security. On the contrary, they tell the court, the ruling is designed to curtail the rights of both the defendants and their lawyers.  Among them, they argue that the courtroom has sufficient space for all defendants to sit beside their lawyers, while the intercom system makes confidential and effective communication impossible.

      The lawyers also insist that their actions on the first day of trial were neither irrational nor unlawful but a pragmatic response after being denied the opportunity to make urgent applications (“unaufschiebbare Anträge”), including applications alleging judicial bias. Sitting in the glass dock, they argue, was the only way they would have been able to communicate confidentially at all with their clients that day.

      An absurd logic

      The outrage expressed in the lawyers’ response brings into sharp focus what seems evident to many in the public gallery: that this ruling is not simply about seating arrangements. Much more is at stake – namely, the court’s desperate construction of the defendants, and by extension of their lawyers and supporters, as dangerous collectives in need of discipline, policing and pre-emptive punishment. It is precisely this construction of a collective threat, implied by the ruling, that more than one lawyer ridicules in their response today. If silent applause is considered a security threat, lawyer Schuster argues, then surely a smile from the prosecutor or the raising of an eyebrow should be treated in the same way – an implication that would inevitably expose the judge to the “Vorwurf der Lächerlichkeit” (the accusation of rendering herself ridiculous).

      Lawyer Busl, meanwhile, argues that the judge’s conclusion that she sees no reason to relax the seating arrangement exposes the logical flaw in her own reasoning. The seating arrangement was never an inevitability. More importantly, she suggests, the judge’s wording applies the language not of the courts but of the carceral system, and reveals the underlying purpose of the ruling: not to safeguard the defendants’ legal rights, but to establish a moral relationship in which they must first “earn” the right to sit with their lawyers, much like prisoners who receive privileges only through good behaviour.

      The power of expression

      It comes as little surprise, when, after another fifteen-minute break, the judge confirms that her ruling will stand. The lawyers show no visible reaction. I can see some of the defendants and members of the public laughing quietly, some look despondent, and, above all, exhausted. Before proceedings conclude for the day, however, the lawyers make one final series of applications: that the panel of judges recuse itself on the grounds of apparent judicial bias displayed again on that day. The judge gives the defence until Thursday, 30 July, at 11 am to submit the application.

      As the defendants are handcuffed and led back to the holding cells, Mimi, mother of Daniel, unexpectedly finds herself leading a chant for the first time in her life. “Free, free Ulm Five.” “I have no idea how that happened,” she tells me later. Her voice is clear and strong. Again and again, the public responds in echo, the chant building into a crescendo that fills the entire courtroom.

      Later, Mimi tells me that the “note” exchanged between the defendants—which the judge had cited in her ruling as evidence of alleged misconduct—was, in fact, a quotation Leandra had shared with the others in the dock. It was her favourite line from Pessoa: “To express something is to preserve its virtue and to remove its terror.”

      Trial Day 14, 29 July 2026 (Aino)

      I arrive early on 29 July. While waiting in the long security queue, slowed down by procedures that seem to serve no other purpose than to delay the public’s attendance, I meet others facing prosecution for actions against German companies’ support for genocide. We exchange experiences. Since October 2023, I have observed numerous trials in Berlin targeting solidarity with Palestine and, before then, many others through my research and antiracist organising in southern Germany. One organiser tells us they have left Germany because of the repression while continuing their political work abroad.

      Once inside, the room slowly fills with familiar and new faces: relatives and friends of the defendants, activists from different campaigns and groups, and others whose reporting from Stammheim I have followed closely. Behind the bulletproof glass sit the lawyers of the Ulm5 from Berlin and southern Germany, many of whom are known as much for their longstanding involvement in antiracist and left movements as for their defence work. After a brief singing lesson, we begin singing in canon the song that has on previous occasions filled the public gallery:

      Old as the olive trees

      The wisdom of those who fight to be free

      Land and people will thrive

      In a free Palestine

      As the defendants are brought in, some members of the public clap; others keep singing. Vi, Zo, Leandra, Crow, and Daniel join in, singing this song they sang inside the Elbit Systems Ulm factory in September 2025. We meet each other’s gaze. The judges arrive, and the presiding judge, Kathrin Lauchstädt, calls for silence, bringing this moving moment of collective defiance to an end. The melody lingers in a low hum, exposing the fragility of her authority. The singing and humming will resurface throughout the day in this room, after the pauses to welcome the defendants, in the corridors and outside – and later in social media posts heard by tens of thousands in Germany and abroad (see the video at the beginning of the report).

      Applications

      Leandra speaks first. In a Southern Cone Spanish accent, with eloquence and sharp irony, she challenges the seating arrangement, an issue discussed at the previous hearing, and many times before. Her question to the presiding judge in June about why the defendants were kept physically isolated, as though they posed an imminent danger to everyone in the courtroom, has yet to receive a satisfactory answer. Anyone “with two eyes”, she notes, can see there is space for her between her two lawyers, making the court’s argument about courtroom design untenable and outright “absurd”. Although previous motions have been rejected, she reminds the court that the fundamental rights at stake are non-negotiable. “In our neighbourhood (en nuestro barrio)”, she says, “they would call this an abuse of power”. She links the highly restrictive seating order, the public’s note-taking ban, and the wider proceedings to an attempt to portray the defendants, lawyers, and supporters as dangerous, calling this a “show trial” (juicio show). This is another word that has been used repeatedly during the trial.

      Foto: Ignacio Rosaslanda

      In response, Senior Public Prosecutor Ronny Stengel once again cites a Stuttgart Higher Regional Court ruling on a complaint related to this trial that has been invoked in previous hearings, according to which the seating arrangement reflects the courtroom’s design while respecting both the presumption of innocence and the defendants’ fundamental rights. Daniel’s lawyer Düsberg replies that Leandra already noted the circularity of this reasoning. He compares it to Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s assurances to the Irish press that defendants’ rights are respected in Stammheim. These statements came in response to critical statements by the Irish parliamentary delegation who attended the trial and visited Daniel in prison the previous week. Ignoring the judge’s attempts to cut him off, Düsberg then stands to welcome German MEP Martin Sonneborn (Die PARTEI), who is attending the hearing and is seated with his assistants in the public gallery. The lawyer sarcastically praises the courtroom’s “glass installations”, which, he suggests, allow Germany to compete with Russia in the “first league”. Like Leandra’s remarks, the comment draws quiet laughter from the public.

      The defence then re-files applications to permit note-taking by the public, to allow a note-taking assistant for the defence, and to allow lawyers to meet privately with their clients during breaks without a glass partition. Crow’s lawyer Maja Beisenherz notes that such arrangements are standard in other cases heard in the same building.

      Lawyer Nina Onèr presents a motion on behalf of Zo, whose wrists have been damaged by regular transports in heavy-duty handcuffs. Since the trial began in April, they have suffered persistent bruising, pressure marks, swelling, and pain, and have recently begun to experience numbness. The court has ignored repeated warnings from Zo and the defence, as well as defence efforts to secure alternative transport arrangements through the prison. The injuries, Onèr argues, require urgent documentation and examination to prevent lasting neurological damage. With carefully restrained fury, she accuses the court of avoiding responsibility:  instead of initiating any action, the court has given the prison until the end of July to state its position. Citing the German Basic Law and the European Convention on Human Rights, she invokes the rights to bodily integrity and a fair trial, as well as the prohibition of torture.

      After a short adjournment, the presiding judge announces that a forensic medical expert involved in parallel proceedings in the same building, Dr Hohner, could examine the matter. The judge appears more concerned with establishing fitness to stand trial (Verhandlungsfähigkeit) than with the pain and damage already caused.

      State racism in action

      Crow then speaks, passionately, addressing Zo as their brother:

      “I appreciate the gesture of bringing in a doctor to check our hands. Nonetheless, I am upset and angry that this took more than ten hearings. Shame on you. You sit there with bored faces while my brother is in pain. We could see the marks on his hands from over here. Shame on you for hiding behind the law and misusing it to enforce suffering and torture on my brother. Shame on you for using our health and our rights as bargaining chips in your sadistic games of power. Shame on you for using our attempt to stop a genocide (…) to stage a show trial against us and terrorise us and the public. Shame on you. Shame on the judges. Shame on the prosecutor.”

      In the public gallery, I cannot help but think: Why is Zo, a Black person, subjected to this form of violence, while state authorities simultaneously deny that it is taking place? I remember a press conference where their mother, Nicky, spoke about the torture and abuse they had been subjected to after their arrest; they were left naked in a cell with only a nappy and denied medical attention. I am reminded of the accounts shared by Black people I met during research and antiracist court watching in southern Germany over the past decade. They spoke of violent abuse and intimidation at the hands of state authorities and guards in pre-trial detention centres, immigration detention facilities, asylum camps, and police stations not far from where we sit. In the German criminal legal system, just like the immigration enforcement regime, infliction of pain and inhumane treatment are heavily racialised.

      Lawyer Matthias Schuster reminds the court that the real issue is not fitness to stand trial but the shackling itself, which is physically harmful and humiliating, and cannot be justified by any danger posed by the defendants or by their conduct. The judge calls a one-hour recess, during which Dr Hohner examines Zo and Daniel, who also reported injuries. Rather than being an independent medical practitioner, Hohner works for the Society for Forensic Medical Examinations and Expert Assessments (GRUS GmbH), a Tübingen-based agency that provides expert reports for this court.

      The witness

      After the break, it takes me almost an hour to re-enter the building due to security controls. In the meantime, the doctor has already delivered their statement, confirming injuries commonly associated with the use of handcuffs. She recommended Zo to wear wrist warmers or socks between the handcuffs and their wrist.

      Then Mr Kienast is questioned as a witness. He was one of the police officers involved in searching Leandra’s phone after her arrest. His face looms large from the big screens on either side of the courtroom, amplifying the familiar theatrics of the trained police testimony. In response to defence questions, he repeatedly cites the limits of his authorisation to testify, refusing to answer questions about inter-agency cooperation, internal matters, and working practices, a justification repeatedly invoked by police witnesses in this trial. For instance, he withholds information about the software used to search Leandra’s phone, including its name and the search terms employed, and about his cooperation with Mr Gropp, an officer previously heard as a witness.

      Leandra’s defence confronts him with documents from the case file, including an extraction report generated by UFED (Universal Forensic Extraction Device), a software developed by the Israeli company Cellebrite. In this way, more than 10,000 images on Leandra’s phone were examined to identify nine or ten deemed “relevant to the proceedings”. Kienast acknowledges having little substantive knowledge of the topic of Palestine himself. He repeatedly appears to conflate “Palestine Action” with “Palestine-related actions”, for instance by presenting them as alternatives separated by a slash (Schrägstrich). This creates the impression that any Palestine-related action is associated with the UK-based group.

      Mathes Breuer asks whether Cellebrite’s Israeli origin poses a potential conflict of interest in the investigations. Implicit in this is the question whether software developed by an Israeli company might treat support for Palestine as inherently suspicious. More fundamentally, the issue is this: what does it mean when German authorities investigate actions targeting a German subsidiary of an Israeli arms manufacturer while relying on Israeli-developed surveillance technology? Kienast says he has never considered the matter and was unaware of the company’s origins.

      Several of his answers provoke quiet laughter in the public gallery, for instance, when he initially refuses to answer the defence whether he has met the Senior Public Prosecutor, Ronny Stengel. Given the routine cooperation between police and prosecutors in German criminal investigations, the question seems unremarkable. Pressed further, Kienast concedes that such meetings are possible but says he cannot remember how many took place. At one point, the presiding judge admonishes the public, insisting that the courtroom is not a place “to laugh at people” (auszulachen).

      Applications concerning Elbit Systems Germany

      Nearly four hours into the hearing, more substantial material is introduced. Düsberg submits an application to take evidence, seeking to admit delivery records from the global transport and logistics company DSV. These document shipments of military goods from Elbit Systems Germany’s Ulm facility to Israeli ports and airports between March and October 2025, both before and after the defendants entered the site. He argues that this evidence will establish that the defendants’ actions were justified under § 32 StGB (Notwehr), which permits necessary defensive action against an unlawful attack and encompasses the defence of others (Nothilfe).

      The attack consists of “war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide in Gaza”, in which the defence argues the Elbit group is complicit through its near-monopolistic role in supplying the Israeli military. Moreover, Elbit weapons systems used in Gaza are subsequently marketed as “battle-proven”. The shipments in question include laser warning systems and military communications equipment. Düsberg refers to reports by the Irish magazine Ditch that deliveries continued into May 2026. He further requests that arms-trade researcher Ruth Rhode of Shadow World Investigations UK be heard as a witness. Rhode is expected to testify on the nature and military uses of Elbit technologies in Gaza and elsewhere, including the E-LynX software-defined radio system, artillery rockets and guns, laser target markers, and surveillance systems.

      In a further motion, Beisenherz requests that Jan Erbe, Vice President of Elbit Systems Germany, and Haim Delmar, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Elbit Systems Ltd., be heard as witnesses. They are expected to testify to Elbit Systems Germany’s key role in developing integrated military information and communications systems, including the E-LynX communications system. Produced by Elbit Systems Germany, E-LynX is used by various countries’ armed forces and is being further developed with the Bavarian start-up Cucuyo GmbH. It forms an integral part of the Israeli military’s tactical communications infrastructure, including in operations in Gaza. Referring to earlier applications to take evidence, including that of Düsberg and another one filed by Breuer on 22 July, Beisenherz argues that the evidence will establish that the defendants’ actions were justified under Section 32 StGB [Notwehr/Nothilfe].

      A 2,5 week recess

      The court reserves its decision on the applications for later. Defence lawyer Onèr notes that, rather than investigating Elbit, the proceedings have been repeatedly delayed. As the chamber enters a further 2.5-week recess, she urges the judges to think of the five human rights activists held in overheated cells for opposing a genocide, recalling Crow’s remarks at the opening of the hearing. The public responds with applause before Kathrin Lauchstädt restores order.

      Shortly after 3 p.m., the hearing ends. The public again applauds and chants, “Free, free Palestine, free, free ULM5”, in farewell to Vi, Zo, Leandra, Crow, and Daniel. We file out through the security gates, humming and singing the olive-tree melody, before gathering at the roundabout to wave to the defendants. They will remain in isolation until 14 August, when the next hearing is scheduled, again at 9 a.m.

    • Absurd and Unjust: Notes from the 11th Day of Trial on July 22

      Absurd and Unjust: Notes from the 11th Day of Trial on July 22

      Irish parliamentary delegation in front of the bulletproof glass partition in the courtroom; photo: Ignacio Rosaslanda

      At last, I managed to travel from Berlin and spend a day observing the “Ulm5” trial: the 11th day of proceedings on Wednesday, July 22. Much has already been written here about the surrounding circumstances and the location itself, from the concrete wasteland of the prison complex to the people who gather in solidarity from early in the morning. Therefore, I will focus mainly on the course of the trial itself, which by the end of the day should make the absurdities of these proceedings plainly visible.

      As a journalist, I have the privilege of taking a press seat and bringing a computer, pen, and paper with me. What may not sound particularly remarkable is, in this specific trial, a notable privilege indeed. “Ordinary” visitors are denied these items because pens could supposedly be used as weapons. At least that seems to be the court’s reasoning. It is the same reasoning that led them to move the proceedings to this notorious high-security venue and to treat and present the five defendants (Daniel Tatlow-Devally, an Irish citizen; Leandra Rollo, Spanish; Zo Hailu and Crow Tricks, British; and Vi Kovarbasic, German) as if they were dangerous terrorists. They have been held in pre-trial detention for more than nine months and are brought into court in handcuffs.

      Or perhaps they are treated even worse than terrorists. One of today’s absurdities is that, in the courtroom next door, a trial is taking place against the Reichsbürger group that planned to overthrow Germany’s democratic order and heavily armed itself to do so. Despite the clearly documented militancy of those defendants, they face less drastic security measures than the “Ulm5”. For example, pre-trial detention has been suspended for some individual Reichsbürger defendants.

      For today’s hearing, a group of Irish parliamentarians has travelled to observe the proceedings because Daniel is an Irish citizen. Even they are prohibited from bringing pen and paper into the courtroom. Given their parliamentary rights and immunity, that alone is astonishing. But many aspects of the circumstances surrounding this trial are extraordinary.

      Today, admission proceeds smoothly. The security checks are similar to those at an airport, and the court officers are friendly. Only the physical search is somewhat more thorough, and shoes are checked separately. By 9 a.m., most observers are already in the courtroom. Behind an estimated 2.5-meter-high pane of bulletproof glass, all approximately 70 seats are occupied. The trial is supposed to begin now, but nothing happens. Six court officers are present in the room, apparently fewer than on other trial days. Some speculate that this is a concession to the Irish parliamentarians. Will today’s hearing be different?

      It is not until 10:15 a.m. that proceedings finally begin. The five defendants are brought in wearing handcuffs, greeted by applause and calls from the audience: “Free Ulm5!” The young defendants smile gratefully. They appear so confident, so friendly, so upright; yet at the same time it is clear that this is a rare moment of strength and empowerment, standing in sharp contrast to the painful and damaging days they endure in prison. Vi recently described this movingly in a letter.

      Here in the courtroom, they make the heart gesture again. Because of the handcuffs, it remains an offset, divided heart. The “Ulm5” are once again seated in a narrow enclosure separated by bulletproof glass, isolated from their defence lawyers. This is a situation that has been described as unworthy of Germany’s judicial system ever since the trial began, and it is once again raised today. The trial has been running for several months, and nothing has changed about these questionable conditions.

      The presiding judge, Kathrin Lauchstädt, initially strikes me as unobtrusive and reserved. She establishes who is present, and then the proceedings begin with a statement from Zo. Zo first requests that the absurd seating arrangement in the courtroom be abolished so that the five defendants can sit with their lawyers. Secondly, Zo requests that conversations before the trial and during breaks be allowed without a separating barrier, since even outside the courtroom the lawyers are unable to speak directly with their clients. The seating arrangement has apparently been justified up to now on the grounds of limited space. But Zo, and later the defence lawyers as well, make it clear that this is merely a pretext. Alternative courtrooms are available, they argue, and those rooms would even offer more space for the public. Furthermore, trials have already been held in the same court where defendants were allowed to sit beside their lawyers.

      During Zo’s statement, their voice cannot be heard because the microphone is switched off. The content only becomes understandable through the German interpretation spoken by the translator. The defence lawyers interrupt and request that arrangements be made so that Zo’s remarks in English can be heard directly. After all, there are English-speaking people present in the courtroom, not least the members of parliament from Ireland.

      These are the kinds of small, seemingly obvious things that repeatedly fail to function and then have to be addressed by the court in a time-consuming and cumbersome manner. At this point, the judge orders a recess for a “technical review”. After an eleven-minute break, Zo continues. Their voice can now be heard, along with the subsequent translation.

      “It’s always the same”, Zo says. “On every day of the trial, the technology here doesn’t work properly. A huge amount of time is being wasted while we are wearing these very painful handcuffs and our pretrial detention continues.”[1] Being seated with their lawyers, Zo argues, is an absolutely fundamental right, and a genuine defence is simply impossible without direct communication, coordination, and the ability to review documents together.

      Zo then asks: “Is the court really so afraid of what would happen if we moved out of the glass cage?”

      The entire setup is absurd. These five young people recorded themselves carrying out their action, allowed themselves to be arrested without resistance, and have behaved in a completely cooperative and peaceful manner ever since. Yet they, and even the spectators attending the trial, are subjected to a sweeping presumption that they are potentially dangerous, violent criminals. The contrast between this assumption and these thoughtful, calm, smiling, warm-hearted young people could hardly be greater.

      Warm-heartedness is probably not a common feature of court proceedings, and certainly not of this one. Senior public prosecutor Ronny Stengel, who appears largely detached, never changes expression. Whenever motions are submitted, even those seeking only the smallest improvements to these absurd trial and detention conditions, the response is repeated like a mantra: the prosecution has already commented on the matter or will submit a written statement. No reasons are ever given. According to the senior prosecutor, the seating arrangement does not violate the right to a fair trial. That is the only response to Zo’s statement and to the defence motion requesting that it be changed.

      Vi also reiterates: “We’ve been in court for three months, and being unable to sit with my defence team severely restricts me. As a defendant, I have the right to speak with my lawyers! I can’t imagine that this is supposed to continue for another three months.”

      The defence lawyers point out that, during their conversations before the proceedings begin each morning, their clients must stand bent over for up to an hour in order to communicate through the partition. Defence attorney Matthias Schuster states: “Whoever designed this room has no understanding of the fundamental principles of the rule of law. These conditions are unworthy of a defence in a constitutional state.” Defence attorney Maja Beisenherz points out that, in the parallel Reichsbürger proceedings, the lawyers are permitted to enter the cell area and speak directly with their clients there. And defence attorney Benjamin Düsberg underscores the point by inviting the judge to personally sit in the defence position and assess the conditions herself: “I’d be happy to conduct the hearing while you’re doing that.”

      The criticism of the difficult conditions facing the defence becomes so concentrated that the prosecution requests a 30-minute adjournment unless “a return to a factual discussion”  can be achieved. Defence attorney Mathes Breuer criticises these repeated threats of adjournments, which have characterised the trial throughout, as an unlawful means of discipline.

      At this point, the judge wants to postpone further motions, arguing that a witness has already been waiting for more than an hour to be questioned. However, it was the judge and her colleagues who were responsible for the delayed start of the proceedings in the first place.

      Attorney Düsberg makes this point clear and then simply takes the opportunity to welcome the seven Irish parliamentarians: “Welcome to Germany, welcome to Stammheim.” As he addresses them in English and urges them to tell the world about these proceedings, whose circumstances he says are more reminiscent of Russia, the senior prosecutor begins gesticulating wildly, and the judge loses patience. She orders a 30-minute adjournment, switches off Düsberg’s microphone, and leaves the courtroom together with the prosecution. For the “Ulm5”, this means that the handcuffs go back on, they are transported back to their cells, and they once again have no direct contact with their lawyers. After the half-hour break, they are brought back into the courtroom to the applause of the spectators.

      These interruptions are clearly intended to intimidate the defence. Instead, however, they reveal the judge’s lack of composure. When asked about the purpose of the adjournment, she snaps loudly: “This is not a discussion forum!” She also claims that Düsberg should not have addressed the Irish visitors in English: “The proceedings are conducted in German. The language of the court here is German.” The scene reminded me of Guido Westerwelle, who, after the FDP’s electoral success in 2009, when he was the incoming foreign minister, rebuked an English-speaking journalist as a show of worldly sophistication by saying: “Just as it is customary to speak English in Great Britain, it is customary to speak German here”, before emphasising once more: “…this is Germany.”

      Yes, this is Germany. All of the defence lawyers criticise what has by now become quite obvious: the court is dragging out the proceedings through delays and adjournments. Above all, the concrete motions by the defence are not being properly addressed, let alone granted. Not even the request that the Irish members of parliament be allowed to use pen and paper. Eventually, a police officer takes the stand. At the previous hearing, the officer had refused to answer part of the questioning, citing “internal police procedures”. Now, however, the officer is being required to testify on those matters after all, one of the rare instances in which a defence motion has actually been granted. The questioning focuses on what access the officer had to the case files in order to prepare for giving testimony.

      After the witness testimony, repeated requests are once again made to allow the Irish parliamentarians to take notes. Yet the supposedly dangerous weapon of a pen remains forbidden to them for the rest of the day.

      And after all these small, nerve-racking, and pointless legal skirmishes, a substantive section begins, even before the lunch break. This part concerns not procedural details but the alleged war crimes that the defence argues motivated the actions of the “Ulm5”.

      To begin with, defence attorney Breuer requests that the managing director of Elbit Systems Deutschland be summoned as a witness. First, he argues that the German subsidiary of Elbit supplied high-frequency communications technology without which the devastating conduct of the war in Gaza would not have been possible in its current form. Second, he contends that Elbit Systems Deutschland, through its capabilities, forms an integral part of the overall corporation and therefore cannot be separated from it. Elbit, and thus also Elbit Systems Deutschland, has therefore, in his view, supported genocide and other crimes relevant under international criminal law.

      What follows is a lengthy presentation on the death toll in Gaza, the high proportion of civilians among those killed, the widespread destruction of living conditions and healthcare infrastructure, the use of starvation as a weapon of war, and the broader horrors unfolding in Gaza. Several massacres in which civilians and aid workers lost their lives are discussed as examples. Among them is the attack on a World Central Kitchen convoy, in which seven aid workers were killed. According to the defence’s argument, the drone used in that attack was equipped with radio communications technology supplied by Elbit Systems Deutschland.

      Breuer then turns to the arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) and begins quoting, in the original English, from the reasoning behind the warrants for Prime Minister Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Gallant. Once again, a confusing scene unfolds. The judge insists that the presentation be made in German; otherwise, she argues, the text cannot form part of the court proceedings. In passing, she also makes a racist remark, saying that one cannot simply “tell something in Swahili” in court. When the interpreters attempt to translate the arrest warrant, the judge rejects that approach as well and escapes into the lunch break. She declares that from now on submissions will be made exclusively in German, despite having accepted English-language submissions earlier in the proceedings.

      In the end, however, the judge decides that translation may continue after all. The solution is that the text will now be translated from English into German and then back into English again for the English-speaking participants in the proceedings, a procedure that appears entirely bizarre. The defence lawyers point out that these translations once again contribute to delaying the trial.

      During the lunch break, the Irish parliamentarians hold a press conference. Over the following hours and days, they continue to comment extensively on what they have witnessed. They say they are shocked by what they have seen, to the point that some characterise the proceedings as a “show trial” taking place in  Germany, or at the very least as a trial that is seriously violating the rights of five young people, including the Irish citizen Daniel.

      After the lunch break, Breuer continues his presentation on the ICC arrest warrant and the details of Elbit’s responsibility, which are now in fact being interpreted twice. Once again, the court’s focus appears to be on formalities and minor procedural issues rather than on the substance of what is being presented: repeated crimes against humanity and serious war crimes identified by the International Criminal Court, as well as what numerous international experts and scholars of international law now assess as an attempt to destroy an entire population group, evidenced by the high proportion of children among those killed, repeated expressions of genocidal intent by Israeli politicians, and the carrying out of a genocide.

      According to the defence lawyers, Elbit, through its extensive contributions to this conduct of the war, is directly involved and therefore qualifies as a perpetrator under international criminal law. They argue that 65% of the drones, ground vehicles, and munitions used in Gaza are produced by Elbit. The company also provides AI systems for target identification. Through these systems, they claim, 850,000 targets in the Gaza Strip have been marked, an enormous number.

      According to the defence, Elbit Systems Deutschland plays a central role through its high-frequency communications technology. Without the transfer of technology within the company, the machinery of killing in Gaza could not continue to function in its present form. Elbit Systems Germany is a wholly owned subsidiary of Elbit, and products are supplied directly from Germany to the parent company. The corporation and its management therefore make their contribution knowingly and with full awareness of the conduct of the war, the lawyers argue, and the corporation’s actions can therefore be attributed to natural persons. In the defence’s view, this makes them accomplices, while the actions of the “Ulm5” amount to emergency assistance to prevent a greater harm.

      At the time of the action itself, in September 2025, the killing was still fully ongoing. (Although a ceasefire has been in place since 16 October 2025, it hardly deserves the name, given the continuing daily Israeli attacks, in which more than 1000 Palestinians have since been killed.) Only a short time before the action, further deliveries had been sent from Ulm to Israel. The defendants’ actions should therefore be understood as an attempt at prevention, the defence argues, because the hope of exerting a real influence on the continuation of the genocide, even if only by slowing it down or reducing its intensity, was entirely realistic. The presentation concludes with the assertion that the wrong people are sitting in the dock. It comes as no surprise when the prosecutor once again dismisses the presentation as legally irrelevant. Yet, as Benjamin Düsberg remarks, these are facts that the prosecutor himself ought to be presenting, or at the very least investigating.

      The proceedings then turn once more to the defendants’ extremely harsh detention and trial conditions. Motions are submitted concerning the fact that Vi is prohibited from making telephone calls in Schwäbisch Gmünd prison, that handcuffs and leg irons are always used during transport, and that the entire procedure is degrading. Vi considers these measures unjustified and unlawful.

      Zo then speaks again and describes this degrading treatment personally. Red marks on the wrists still hurt for hours after court sessions, and during the lengthy transports it is impossible to read, eat, or drink. There is no risk of escape, Zo argues. So why does this ongoing torture continue?

      Yet the court has not agreed to even the smallest improvement. The situation has become so absurd that a motion filed back in May, simply requesting a different type of handcuff that would allow slightly greater mobility, has not been granted. Even an artist who wishes to produce courtroom sketches is not permitted entry. It seems as though every motion has already been rejected before it is even submitted.

      Finally, transcripts of the videos that the five defendants produced to explain their actions are read aloud. At the end, Zo and Daniel each make further statements.

      Zo states: “At the time of my action, I knew that a genocide was being committed, that civilians were being killed every single day. It was precisely to prevent this that I acted, even if doing so might save only a single child from being killed by an Elbit drone. During the previous two years, I had already tried to achieve this goal through protests. But the massacre continued. And Germany continued exporting weapons. Even if one does not describe what is happening as genocide, everyone agrees that Israel has committed serious war crimes and crimes against humanity. Between June and our protest in September, Germany approved arms exports worth nearly three million euros. That was the motivation for my actions, and it is clearly visible in the video.”

      Daniel then begins a statement in English, which is to be translated into German by the interpreters. However, by the end of the long day, the interpreters also seem exhausted. Sentences are repeatedly interrupted and restarted, and the translation struggles to proceed smoothly. As a result, there is yet another interruption. In a further bizarre twist, Daniel, who speaks German quite well, ends up translating the text into German himself and continues in German after the break:

      “It has been a long time since we saw the relevant videos [this refers to the video material regarding the “Ulm5’s” action, including from surveillance videos, which were edited for use in court, and videos by the “Ulm 5” speaking about the motives for their action]. Despite the questionable editorial decisions made in that surveillance video, taken together with our own videos, it presents a clear picture.

      A picture of five people who have long recognised the injustice of the occupation of Palestine. Five people who, not without horror, discovered that the German authorities not only intended to allow arms companies based here to profit from mass killing, but also deliberately ignored all objections to this practice or dismissed them as nonsense. Five people who came to the sobering conclusion that they had a moral duty to stop shipments from Elbit in order to stop ongoing war crimes.

      The connections between our knowledge, our values, and our actions are clear and straightforward. To claim other motives would severely strain credibility. If the prosecutor believes that we were wrong about the genocide and Germany’s involvement in it, then he would have to engage with the fact that there is a great deal of thoroughly researched evidence supporting those claims.

      I have already spoken clearly about the accusations of antisemitism. They are baseless. In a fair and just system, the presentation of these videos would be sufficient to order our release from pretrial detention, if not to dismiss the charges entirely. Yet we are still here. And we fully intend to defend ourselves, day after day, against accusations whose sole purpose is to distract attention from Germany’s complicity in yet another crime against humanity.”

      A long day in court comes to an end, full of absurdities, trivialities, and wasted time. The lives of five young people continue to pass by while they remain imprisoned under extremely harsh conditions, having now spent ten months in pre-trial detention, while at the same time more Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank are killed each day with the very weapons that Germany supplies to Israel.

      [1]      This and all subsequent quotes are taken from the author’s notes; where possible they have been cross-checked. Nevertheless, minor discrepancies may occur; minimal corrections have been made to improve readability.

    • Playful: The police view on the Ulm5

      Playful: The police view on the Ulm5

      Picture showing, from left to right, Daniel, Crow, Leandra, Zo and Vi. Taken by Hebh Jamal, on 3rd July

      This report is based on my observations attending the trial of the Ulm5 on the 1st and 3rd of July. At the court, I got to know some of the mothers, families, friends, and activists who come to support them. I draw on my conversations and observations to continue Marion Detjen’s court watch reports, which covered proceedings up to day eight of the trial at Stammheim prison and can be accessed here and here. I focus on the afternoon of the 8th and 9th trial days (1st and 3rd July). Like all members of the public, I could not take notes because pens are considered a security threat by the judge. What follows is reconstructed from personal memory, conversations with the mothers of the defendants, and the records of other court attendants.

      I arrive at the courthouse on July 1st for the afternoon session, struck by the bleak surroundings, high security fencing, razor-wire, and stern looking officials in what seems like riot gear. The contrast with those here to express solidarity with the defendants is stark. These are, first and foremost, the mothers. I came because a mutual friend put me in touch with Nicky, the British mother of Zo. She greeted me with a big hug. Her warmth and openness are mirrored by the other mothers I meet: Vi’s mother and Mimi, Daniel’s mother. They come to trial as often as they can – to be a vigilant presence in the courtroom and to connect with their children. The court never sits on consecutive days, and, especially for family outside Germany, each day must be carefully planned, flights booked, accommodation organised, and time off work arranged. Some who wish to be there are unable to. And yet, the mothers say what they suffer is nothing compared to what their children are going through––Vi recently described some of the brutal conditions of their imprisonment in a six-page letter––, not to speak of  conditions in Palestine. 

      The mothers gratefully acknowledge support from activists and others. I witness this when I walk out of court with Nicky on my second court-watch day: a friendly stranger, wearing a hijab, who I had seen in the public gallery, walked up and offered her a place to stay whenever she is in Germany. People introduce themselves, express their solidarity, and cheer for the defendants as if they were family too. Outside, opposite the high-security prison adjoining the court, a gazebo is set up and decorated each day with art about Gaza, Palestinian flags, posters, books, and flyers. There is free water (water is not allowed in the courtroom – people drink from the tap in the toilets if they get thirsty) and snacks, mint tea and coffee, and people sit on the floor to get some shade. At the gazebo a sound system allows speeches to be made and music to be played.

      I meet activists from Baden-Württemberg and Cologne, locals who come in solidarity, students, and journalists. Some attend every trial day. The defence team give speeches and talk to family during breaks and after court. Perhaps most moving are moments of spontaneous solidarity from strangers beyond us: we hear a chant from behind the prison walls, “free, free Palestine!”, and supporters outside echo his words, adding “you are not alone!” When some people at the tent chant “free, free Palestine”, we hear an echo, again unseen, this time from the construction site next door. People laugh and respond. As Germany has repeatedly proscribed solidarity with Palestine, these moments become testimony to the strength of the struggle across the country.

      It is this solidarity – with all its strength, laughter and love – that appears to be on trial here. There are about thirty waiting outside the courthouse this afternoon. The mothers go to the front encouraged by other court attendees who know who they are. An officer instructs us to hand over passports, and disappears with them. We are brusquely instructed to keep our place in the queue, to enter in the same order as our passports. Only one person may enter the building at a time. There are more officers, stony faces, more questions. Once through the metal detector, a female officer gestures for me to enter a small windowless room. Family members of the Ulm5 and others have been sexually assaulted during this routine control. My security officer is not as invasive, only short tempered: she commands that I turn around and face the wall to firmly frisk me back and front. I am told to sit down, take off my shoes for checking; I must lift my feet so my socks can be checked too.

      The court is designed for trials of terrorism and national security matters. Its architecture and feel is more restrictive than any courtroom I have seen before. There are armed officers in the riot gear-like uniforms everywhere outside the courtroom, I count seven standing against the walls, and the courtroom itself is manned by more. The public is separated from proceedings and the defendants by a glass wall. The judge has on previous occasions cleared it when she felt it was too noisy and once paused proceedings and brought a member of the public who had made a noise to the bench and started reading out their personal details. Nicky, like the other mothers, is careful not to antagonise the judge for fear of being thrown out: trial days are a rare occasion when she can see her child and be a witness to the proceedings, and she does not want that to be taken away. “I will stand by my child who I taught principles of fairness”, she tells me. When the defendants are brought in, everyone in the public gallery stands up, people start clapping and cheering. The Ulm5 also smile and make eye contact with loved ones, they seem calm and composed; Mimi would later speak about “the atmosphere and stance of moral clarity” that surrounds them. The mothers and defendants form their hands into broken hearts. But Nicky and the other mothers remain silent when the public bursts into spontaneous chants of “Free, free Palestine” as they worry about the judge’s possible punitive reaction. When the judges walk in, the entire room falls silent.

      Day 8, 1st July 2026

      I rely on Seán Ó Maoilearna’s reconstruction for the first half of the court day. It began with a motion from defence lawyer for Zo, Nina Onèr, regarding separation from their clients by the glass wall. Communication is through an intercom, criticised by the lawyers for being unreliable and for its lack of privacy. Alternatively, the lawyers can speak to their clients in their cells but even there they remain separated from them through a glass wall. Onèr noted that in another trial in the same courthouse, of Reichsbürger conspirators who shot and injured two police officers, the same arrangement was not in place. In that case, defendants and defence meet during breaks in rooms without barriers. The prosecutor rejected the comparison to the Reichsbürger trial saying the same rules did not apply as some of the defendants were not on remand  (unlike the Ulm5 who have been detained for 10 months now).

      More requests were made: defence lawyers asked for an update on a previous application to record translations via the court’s microphones so as to check for accuracy, and an update on the application for the public to use pens and paper. No application was granted.

      The trial’s first witness was called, Bastian Gropp of the Baden-Württemberg state police (Landeskriminalamt) who wrote the police report on which the prosecution based their charges. Several members of the public would tell me later how nervous he seemed, his face twitching on several occasions. Gropp told the court upon questioning by the judge and the prosecution that he had not been present at the arrest of the Ulm5, nor did he visit Elbit Systems Deutschland. Only after the case began was he informed that the company produces night vision and radio transmission equipment. During cross-examination he confirmed that he had not investigated whether the case could be counted as ‘emergency assistance’ regarding war crimes or crimes against humanity committed by Elbit Systems. He also confirmed that the state prosecutor (Generalstaatsanwalt) advised that the role of Elbit Systems was irrelevant. Upon further questioning, he revealed he had met or telephoned with the prosecutor at least five times, but declined to say who had initiated this, where they had met, and who else had attended. Gropp affirmed his role was to establish facts that both incriminate and exonerate. However, exonerating facts were not investigated. The prosecutor interjected at this point that it had been clear from the outset that there were no grounds for justification.

      When I join the day’s proceedings, the witness has gone. The mood between defence, prosecution and judge is visibly tense. More than once, I hear members of the public comment that the morning revealed the bias in the investigation as any potential for justification had not been investigated; and that the witness had repeatedly claimed he was not authorised to answer questions put to him by the defence. The afternoon stretches out with long extracts from the investigation file read out by two judges on either side of the presiding judge: traces, damage, objects found on the site. Repeatedly, this refers to the incident as an “attack”. The public and defendants grow visibly bored as the passages – most seeming to involve accepted facts – are read out in a monotonous voice.

      For me, the most remarkable moment in the afternoon is what happens during the break. As soon as the judge calls a 5-minute break, the officers sitting with the defendants get up to handcuff them. They make moves to take the defendants down to the cell, but the public and lawyers protest by tapping the glass wall to indicate that their clients should be allowed to stay. The judge agrees, and almost immediately, three officers stand along the glass partition to disrupt the public’s view. “Hey, was machen Sie da? Warum machen Sie das?” (Hey, what are you doing there? Why are you doing that?), a woman who had been translating proceedings into English for Nicky and others, shouts. “Warum nicht” (why not?), comes the aggressive response. Some laugh in disbelief at this non-sequitur. Later, a defence lawyer brings this up in court, including that all five are handcuffed even for a five-minute break. The judge ignores this, claiming it is news to her, doesn’t say anything about the handcuffing, and the trial continues.

      Moments such as these are glimpses of resistance – by the defendants, public, and lawyers – and speak of the refusal to give in to the state’s disciplining of the singing, joy, and solidarity in- and outside the courtroom. Another moment that stands out is during a thirty-minute break. The public is growing tired. When we get back into the room, just before the judges come back in, some start to sing quietly, getting progressively louder:

      Old as the olive tree
      The will of those who fight to be free
      Land and people will thrive
      In a free Palestine

      People repeat the song as a canon, until the entire courtroom is filled with a beautiful harmony, a stark contrast to the monotony and legalistic language of the reports all afternoon. When the defendants are brought in, handcuffed, in single file, they join the singing, smiling towards the public gallery. The solidarity is palpable, the mood almost joyful. Nicky leans across and whispers, “we have to be careful, the judge hates singing”. Again, there is the fear of the gallery being cleared. When the judges enter the courtroom a few minutes later, the public falls silent. Proceedings commence again.

      Day 9, 3rd July

      During their day off from attending court, the mothers were busy. Some had to work, Mimi went to visit Daniel in prison, and I accompanied Nicky to a meeting with the lawyers and to a public event held in Madrid that she, Mimi, and Daniel’s sister Clara spoke at remotely, organised by Roser, an activist and journalist who has followed the trial meticulously from the start. What impresses me most is the mothers’ strength, resilience, and the support and care they show one another. The only time I see Nicky become emotional during the panel is not when she talks about her child in prison – despite the routine denial of basic rights, the heat in a heatwave, working conditions, or the prison’s neglect of their health. The only time Nicky tears up is when speaking of the conditions in Palestine and what she describes at the panel as the suffering and death inflicted upon children there.

      The spontaneous solidarity is there again at the courthouse. There are new faces, and some I recognise from the trial two days ago. We wait to see if we can catch sight of and greet any of the Ulm5 being transported by prison van to the courthouse. Hebh Jamal, a journalist and filmmaker comes to court this morning, greeted warmly by the mothers and activists who have come to know her; she takes pictures of the defendants and the public.

      Pictures taken by Hebh Jamal on July 3rd, showing on the left Nicky Robertson, mother of Zo, and Insa Lee Koch (author). On the right, Mimi Tatlow-Golden, mother of Daniel, and Clara Tatlow-Devally, sister of Daniel.

      It’s nearly 10 am by the time the trial commences. As the defendants are brought in, the public calls out “free, free Ulm5”. There are smiles, gestures of broken hearts and waves. The morning starts again with applications: first Leandra’s lawyer Mathes Breuer and Daniel’s lawyer Benjamin Düsberg on the seating arrangements and the defendants’ separation from the lawyers. Nina Onèr, Zo’s lawyer, asks once more for the public to be allowed to bring writing implements into the courtroom. The judge gives the prosecution until Wednesday next week to respond to the first applications in writing, but the application about writing implements is rejected again.

      The next application, brought by Leandra’s defence team Anna Busl and Mathes Breuer, is for the lead prosecutor, Ronny Stengel, to be recused for bias and lack of objectivity, evidenced – the lawyers argue – in both investigation and trial. The long list of alleged lack of objectivity includes: bias during the investigation, including his immediate ruling out of considering the defendants’ motivations for their actions; insistence they were driven by antisemitism; meetings with the investigation lead Gropp , of which – contrary to legal requirements – no records had been kept; and an alleged failure to ensure a fair trial throughout. The lawyers put it to the court that the prosecutor’s violation of his duty to be objective constitutes an abuse of state power and undermines basic principles of fairness.

      As the lead prosecutor is not present today and cannot respond, his replacement, a Dr. Mark, tells the court he thinks little of the application. He dismisses the defence’s claims of alleged failures to investigate as “wolkig” (“cloudy”), prompting a sharp response from defence counsel. A defence lawyer describes the prosecution’s conduct as “völlige Inkompetenz”(“utter incompetence”), prompting the judge to reprimand counsel for their choice of words. Once again, the judge grants the prosecution until the following Wednesday to respond in writing to this application.

      The remainder of the day is taken up by the second witness, a police officer called Kai Dominik Niewald from Ulm. He coordinated the police response and arrest of the Ulm5 on the night. Dressed in a t-shirt and jeans, the informality appears at odds with his role in this trial. Initially led by the judge, Niewald describes his recollections: being called to the scene, entering the building, making his way to the room , and conducting the arrests. At first he describes on-site security claiming they had seen an axe. Here Daniel seeks to contact his lawyer, who calls for a break; later, on cross-examination, Niewald agrees no axe was found anywhere in the building or in the surroundings.

      During cross-examination, some of the questioning centres on a “white powder” Niewald says was found in a backpack that police officers brought out of the room after the defendants were escorted out. He initially suspected the powder, tightly packed and sealed in a plastic bag approximately 10×3 cm, was an explosive. He tells the court he changed his mind having seen a smile on Vi’s face. Vi looks confused and tries to speak to her lawyers. After a break, Vi’s defence lawyer Matthias Schuster cross-examines Niewald. Why did he not take steps to secure this alleged explosive? Niewald has no answer other than the implication that he trusted Vi’s response. This rather undermines the image the prosecution and court have tried to build of dangerous criminals that present a risk to the court and the public.

      Those in the public gallery appear confused by the discussion of the white powder. I also watch Vi and Zo glance at each other and laugh in what looks to one of the mothers like “disbelief”  when the powder is first mentioned. When Niewald says he changed his mind about what it was because of Vi’s smile, the defendants laugh, joined this time by members of the public. “Why would he believe someone he has just arrested?” the person sitting next to me whispers. Later in the cross-examination, it emerges that Niewald was told by his colleagues that the powder was a class-A drug. When it finally becomes evident it was not a drug at all, this is a surprise to Niewald. Once again, there is an audible drawing of breath from the public gallery.

      The exchange leaves observers with many unanswered questions. Why did a police officer, suspecting an explosive, place the substance in a police car, without taking further precautions? Why would the police tell each other something was a class-A drug when it was not? Why was the substance not on the indictments? Why, as emerged during defence questioning, was it not mentioned in the subsequent seizure report(Sicherstellungsprotokoll), and only appears to have been added later to the file? As it was not an explosive or a drug, what was it? Washing powder? Sugar? By the end of the hearing, many questions remain unanswered.

      Another notable moment in the defence’s cross-examination was when a lawyer for Leandra, Anna Busl, asked Niewald if he had been in contact with Gropp, the investigation lead. Earlier, Niewald had said his involvement in the case had ended on the day of the event and had no contact with Gropp since last September. Yet now he stated he had spoken with Gropp about two weeks ago. What had they spoken about? He refused to answer this as it was an internal work-related conversation (“innerdienstliches Gespräch”). This led to another application from the defence: the witness should give evidence on this pre-trial discussion with the lead case investigator. The judge rejected this, so the defence sought a formal judicial decision, arguing that while exemptions for police witness evidence cover investigatory tactics, a conversation between police witnesses shortly before a court appearance (after an investigation had been finalised many months earlier) falls outside such exemptions. The judge put the decision back to the next court date, 22 July.

      For me, what stands out is how the emerging narrative contrasts with the court’s portrayal of the Ulm5 as a security threat: the evident calmness, care and ordinary human conduct of five people who, on the night they broke into Elbit Systems in Ulm, were unarmed, did not pose a threat to the police, and co-operated from the moment of arrest (Vi even offered to translate for the others). On the police’s own admission, there was no danger to personal safety from the defendants. Leandra’s lawyer Mathes Breuer had asked Niewald whether he would describe the atmosphere in the room as playful (“spielerisch”). He answers no. Breuer asks the court to show footage from the police bodycam, and we hear Niewald observe, shortly before breaking into the room, that “the persons are sitting in the middle of the room and playing together or something” (“Derzeit sitzen die Personen in der Mitte im Raum und spielen miteinander oder so”).

      This image of relaxed calm and cognizance is reflected in how the defendants  watch the witness give evidence from behind their glass partition– heads high, alert, smiling. Throughout the day I see them engage in small acts of care: sharing moments of humour or reassurance; passing a pack of mints, hands briefly touching; at times talking quietly to the person next to them. When the court breaks, with the next hearing date over two weeks away, the Ulm5 quickly hug before officers step forward to handcuff them and take them out again. Nicky, Mimi and the public stand up one last time, clapping and cheering before making their way home – to catch trains or planes to elsewhere in Germany, the UK, Ireland, and beyond.

      The trial continues on July 22nd.

    • Bulwark of the Old Order? Germany’s Position in the UN Tax Convention Negotiations in Light of its International Human Rights Obligations

      Bulwark of the Old Order? Germany’s Position in the UN Tax Convention Negotiations in Light of its International Human Rights Obligations

      The negotiations of the ‘UN Framework Convention on International Tax Cooperation’ (UNFCITC) have reached a critical phase. At stake are fundamental questions of power, representation and global justice. The fifth session of the UNFCITC is expected to present a draft text in the beginning of August. With this post, we continue to report on the challenges and opportunities of these historic deliberations that aim to “establish an inclusive, fair, transparent, efficient, equitable and effective international tax system.” Germany could play a pivotal role in a time of democratic and social welfare decay, fueled by an escalating inequality crisis – or it could act as a bulwark of the old-world order, which reeks of imperialism and Second Estate privileges for the “nobility” of our time.

      The call to “tax the rich” is not just about ensuring that high-net-worth individuals (HNWI) and multinational corporations pay their fair share of taxes on profits, income and wealth. The absurdity of the recent first trillionaire and his unimaginable power should give all of us reason to rethink the current system. As economist Gabriel Zucman underscores, extreme wealth is extreme power, and therefore a profound challenge to democracy.

      While the founding of the United Nations reflected aspirations for a more equitable, postcolonial world order in which newly independent states would have a seat at the table, the international tax regime remains deeply entrenched in a logic of racial capitalism and imperial extractivism, as legal scholar Steven Dean points out. Created during the height of colonialism under the League of Nations, the current tax regime continues to be dominated by the US-led OECD. As a result, a relatively small group of wealthy nations, such as the USA, Switzerland and Germany, have played a disproportionate role in shaping the rules that govern international taxation, which mostly benefit economic elites in those and other Global North countries. This has contributed to persistent imbalances in tax rules that are largely exclusionary of Global South countries’ voices and needs. After decades of efforts, it was the Africa Group within the UN that championed the UNFCITC process into existence in 2023.

      Yet, while the current US-led system has benefited Global North countries, including Germany, it is important to highlight an often-overlooked critique: they, too, lose substantial amounts of tax revenue under the existing rules. Over the past century, the current tax regime facilitated systemic corporate tax abuse and private tax evasion, resulting in global annual revenue losses estimated at around half a trillion US dollars.

      Countries such as Germany increasingly experience negative impacts, for example due to multinational corporations shifting their profits into low-tax jurisdictions. Studies have shown that key players in the digital economy, including US companies such as Google, Netflix, and Microsoft, cost Germany billions of euros every year due to profit shifting. Additionally, German private wealth – the biggest in Europe – is largely untaxed, highly concentrated, and mostly inherited. An international coordinated wealth tax (after Spain’s model) could raise $2 trillion annual revenue worldwide. Germany is estimated to gain around €28 billion annually from a re-introduction of a wealth tax.

      The current situation has been made possible and exacerbated by the pervasive use of financial secrecy jurisdictions (aka tax havens). Many of these were originally established by British colonial officials, financial advisors and lawyers, to move assets into UK overseas territories during the onset of decolonization. While (former) UK secrecy jurisdictions continue to play an important and pernicious role, the USA, Switzerland and Germany are now outranking them as the world’s biggest enablers of financial secrecy.  

      For African countries, this international tax and finance system has had devastating effects, leading to an estimated $88.6 billion in annual revenue losses due to illicit financial flows (IFFs). That is more than double the amount the continent receives in official development assistance (ODA). In combination with the rise of neoliberal economic thinking in the late 1970s, in which private sector actors were prioritized over government-led investments, industries have stayed underdeveloped. Instead, African economies have been forced to rely on exports of raw materials within extractivist logics and limited opportunities for domestic resource mobilization (DRM). They also continue to suffer under an unequal international financial system, with several African governments currently spending more on debt servicing than on public health or education. For many of them it is highly unlikely that they will be able to reach the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by 2030.

      The UN Tax Convention: A Historic Opportunity?

      The decision to give the UN a formal mandate for the development of a Framework Convention marked a significant shift – some would even consider it a historic moment – away from the dominant OECD process to a more democratic approach to tax norm-setting. The adoption of respective resolutions, culminating in the Terms of Reference (ToR) of the UNFCITC in 2025, established an intergovernmental process in which all UN member states are expected to engage constructively in building a more inclusive, fair and efficient international tax system. Paragraph 7 of the ToRs stipulates that states should remain committed to this goal “in terms of process and substance”. Furthermore, the ToRs state that the convention should establish “an inclusive, fair, transparent, efficient, equitable and effective international tax system for sustainable development, with a view to enhancing the legitimacy, certainty, resilience and fairness of international tax rules, while addressing challenges to strengthening domestic resource mobilization”.

      Additionally, paragraph 9 of the ToRs includes the principle that the negotiations be aligned with “States’ obligations under international human rights law”. It also states that the process should be “universal in approach and scope” and “fully consider the different needs, priorities and capacities of all countries, including developing countries, in particular countries in special situations”.

      These provisions clearly stipulate that the objectives and principles of the ToRs, including states’ human rights obligations, are intended to guide the negotiations throughout the process. They are not presented as optional considerations to be invoked selectively by delegations, but as principles that should inform both the conduct of the negotiations and the substance of the final agreement.

      Taxation and international cooperation in tax matters are henceforth no longer framed as merely technical issues (which they arguably never were in the first place). Rather, this UN process places them within a broader human rights-based framework, where sustainable development for all, on equal terms, is not an optional aspiration but a guiding principle and purpose of political, social and economic ordering. As a consequence, respective negotiation processes should be informed by the principles of participation, inclusion, non-discrimination, fairness, transparency and efficiency.

      Against this background, one can draw a decisive conclusion for the assessment of Germany’s position and negotiation outcome: Germany is bound, also in the context of treaty negotiations, by its (extraterritorial) obligations under international human rights law. It owes these obligations not only to its own citizens, but also to those affected abroad whose ability to realize their rights is influenced by the international tax architecture and the distribution of taxing rights between states.

      In this context, the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights’s statement on Tax policy and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights is particularly relevant. In this landmark statement, the Committee re-emphasized that “[t]axation is a key instrument for mobilizing resources” to realize human rights and that cooperation between states is a prerequisite for their realization. This concerns central rights such as the right to food, housing, education, and health.

      Germany has signed and ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) that the Committee’s statement is based on. Germany has also been an active member of the UN and participated and shaped the negotiations around a UN Tax Convention and its two early protocols from the start. The lead negotiator sent by the German Federal Ministry of Finance is Michael Braun, who has delivered nearly all of Germany’s oral submissions during the first four rounds of UNFCITC negotiations, held in New York and Nairobi. He has also served as a vice-chair on the intergovernmental negotiating committee, as well as a co-lead of Workstream III (the protocol on dispute prevention and resolution). While many experts see a fundamental link between tax justice and the realization of human rights, Germany has so far not meaningfully engaged with this aspect in its submissions. In light of existing human rights obligations and the commitments in the ToRs, the subsequent conduct by the German representative appears concerning.

      Germany’s Negotiating Strategy: Bulwark of the Old Order?

      During the first two rounds of Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) meetings, which took place in August 2025 in New York, a charming and cheerful, Pepsi in front, Michael Braun was mostly seeking clarifications and referencing his confusion, for example with “the distinction between principles and commitments” (at 01:43:20). While Mr. Braun’s oral submissions often seemed benevolent and innocent, the position he articulated on behalf of the German government reflected a rather hard-nosed Realpolitik, focused on sovereignty, non-binding commitments, and – most importantly – consistently referring back to “existing [OECD] frameworks” (e.g., at 00:50:35). Furthermore, Germany aligned its interventions with the UK, Switzerland and other dominant players that benefit from the existing Western-dominated international tax order during the third session in Nairobi.

      However, during the same session in November 2025 (in Nairobi) Braun also stated: “I have not heard anyone saying that what is existing is sufficient. So, indeed, I agree if that were the case, we wouldn’t be here. [So], yes, it is true, there are countries, and not few countries, for whom the existing frameworks do not work” (at 02:04:36).

      While Germany still recognized “the important role of tax cooperation to foster development, including through strengthening domestic revenue mobilization in line with environmental and climate goals” (at 1:37:05) early during the fourth session back in New York in February 2026, a shift had occurred between negotiation rounds. This might have been the result of the very well-organized African Group which pushed ahead in Nairobi, making their positions much stronger and a successful outcome for the G77 more likely.  

      Among the 28 draft articles of the Framework Convention under negotiation, the “Fair Allocation of Taxing Rights” (currently Article 5) initially took centre stage. The February 2026 draft of Article 5 recognizes that all jurisdictions in which value is created, markets are located, revenues are generated, or economic activities take place, should have the right to tax a portion of the income arising from those activities. Article 5 could help curb tax abuse by multinational corporations, which affects African economies particularly severely, as an estimated 65 per cent of illicit financial flows are linked to commercial activities. However, civil society organizations have criticized the current draft for not explicitly addressing multinational enterprises, arguing that stronger provisions would be necessary to fully address these challenges.

      In a global economy, the allocation of taxing rights is central because it determines which country has the authority to tax income arising from cross-border economic activities. The current international tax regime, largely built around Double Taxation Agreements (DTAs) based on the OECD Model Tax Convention, tends to favour countries where multinational corporations are headquartered and relies heavily on physical presence in determining taxing rights. However, this approach does not adequately reflect the realities of the digital economy, where companies such as Netflix, Amazon, or Microsoft can generate substantial revenues in countries without maintaining a significant physical presence there.

      Combined with the arm’s-length principle governing transfer pricing, which treats subsidiaries of the same multinational corporation as if they were independent companies trading with one another, the system creates opportunities for multinational corporations to shift profits to subsidiaries in low-tax jurisdictions – often legally. Therefore, most Global South countries argue that taxing rights should be more closely linked to where economic activity takes place, for example where consumers, users, workers or production sites are located, rather than primarily where companies are headquartered or profits are reported. With many large corporations headquartered in wealthier countries, significant inequalities in taxing rights have emerged and become embedded in the existing network of bilateral tax treaties.

      Therefore, as negotiations continued and became more contested, the debate over the renegotiation of existing DTAs became particularly important and changed the dynamics of the discussions. Michael Braun appeared guarded and almost combative during the fourth session in February 2026, when commenting on Draft Article 5. Initially, a more somber Braun declared that “Germany is not in a position to support proposals that would alter the character of the convention by moving it towards binding, self-executing commitments” (at 1:35:56), a stance that effectively strips the convention of the very enforcement mechanisms necessary for meaningful reform. More importantly, later that day a rather nervous and fidgety Braun stated that Germany was “not willing to terminate or renegotiate existing DTAs unless this is the outcome of bilateral negotiations with the affected country” (at 00:35:47).

      While many Western European negotiators took the same position as Germany, Global South countries perceived this statement as a direct attempt to undermine the UN process. Indeed, several delegates from the African Group, including Kenya, the African Union, and ATAF, responded swiftly. They reminded their colleagues that the fundamental reason why they are negotiating a UN Framework Convention was because of the imbalances and unfairness of DTAs and tax treaties that are currently in place, which are heavily skewed in favor of OECD states. Hence, keeping DTAs in place would perpetuate the challenges faced by developing countries.

      Human Rights Require Money

      By refusing to review and adjust its existing treaty network, Germany risks violating its obligations arising from UN human rights treaties. It also goes against its commitments to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, since the necessary resources to allow for a green transition in developing countries will simply not exist without an adjustment of the international tax regime. “Many of the same governments that claim to support human rights are fighting the hardest to maintain a tax system that deprives governments of the revenues they need to fulfill rights,” Camila Barretto Maia, executive director of the Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, stated.

      This is why international civil society organizations call not only for a renegotiation of existing DTAs as a principled position, but also for an adjustment of the current Draft Article 4 of the Framework Convention on sustainable development, which should add a commitment to “ensure that fiscal systems are fully in line with the UN Member States’ obligations to progressively realize human rights to the maximum of their available resources” (see Art 2 (1) ICESCR) and ensure sustainable development.

      What is at stake in the UNFCITC negotiations then is not merely institutional preference or technical treaty design, but ultimately – as various numbers show – the fiscal capacity of States to fund basic public services and fulfill economic and social rights. This is all the more important given the unprecedented decline in official development assistance, in combination with the unsustainable debt burdens many countries are facing.

      Therefore, Germany’s rather short-sighted decision to stick to old, existing OECD-centered frameworks that block the necessary domestic resource mobilization in Global South countries has consequences far beyond diplomatic procedure.  It violates Germany’s extraterritorial obligations in human rights law, as its position directly shapes whether governments in the Global South can fund hospitals, schools, transport systems and social protection. Because, as Professor Attiya Waris, UN independent expert on foreign debt and human rights, succinctly put it: human rights require money.

      In Germany’s Own Interest

      Importantly, Germany and its citizens stand to gain substantially from a fair and transparent international tax system. The Tax Justice Network estimates that the German State loses €32 billion in tax annually due to corporate tax abuse alone. Meanwhile, Germany’s inequality has risen sharply in the past 50 years, and due to its regressive tax system, is unable to provide basic needs to its citizens, such as sufficient social housing. Yet, earlier this year, OECD countries, including Germany, bent their knee to and accommodated demands from the Trump administration by agreeing to exempt US multinationals from elements of the OECD’s agreed framework (negotiated mostly by the Biden administration) of a Global Minimum Corporate Tax (aka Pillar Two) in a “side-by-side agreement”. These tensions and concessions between EU countries and the USA reveal that the OECD framework is becoming structurally incapable of delivering meaningful progress, including for countries such as Germany that helped design it.

      Currently, UN Tax Convention negotiations are ongoing behind closed doors, in Zoom meetings between member states only. With a full draft treaty expected before the 5th session of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee in New York in August, the negotiations have now reached a pivotal stage. With Germany already having taken over the leading role as a donor in international cooperation, it is the perfect time for the German government to be a bellwether of necessary change.

      Bellwether or Bulwark?

      So instead of continuing to be a bulwark of the old-world order, negotiators should embrace the future and support a fairer international tax system that is in the making. In his oral submissions, Michael Braun has already acknowledged that the current system does not work for many countries. Now is the time for action instead of empty words. As a self-proclaimed leader of multilateralism, sustainable development and human rights, Germany must move beyond the old-world order that is rooted in colonialism and exploitation, and instead support a democratic system of international tax cooperation – one capable of enabling states not merely to service debt, but to fund dignity and development and to take action against climate change.

      Acknowledgements: The author gratefully acknowledges Sarah Imani for her thoughtful comments and legal expertise during the drafting process. Any remaining errors are the author’s own.

    • The Ulm5 Trial: Hostility towards life

      The Ulm5 Trial: Hostility towards life

      Human faces in the prison system; video: Ignacio Rosaslanda

      (For my previous report covering the Ulm5 trial up to May 22, see here.)

      Unfortunately, there is still no regular media coverage of what is unfolding in the Stammheim courthouse— —a trial that resembles a chamber theatre more than a show trial. The trial, which is scheduled for a few days a week at most and thus is stretched out artificially over 8.5 months, has been reported on only very sporadically in the mainstream media, with coverage limited to brief snapshots. The critical and solidarity-driven scholarship featured here on this platform cannot truly compensate for this media failure. In my view it should, rather than providing updates, be developing research and ideas for contextualizing and gaining a deeper understanding of both the trial and the real events that the trial seeks to obscure and punish.

      In that context, here are just a few key points based on what I’ve been able to gather from observers about the progress of the trial —without guaranteed accuracy:

      • The proceedings continue to move at a snail’s pace. Court days often last only a few hours. Much of this time is spent on motions filed by the attorneys—which are rejected by the presiding judge—as well as on long recesses. Members of the audience have started working on an “Ulm5 Bingo” game, but – due to the judge’s most frequent utterances – have barely gotten past the two terms “motion denied” and “recess.”
      • The fundamental violations of rights by the court have still not been remedied: The attorneys are fighting for the defendants’ right not to be forced to sit in the glass cage and to be able to communicate with their attorneys without a microphone, as well as for the right to a trial that is genuinely open to the public. As noted previously, only the few press representatives are allowed to bring writing implements into the court. The absurd reason given is that pens could be used as weapons to stab and slash others; even wax crayons and bendable children’s pencils remain banned. The defense attorneys must repeatedly file motions—even if they have no chance of success—so that they cannot later be accused of having acquiesced to the court’s rules.
      • Then there are multiple motions for recusal, for which the presiding judge constantly creates new reasons. The most recent example, from a few days ago, was the “sergeant-major” episode; —the audience could remember this exchange even without recourse to pen and paper: The presiding judge ordered, “Quiet at the back!”; Attorney Schuster replied, “Excuse me, but this is a courtroom, not a barracks parade ground, and you are not a sergeant-major!” Presiding Judge: “Yes, I am!” Attorney Schuster then complained about the judge’s “insolent tone” and filed a motion for recusal . At the request of the defence, the presiding judge dictated the minutes.
      •  
      • The next day, it turned out that the defendants were not informed—as was their right—of the outcome of this motion, namely that it had been rejected. So more motions followed. It also turned out that the wording reported by the judge as well as the prosecutor did not match what everyone present had heard. There is suspicion that the presiding judge altered the transcript retroactively and is lying. So, yet another motion for recusal.
      • On the eighth day of the trial, when the heat wave was at its worst, the defendants were permitted to drink water. Previous motions to be allowed to drink water had been denied.
      • At least there was one moment when the court was confronted with reality: Attorney Nina Onèr succeeded in her motion to present a recently published report—“What the Wounds Are Telling Us” by the Dutch newspaper *de Volkskrant*, which won the 2026 European Press Prize—which, based on hundreds of photos, videos, X-rays, diary entries, and interviews with doctors and nurses in Gaza, horrifically documents that children—including very young children—are being deliberately murdered in large numbers and are dying under the most appalling circumstances. (The Ulm5 had spray-painted “Babykiller Israel” on the wall, referring, they and their defence lawyers said in court, to a contemporary reality that had nothing to do with the antisemitic medieval blood libel legend.) As the language of the court is German, the English translators had to translate this text on the spot. Both struggled with this text; the second is reported by those attending to have struggled to keep her voice from breaking. Once again, the defense attorneys managed—as it were, through the back door—to present arguments or materials that, contrary to the prosecution’s narrative, hinted at the defendants’ true motivation.
      • The presentation of evidence in this trial has begun at last, however, it did not begin with the presentation of evidence from the ground up, but—as was feared—with its manipulation. A video was shown that the police had compiled from footage that Ulm5 had filmed themselves. The police video, the court was later to hear from one of the defendants, omitted segments that would show that the defendants were NOT violent offenders or terrorist-minded extremists, but rather went to great lengths to ensure that no people—and indeed no living beings at all—would come to harm. One of the defendants, Crow, was able to point this out, though it appeared that the presiding judge did not take note of the criticism regarding the video’s editing.
      • Another defendant, Vi, said that their motivation should be clear, and that it should also be clear that pretrial detention was not justified. Zo also spoke up and made a statement about the relationship between “force” and “violence,” which the translation failed spectacularly to convey accurately, to the consternation of those in the public gallery who could hear Zo’s original in English from within the glass cage.
      • Originally, the testimony of the lead police investigator—who wrote the 200-page report on which the indictment is based—was supposed to have been heard on June 29. The defense attorneys filed an objection to his being called as a witness, arguing that he was actually part of the prosecution team. This was used as a pretext for the presiding judge to end the trial day early—although the actual reason can be suspected relates to the embarrassing situation created by the “sergeant-major” episode.  

      When reflecting more fundamentally on this trial, two themes occupy my thoughts :

      First, the significance of life/vitality as a form of resistance, and the diverse strategies of repression aimed at extinguishing that vitality. I am moved by a short video clip showing the arrival of the prisoner transport van—which brought Daniel from Ulm Prison to Stammheim—at the entrance to the Stammheim courthouse. The van stops at the gate for a few seconds. Behind the barred side window in the dark interior, you can see Daniel smiling and forming a heart with their hands. That cheerful, free smile so characteristic of Daniel—a human face! Then its rear window comes into view. On it, the faces of three young people in uniform advertise job openings in the justice system. The contrast between the generic human faces on the rear window and the living human face behind bars is almost unbearable. “Free Daniel” in its dual meaning: freedom for Daniel, and the Daniel who despite all remains free, in captivity. Daniel told the magazine Freitag about the lack of stimulation and the boredom in prison: yard time is only between 8:30 and 9:30, offering a chance to talk with fellow inmates, but there are no trees, no bushes, no nature. “I’m allowed to walk around in a concrete yard—there’s no greenery here.” You’re not even allowed to send the defendant a dried petal: indeed, smuggling a plant into this prison would be an act of resistance.

      The ritualized sequence of the trial also strikes me in this light. It is intended to establish legal certainty and predictability. Yet the alienation it creates—of which the lawyers’ war of interpretations is merely one manifestation— also serves another purpose: namely suck vitality and freedom out of those present. In this sterile, oppositional atmosphere, where obedience or defiance seem to be the only available attitudes, an open smile, a heartfelt word, and—in general—honest, unguarded, human, and lively behaviour—which is actually necessary for finding the truth—are made as difficult as possible. That is also why the public gallery claps and cheers when the defendants enter the courtroom, and why, despite the judge’s orders,  some can’t help but react with noise when one of the attorneys says something incisive and true. This is also why it is so moving to see how the defendants communicate with one another nonverbally, behind their glass partition, and show concern for one another.

      The second theme is the comparison with the Baader-Meinhof gang (RAF), which is constantly being thrust upon us—even by those who are actually critical of the German state’s „Staatsräson“. The only point of comparison I accept is that the Ulm5 trial is also of great historical and public significance and should therefore be documented, just as the RAF trial was, with verbatim transcripts and video/audio recordings. And yes, of course there were also young, vibrant people among the Baader-Meinhof members who found the injustices and genocides of their time morally and politically too unbearable to remain idle. And yes, of course, the state resorts to potentially any means in its fight against everything it perceives as hostile. But otherwise, the comparison falls short. It only serves to justify repression, even when it purports to criticize it.

      Unlike the Baader-Meinhof gang, the Ulm5 have clarified their stance on violence. As Crow explained, it was of the utmost importance to the five that no one come to harm. To see themselves as an “Army Faction” of whatever sort, to collect weapons, to kidnap, injure, or kill people, would be completely incompatible with their fundamental motivation. But, Zo noted, even the dichotomy of “violence against property versus violence against people” no longer holds when the very foundations of life are being systematically destroyed and life itself is very real threatened with annihilation. The Ulm5’s action was not directed against people, nor against department stores, police stations, cars, the Springer skyscraper, or the like, but solely against weapons production in the midst of an ongoing genocide. In Gaza, not only are children being slowly and cruelly murdered, but large parts of Gaza have been transformed into death zones where not even a blade of grass grows anymore. Damaging the instruments of death used for this purpose constitutes as much—or as little—“violence against property” as rendering a murder weapon harmless. That is why the lawyers are arguing for the motivation having been on the grounds of a state of emergency and emergency assistance.

      If one takes resistance against the destruction of the foundations of life as the criterion, the comparison now is not with the Baader-Meinhof gang (RAF), but rather with the Last Generation. Imagine that—and this is very likely—temperatures in our sealed-off city centers will soon exceed 40 degrees for long periods of time: there is only concrete, no trees, no shrubs—“there is no greenery here.” Would tearing up these sealed surfaces then still count as “property damage,” or rather would it constitute a constructive act that benefits plants, animals, and people—and indeed also property, created by and for people? We face the threat of ever-larger zones where life has been destroyed and life has become nearly impossible. Gaza stands as a horror scenario that is becoming a reality wherever racialized populations, in particular, are deemed entirely superfluous and troublesome; and that is what drives young people to take action, such as the break-in at Elbit.

    • The Torturing Basilisk: Outlines of an Emerging New Form of Government

      The Torturing Basilisk: Outlines of an Emerging New Form of Government

      Basilisk, Bestiary, London, British Library, Royal 12 C XIX, f. 63, circa 1200-1225.

      Between 2016 and 2019, I wrote several essays about the ideology of what was at the time known as the alt-right. “Capitalism with a Transhuman Face” uses Roko’s Basilisk—a thought experiment about a future AI that punishes those who didn’t help create it—as a lens to discuss how Silicon Valley’s tech culture incubated neoreactionary and alt-right movements, with tech workers and investors providing early financial support and ideological breeding grounds for a new fascist ideological formation.

      The Basilisk was an allegory for a process that is now fully coming into view: When labor is no longer the main source of value, the majority of the population, no longer relevant to the primary mode of accumulation, can be disposed of. This, I would contend, is what underlies the ongoing assault on political and civil rights: without incentives to sustain their populations as members of a political community, states will seek to suspend the rights they had previously granted—and this is the stage we are now in.

      The classic social contract assumed wage labor as the primary distribution mechanism for productivity gains. The political enfranchisement of non-property-owners occurred because their labor became systemically critical. AI allows companies to break complex roles into smaller, commoditized micro-tasks—fragmented, remote, or platform-mediated work makes collective action difficult, while also affording AI-driven performance monitoring, algorithmic management, and real-time productivity scoring. When new jobs are created, they may require skills that displaced workers do not have. The horizon of a middle-class life—college degree, entry-level job, steady promotion, retirement—was already fraying; AI may well sever it entirely.

      The Basilisk is a ‘Darwinian Filter’—hinging on a process of violent sorting that separates the worthy from the unworthy—that institutes a fundamental division between the tech-savvy gentry (who devote their lives to the Basilisk) and a vast underclass of the underemployed or precariously employed (who are further degraded by it). This filter is also at work through tech IPOs, the ultimate conduit for spreading private AI losses to public, passively held retirement accounts. Early venture investors who funded the AI labs get to cash out at inflated valuations. When the bubble bursts, pensioners—who have no choice but to hold index funds containing these overvalued stocks—bear the downside. They will thus be tortured by the Basilisk for the remainder of their biological lives, not through digital simulation but through the very real liquidation of their material security.

      Contrary to what proponents of terms like “cyber-feudalism” suggest, current techno-political architectures have not altered the economy in ways that resemble Europe’s medieval feudal system, but in ways that are closer to the system of 176th-century chartered companies—a system where private entities receive state-like powers while operating as profit-seeking corporations. You can call it crypto-mercantilism, but the most important point is this: the stablecoin-AI convergence does not produce digital serfs. It produces “human residue”: humanity as a maintenance cost rather than a productive force. What happens to the redundant is not an economic question. It is an ideological one.

      Trump’s murderous alacrity, his use of maximum brute force with a minimum of justification, violence that is technically precise yet morally illegible, open contempt for international law, and absolute impunity—these are the epiphenomena of this transition. The cruelty is not the point; the cruelty is the affect. The point is to unmake citizens and govern the rightless as wards.

      This is why racial capitalism, rather than cyberfeudalism, is the more useful framework. It forces us to recognize that capitalism does not require homogenizing labor. It can and does maintain differentiated, coerced, and super-exploited labor forms within its global circuits of accumulation. The prison labor camp, the gig economy “independent contractor,” the data-generating “user”—all are forms of value extraction without a wage contract. Even as unemployment rises, the state can allocate scarcity—housing vouchers, food assistance, healthcare, disability benefits. AI-powered welfare administration can automate this discrimination at scale, with policing becoming the primary interface with the state. And it is race that stabilizes this stratification by producing differentiable populations within the same economic system. In the wage-labor era, race served to segment the working class. In the post-wage era, race allocates access to the remaining scarce goods, and—most critically—the distribution of state violence.

      When states abdicate the work of sustaining populations, they leave a void—not only in material provision but in meaning. That void, I argue, must be filled by an ideology capable of naturalizing the notion that neglect is not a breakdown but a restoration of order. Masculinity—understood as an ideological formation—is what performs this ideological work and supplies the moral grammar for the transition. This is where fascism comes in: capitalism can and often does destroy value, but fascism alone knows how to endow this uneconomic dimension with meaning. Elon Musk wielding a chainsaw invites us to visualize this transition as a heightened, almost rapturous frenzy while also unseeing the slow, methodical, infrastructural work of cutting the social body to pieces.

      Taken together, cruelty as affect, masculinity as grammar, the unmaking of citizens as project, and artificial intelligence as infrastructure constitute the ideological and material apparatus of an emerging new mode of governance ––whose coordinates we need to map out.

      The essay “Capitalism with a Transhuman Face: The Afterlife of Fascism and the Digital Frontier,” published in 2019 in Third Text 33 (3), 315–335, https://doi.org/10.1080/09528822.2019.1625638, is hereby made available for free reading.

      Ana Teixeira Pinto_Capitalism with a Transhuman FaceHerunterladen
    • The interesting pleasure to accuse others of taking pleasure in accusing fascists

      The interesting pleasure to accuse others of taking pleasure in accusing fascists

      A cosy German corner; photo: private

      But of all things, an article that seeks to completely ignore these debates is now setting the tone in German press media. Jan Phillip Reemtsma claimed in his FAZ article in early May that the question of whether what we are currently experiencing is already fascism reflects a desire to create a sense of belonging. Not only that it remains unclear who is the subject or target of his accusation. He also reduces the complexity of existing analyses to a matter of belonging. With a stroke of the pen, he dismisses the fact that for those affected by violence, a sense of belonging can be essential for survival, and that for academics who are already feeling the effects of restrictions on academic freedom, the assurance of a space where certain things can be said can have existential significance. According to Reemtsma, the search for an answer to the question of whether this violence and these infringements on communicative rights already constitute fascism is not driven by the gravity of the situation, but merely by the desire to feel morally superior in the cozy corner of like-minded people.

      At any rate, the article is indeed revealing regarding the detachment from the world expressed in its terms such as “affective togetherness.” It acts as if, in today’s fragmented public sphere of digital communication, a group driven by a desire for morality could still come together in such a way that a sense of belonging emerges. And affect is set in opposition to epistemology as well as the political, as if 30 years of queer-feminist affect and media theory had never taken place. The recent reflections under the term “fascization” are also deliberately ignored. That “fascization” has analytical potential has already been made clear by Robin Celikates and Rahel Jaeggi in their response to Reemtsma. To realize this potential, however, we need the aforementioned theories of affect, which are often entirely absent from public debate. I therefore begin my reflections on fascism/fascistization with the concepts of pleasure and desire. However, my approach is less in the vein of Deleuze/Guattari; rather, I am concerned with a concept of fascism following Black, queer-feminist theory.

      Robin Celikates/Rahel Jaeggi as well as Alex Demorivić, Carolin Amlinger/Oliver Nachtwey and Ivo Eichhorn, in their contributions to the “fascism debate” hyped up by media engineering, refer to fascization as a primarily temporal concept: as a concept of a phase (Demorivić), of a process (Amlinger/Nachtwey, Eichhorn), of a form of progression (Celikates/Jaeggi). These authors use images of movement and mobility to counter the analogies between historical fascism and contemporary forms of authoritarianism that so disturb Reemtsma, even as he himself reproduces them in his article. The concept of fascization suggests that difference is produced in repetition and that the incompleteness of fascism projected from the past onto the present is revealed in this difference.

      Implicitly, and perhaps obscured by the numerous references to Horkheimer/Adorno in the replies, the concept of “fascization” is also linked to the affective concept of desire according to Deleuze. Fascization as a process also points to an energy that “assembles the social field” (Deleuze 1996, 29, transl. kk), which affects us as desire and connects us on a micropolitical level with the formations of power that spread throughout the assemblage of desire (ibid., 21). Paul Morten (2025) has already outlined this; Simon Strick’s forthcoming book suggests it. Fascism, therefore, is no longer to be viewed solely from the molar instance of the state, the military, or the police, but from the micro-conditions of an “individuality of a day” (Deleuze 1996, 31. transl. kk), whose connections constitute the moment of the conjuncture. The current conjuncture of fascism arises—one might conclude—from the relations of micropolitical events in the minutiae of post-digital reactionary cultures, which unify for a specific moment. Fascization as a desire is therefore never merely a lust for destruction attributable to a situation of scarcity, as Amlinger/Nachtwey (2025) suggest, nor is it a natural given of an authoritarian, destructive character or a lustful urge for harshness, as it flashes through here and there in the work of Eva von Redecker (2026). Rather, fascization appears, particularly against the backdrop of fragmented, algorithmized publics, as a heterogeneous structure that is increasingly composed of the relations within digital reactionary culture (such as comments, likes, and reposts). No leader figures can be discerned in this structure anymore; strictly speaking, not even the authority of gender remains (Deleuze 1996, 23). Rather, it presents itself as a quagmire in which one gets stuck, as von Redecker puts it. Paul explores the extent to which, with such an understanding of desire, one can conceive of fascization as something that gets under one’s skin—not as a consequence of the feeling of being part of a mass movement, but as a consequence of digital media’s affective “microtargeting” (2025, 4). I myself have attempted, in the lecture series “Prompting Fascism,” to conceptualize it as the effect of a need generated by AI technologies and rhetoric—no longer to seek, discover, or generate output, but rather to command it through input.

      Without claiming that such a concept of fascization can explain everything, it becomes clear to what extent affect does not stand in opposition to analysis. On the contrary: with the concept of desire as a concept of affect, epistemologies of conjunction move to the center of attention. By referring to connection, we learn to direct our gaze no longer toward the poles of state and subject, violence and desire, tech and bros, but toward the relations—the “intersectional” (Crenshaw), “intra-active” (Barad), and “infra-active” (Ferreira da Silva) relationships. Black, queer-feminist bodies of knowledge are coming to the fore, bodies of knowledge that have been rendered nearly unrecognizable in current analyses of fascism. Instead of the accusation of a “lust” for the accusation of fascism, as Reemtsma has made, it is my aim to highlight these bodies of knowledge because they recognize the significance that affects hold for the analysis of fascism. They are also important, however, because they make it possible to address the anthropocentric narrowings of the discussion through their focus on relations and connections.

      In this regard, Denise Ferreira da Silva’s (2022) concept of relation can be particularly helpful. Drawing on the figure of refraction, she adds to Deleuze and Guattari’s eternally mobile field of immanence of desire the negativity required for an understanding of the differential effects of fascization. What is meant here is a conception of relation that arises from the brutal scene of colonial-racist subjugation and, at the moment of the questioning (negativization) of the status of the human that accompanies this violence, makes fascization comprehensible as a dynamic of annihilation that is never directed solely against racialized people and groups of people. It allows us to understand fascization as something that, at the moment of the persecution and extermination of these groups of people, is always also directed against the annihilation of land that is, in a sense, racialized—for example, in the form of the extraction of raw materials. Conversely, this means that the extraction of land can always also be viewed as fascist in the sense that it functions in a way that is directed against certain people.

      Samir Gandesha (2020) consequently speaks in this context of a “posthuman fascism”. Since the pandemic and through automation and AI—according to Gandesha—fascism has focused, on the fringes of a massive process of de-skilling the workforce, on intensifying the extraction of raw materials. This extraction goes hand in hand with the prospective obsolescence of humanity and the destruction of the world, which Gandesha, drawing on Achille Mbembe, describes as the “Becoming Black of the World.”

      At the risk of overgeneralizing, this seems to me to be precisely the crux of the matter. Meanwhile, the desire to accuse others of taking pleasure in the accusation of fascism only generates effects that distract us from the important debates.

    • Report on the Stammheim trial against Ulm5 (until May 22)

      Report on the Stammheim trial against Ulm5 (until May 22)

      The Ulm5 behind the glass wall at the Stammheim trial, May 29th; photo: Ignacio Rosaslanda

      What did the Ulm5—five young people living in Berlin with Irish, British, Spanish, and German citizenship—do? In the early morning of September 8, 2025, while the war in Gaza was still raging, they broke into a building belonging to the Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems Germany in Ulm, damaged computers and other equipment, toilets, windows, and measuring devices, and spray-painted slogans on the walls (the Attorney General’s Office considers “baby killers” in particular to be anti-Semitic). According to the prosecutor’s office, several others who are being sought had also sprayed slogans and possibly red triangles outside and then fled.  The Ulm5 filmed themselves during their break-in and vandalism and then waited to be arrested. Beforehand, each of them had delivered a short speech to camera, justifying their actions as resistance against the ongoing genocide and again using some of the slogans that the prosecutor’s office considers to be incriminating. Other unknown individuals edited the videos and uploaded them to social media after the incident. Some of the group’s statements and actions link them to “Palestine Action,” a Palestine-solidarity sabotage network previously active in the UK.

      (I happen to know two of the individuals involved in the act: one—Daniel, an Irish citizen—since they were a small child; our families have been friends for three generations; the other—Zo—only very briefly, as a student at Bard College Berlin. They’re both gorgeous!)

      From the very beginning, it was clear that the judicial system in Baden-Württemberg would treat the Ulm5 as enemies of the state. Strange incidents occurred—a few of which cannot be made public while the trial is ongoing—along with all manner of harassment. For 30 hours, while they were held at the police station in Ulm, they were denied contact with lawyers. Zo sat in their cell for six hours having been forced to undress completely and given only an adult diaper to wear. Daniel sat in their cell for much of the 30 hours, they later wrote to their girlfriend in a letter, without clothes, naked except for underwear. It wasn’t until two weeks later that Daniel‘s court-appointed attorney was given an appointment to speak with Daniel in Ulm prison. For a month, Daniel‘s family was not allowed to contact them, and even Irish consular staff were not allowed to visit.

      Instead of suspending pretrial detention on bail, as is customary when there is no risk of flight, it is being extended further and further, with the trial not beginning until seven months later and the trial dates stretched out as much as possible. At the moment, the court plans to reach a verdict only in January 2027, that is, after 16 months of pretrial detention.

      Pretrial detention at the Ulm Am Frauengraben Correctional Facility is very harsh: except for one hour of yard time early in the morning every day, sometimes one hour of access to a gym once a week, and a half-hour of visiting time every two weeks, he is in solitary confinement with no access to the outside world except for a television. Letters take weeks and sometimes up to 5 months to arrive. Only after six months, after multiple appeals, was a court order issued granting Daniel the right to purchase fiction books. When Daniel‘s family was finally allowed to visit, they sat separated from them in a glass enclosure and could communicate with them only faintly through small drilled holes; physical contact was not permitted. It was only when Irish members of parliament went to the German ambassador in Ireland and lodged a complaint that this unlawful practice was discontinued after five months.

      Because of these harassments alone, the defense attorneys were embroiled in a battle with the court from the very beginning. At the latest when the Stuttgart Higher Regional Court, in upholding the decision in February that the suspects must remain in pretrial detention, were antisemites with „high criminal energy“, and stating that they faced long prison sentences (all this without hearing evidence from the defence), it became clear that the judiciary was biased and not interested in a fair trial.

      There are several peculiarities of the German court system that have a structurally negative impact in a political trial such as this: 1) Unlike Anglo-Saxon legal systems, German procedural law does not provide for a jury, but rather, in addition to the three professional judges, only two lay judges, who, while formally equal to the professional judges, generally do not develop their own corrective dynamic because they are in the minority; 2) Prosecutors are subordinate to the Ministry of Justice and are bound by instructions; they are part of the executive branch. While judges are independent and not bound by instructions, they are structurally close to the prosecutors: As judicial officials, both share a common career path, a common employer, common associations, common institutional interests, common conferences, cafeterias, social networks, and a similar self-image. Prosecutors, too, are bound by a duty of “objectivity” and are supposed to investigate not only incriminating but also exculpatory circumstances. This moderates the prosecution, but conversely, a judge who wants to advance his career or simply keep the peace among his colleagues can hardly afford to alienate the prosecution and, by extension, the government. The prosecution and the court tend to act as a united front, albeit with divided roles. 3) Simply as a counterweight to this, criminal defense attorneys—who are primarily obligated to their clients and work as independent professionals—often hold left-leaning and state-critical views in Germany. 4) My impression: The dominance of state interests and the blurring of roles, combined with certain personal character traits, foster the impression in political trials that members of the judiciary are actually weak, insecure individuals who are not free in their actions and compensate for this with passive-aggressive authoritarian behavior. This, in turn, leads to petty fights in the courtroom with attorneys and the public that actually undermine the dignity of the court. 4) There is no provision for verbatim transcripts to be prepared of the court proceedings in most German trials. One of the three judges takes the minutes, and the presiding judge determines what is noted down and what is not. Lawyers may have something entered into the record, but only after the presiding judge has granted them the floor. In the absence of verbatim transcripts, not to mention audio recordings, lawyers are forced to constantly ensure that what they say is actually recorded. This slows down the proceedings and contributes further to the impression of indignity. 5) Trials must be public, the press must be admitted and allowed to take notes. However, members of the public not accredited as press may be barred from bringing writing materials under courtroom regulations. From my experience at the Berlin-Tiergarten District Court, paper and a (often poor-quality) pen are at least provided in such cases. At the Stammheim Regional Court, however, you receive neither pen nor paper and must rely on mnemonic techniques to remember what happens throughout the long day. Visitors are searched before entering, sometimes roughly and with force in intimate areas, even after surrendering all personal items including belts and going through a metal detector. The public nature of the trial is undermined by the ridiculous insinuation that the audience could use a pen or paper to attack “participants in the proceedings”—a scenario in which, at Stammheim, behind a bulletproof glass wall, the audience would have to attack either each other or the court officers standing around in combat gear: stab vests, padded clothes, reinforced leather gloves, armed and carrying handcuffs. 6) And as is likely the case everywhere in the world, the architecture of the court itself expresses mistrust toward the audience. In Stammheim, the bulletproof glass walls separate not only the defendants but also the audience from the courtroom.

      The Ulm5 trial involves a host of other issues that are actually uncommon in German legal proceedings. From the very beginning, the court has been completely unresponsive to the defense attorneys; Presiding Judge Kathrin Lauchstädt subjects them, the defendants, and the public to harassment that seems as arbitrary as it is unnecessary. All attempts by the defense attorneys to engage in dialogue with her in the run-up to the trial failed. She refused to accept phone calls or emails from the defense (only snail mail), while—as the attorneys have since discovered—communication with Attorney General Ronny Stengel took place via email. On the first day of the trial, she did not allow the defense to speak at all, without giving any reasons for doing so. There is no judicial decision or justification for the discriminatory seating arrangement, and the judge has provided no schedule for the trial days, despite repeated requests from the defense. The 16 trial days initially announced were arbitrarily extended last week by another 28 days, stretching into January. Not only does this prolong the defendants’ pretrial detention, it also makes it virtually impossible for the lawyers to continue running their law firms in Berlin, Munich, Nuremberg… The experts to be appointed do not know when they are supposed to appear in court and cannot plan accordingly. Since the defendants filmed their own actions and the facts are clear, one wonders what is actually supposed to happen during these 44 days. Perhaps this is an empty threat. But perhaps the court also intends to carry out this strategy of attrition in earnest. Although the trial days officially begin at 9 a.m. and the public must arrive as early as 8 a.m. for security checks and searches, the proceedings do not actually begin until around 10:30 a.m.; lunch breaks of two hours or more are scheduled, and the presiding judge uses every pretext to interrupt the proceedings or even adjourn them for the day entirely. Indeed, after 4 sitting trial dates so far, only about 8 hours of actual court proceedings have been undertaken.

      On the first two days of the trial (which I did not attend), the court got no further than establishing the defendants’ identities. When proceedings did take place at all, they always concerned the attorneys’ motions to be allowed to file motions before the indictment was read, in order to clarify issues that had not been resolved before the trial began due to the presiding judge’s refusal to engage. The lawyers want 1) to ensure that the defendants are allowed to sit next to them, as is customary, because only then is confidential communication possible. This is in line with multiple European Court of Human Rights rulings. The arrangement of having the defendants behind a glass partition, where they are supposed to follow the proceedings and translations as well as communicate with their lawyers via microphones and headphones, significantly curtails their right to legal counsel and violates Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights, the right to a fair trial. This has been repeatedly refused by the judge. 2) The attorneys seek to ensure that they may bring a law clerk to prepare verbatim transcripts, or alternatively, to permit audio recordings. This has also been refused repeatedly by the judge – contrary to custom. Indeed the prosecutor, invited by the judge to take a view on this, remarked that it was not necessary as this case was neither of contemporary nor of historical significance. 3) Due to the apparent prejudgment evident in the court’s refusal to allow the defence to speak at all on the first day of proceedings; the court’s highly prejudicial media statements likening the Ulm 5 to multiple murderers, terrorist coup plotters and rival gang warfare participants; and other matters, the attorneys have filed a motion for recusal against the presiding judge.

      The first day of the trial ended dramatically: After one of many arbitrary recesses, the lawyers protested the seating arrangement by moving en masse behind the bulletproof glass in their robes, with their laptops, ready to work and reading to wait for their clients there and stand beside them. They basically occupied the glass box. Like an overwhelmed elementary school teacher, the presiding judge ordered them to take their seats within five minutes. When the lawyers refused to comply, the judge adjourned the hearing, sent everyone home, canceled the hearing days scheduled for the following week as a collective punishment, and extended the trial into January. It wasn’t until May 20, after a two-week break, that proceedings resumed.

      In the following, I describe what I saw and experienced on the third and fourth days of the trial, the days on which I was present myself:

      Report from Wednesday, May 20, the third day of the trial:

      On the way from the subway’s last stop to the prison and courthouse, we run into the other mothers (Vi’s, Crow/Walter’s, and Zo’s). For me, these mothers are and remain the most striking figures of the entire process. They greet each other affectionately. At home, some of them cry their eyes out, but when they talk to each other, they laugh at the absurdities. They laugh at how the court asked the defendents for their current addresses of the respective detention centers. They laugh at Vi’s answer in German to the question about her marital status: “leeedig” („ledig“ is a German bureaucratic word for not married). “Either you’re married or you’re a ‘spinster’”. The laughter helps a lot, and if I had to choose between the fate of the mothers or the sad existence of the presiding judge, I would always choose the fate of the mother. When we arrive in front oft he court house, the activists treat them with touching courtesy, they always let them go to the very front of the lines.

      The mothers are all in their mid-50s to early 60s and were, until recently, by no means „radical“. For some time, the families weren’t sure if the lawyers’ conflict strategy was the right one. But the unjust and harsh treatment of their children from day one, the many acts of harassment, the absurd accusations of anti-Semitism, and the countless experiences of being at the mercy of a state power that is blind to reality, self-contradictory, and inhumane have driven them completely to the side of the activists in solidarity with Palestine. Not only in court, but also before every prison visit, they are searched and frisked and, depending on the facility, might not be allowed to bring in either paper or pens. Before her prison visits, Daniel’s mother tries to write the most urgent things she wants to tell Daniel in the scant half-hour visit on the back of her hand. “Does the German state realize how they are radicalizing women over 60 whose skin is too wrinkled to write prison notes on their hands?”

      You can see Stammheim Prison from a distance. The courthouse is right next to it. It was rebuilt in 2023 in a corporate-chic style. The interior of the building was compared to a “wellness oasis” in an architecture magazine; Daniel’s stepfather jokes that he will only give it two stars on TripAdvisor. “The Stuttgart hospitality thing—measured cordiality.”

      The numerous court officers in the gallery are dressed in riot gear and ready to interpret their powers broadly and arbitrarily. While we wait for the trial to begin, a row of seats reserved for the press is opened up to the public. The mothers want to move to the front so they can see their children better behind the glass partition. They are denied this for no reason: “I have my instructions,” says the court officer. “Just following orders,” say the mothers; this excuse sounds familiar in Germany. The activists hunch in their seats so the mothers can still have a somewhat clear view. 

      After a delay of over an hour and a half, the defendants are finally brought in, and at first it is a shock. Vi is wheeled in on a chair, handcuffed, by several officers. She has lost over ten kilos in detention in Schwäbisch-Gmünd, where there is apparently not enough to eat; they say it is cold and dirty within the old walls of a former monastery. She really looks terrible. Has something happened? Can she no longer walk? Her friends from her hometown of Offenbach, who have traveled here for the day, are fighting back tears. But when the others, too, are not walking on their own but are carried in by four police officers each, it becomes clear to that this is a protest: Unlike the RAF defendants, who withdrew from the trial by going on a hunger strike, the defendants do want to participate in the trial, but with this action they are demonstrating that they do not accept the glass partition, being handcuffed and separated from their lawyers.

      This is not the only difference to the RAF trial that comes to mind: The RAF defendants had killed people, whereas the Ulm5 defendants have only damaged property and harmed no living being. The RAF defendants refused to participate in the trial by going on a hunger strike. The Ulm5 defendants want the trial to proceed but insist on their rights. The RAF defendants did not claim that their actions were intended to hinder, for example, the Vietnam War or the Shah’s policies in Iran. The Ulm 5 wanted to hinder the genocide in Gaza and Germany’s support for it, at least temporarily. Today, the state is attempting to exploit the symbolism of the RAF trial. A dynamic of radicalization happens today as it happened then. However, the defendants and the defense are doing everything in their power today to counter dehumanization and the violation of life, and to insist on the rule of law.

      As the defendants are escorted to their seats, the audience greets them with a standing ovation and sustained applause. Today, however, unlike on previous trial days, there are no cheers and no singing. One of the mothers had asked the activists waiting outside the entrance to refrain from cheering and singing so as not to provide further pretexts for interruptions, but she told them to clap as they entered. We know how important this encouragement and support from the audience is for the defendants.

      The first few hours of the trial, which has finally begun, are consumed by the complicated legal maneuvering surrounding the motions with which the attorneys have already spent the first two days attempting to assert their clients’ rights: these include the stigmatizing nature of the proceedings, the restrictions on communication and public access, the recording of proceedings, and—since these motions are constantly being denied without justification—the court’s bias. In addition, the lawyers are trying to secure permission to show an eight-minute film as part of their opening statements—using the courtroom’s equipment or on a screen they have brought with them. Presumably, it is a film showing the war crimes committed in Gaza using Elbit’s weapons systems. The court is determined not to allow this under any circumstances.

      The contrast in demeanor and bearing between the court and the lawyers is striking. The presiding judge embodies, in a jarring way, the archetype of the timid bureaucrat. One cannot help but feel that she is not making decisions freely, but is somehow receiving instructions from above—or is, in some incomprehensible way, biased and incompetent. The lawyers—a total of 11 court-appointed and private defense attorneys, of whom 7 or 8 are present—are all quite young. While there may have been  disagreement about the trial strategy during the preparation phase, the court, with its obstructions and incompetence, has achieved the opposite of what it intended. The lawyers are not intimidated, but appear determined and completely united. 

      The Attorney General seems even more intransigent than the judge, less insecure, contemptuous; he speaks little, and when he does, he makes himself as incomprehensible as possible. He clearly has a problem with the lawyers’ media relations. Time and again, he mentions media coverage, “international and domestic,” as if it were something objectionable for which the lawyers were responsible. At one point, he warns that he will not let it pass if, as he fears, the lawyers’ opening statements were to “depart from the foundations of the Basic Law.” He apparently confuses German national interest/the „Staatsräson“ with the Basic Law. He laughs when the lawyers later speak about the war crimes in Gaza. For his part, he contributes to delaying the trial by usually not responding to the lawyers’ motions, or responding only briefly, and reserving the right to submit written statements, for which the presiding judge has given him until the middle of next week.

      In the end, the presiding judge must hear one final motion before the indictment is read: a defense attorney requests that the public be excluded during the reading of those sections of the indictment that deal with the alleged “anti-Semitism” of the crime. She argues that her client’s safety at Stammheim Prison is at risk, as right-wing ideology is circulating there; a prison chaplain had approached them and unsolicitedly given them a book on anti-Semitism. Since someone from the BILD newspaper is also sitting in the audience and it is actually surprising that there hasn’t yet been a full-scale smear campaign against Ulm5, the lawyers, and the family members, there may be some truth to the fear. But my impression is that the motion primarily gives the defense attorney the opportunity to explain, even before the indictment can be read, that her client’s actions were not directed against Jews, nor even against the State of Israel, but exclusively against the leadership of Elbit Systems, its weapons production, its involvement in the genocide in Gaza, and German support for it. The many other motions, which may seem confusing to the public, also allow the defense—regardless of whether they are rejected or not even admitted—to present the defendants’ motives before the prosecutor can shape the narrative by reading the indictment.

      The indictment focuses primarily on “Palestine Action Germany,” as an alleged part of “Palestine Action Global,” which is said to have emerged from “Palestine Action UK,” and attempts to prove that these networks constitute organized “crime” and a “criminal organization” into which the defendants’ act was “integrated.” The preparations for the act, and above all the red Palestine Action overalls that the Ulm5 would have worn had the postal mail delivered them in time, serve as evidence of “membership”.  But since the act was a one-time occurrence, and apart from this single act, an organization named “Palestine Action Germany” has not had an appearance anywhere else to date, and above all, since trespassing and property damage alone do not constitute serious crimes, the justifications for assuming the existence of a criminal organization do not really hold up. Apparently, this is why the Attorney General needs the astronomical figure of over one million euros in damages, for which he provides no evidence whatsoever. He also needs the accusation of anti-Semitism to make the act appear particularly reprehensible. The slogans and the mere fact that Elbit Systems is an Israeli company are supposed to substantiate the accusation of anti-Semitism. To insinuate that the defendants support Hamas, the red triangle and FTRTTS are used as evidence.

      After the long, imposed lunch break, when most of the press had gone home, the lawyers were finally able to deliver their opening statements. They have obviously decided not to address the charges brought by the State Attorney General’s Office at all. Their defense is not a defense, but rather a full-scale offensive. Two lawyers begin with presentations on the history of the RAF trials and the symbolism of Stammheim, and they explain the defendants’ one-time, symbolic refusal to enter the glass box. One lawyer, who had intended to show the eight-minute video featuring footage from Gaza, states for the record that he was denied the opportunity to present his case and has nothing further to say. One lawyer draws a parallel to the members of the climate activist group Last Generation, who caused millions in damage and yet were not taken into pretrial detention. Daniel’s lawyer, Benjamin Düsberg—who is simply excellent at rhetoric—presents on the war in Gaza and how, above all, children were killed, starved, and injured, deliberately and systematically; he speaks in detail about the types of weapons produced by Elbit Systems, how they are used for genocidal warfare, how Germany supports this weapons production; what international law prescribes and how international law relates to German law. “No one who has even a shred of heart and reason left can turn a blind eye to this.” As he speaks, two of the defendants are crying. I no longer remember where Düsberg stopped and the lawyer Breuer took over, or who read the quote from Fritz Bauer: the defendants’ actions—trespassing and property damage—were not merely excusable, were not merely justifiable as self-defense; they were resistance, necessary resistance against an ongoing genocide, “the least they could do,” after all other means of persuading Germany to cease its complicity in the crimes had failed. The lawyers concluded that the criminals were sitting on the other side; Elbit and Germany should be the ones on trial, whereas the defendants had drawn the only correct conclusion from the lessons of National Socialism and the Holocaust: “Never again!”

      The presiding judge seemed to be listening, at least. The prosecutor, on the other hand, made dismissive hand gestures and even laughed once. When asked if he wished to respond, he sneered that he had nothing to “replicate,” since nothing relevant to the trial had been presented.

      Outside, we meet the lawyers. They are confident. The presiding judge is making one mistake after another. Indeed: her weakness and lack of composure are glaringly obvious. Nevertheless, that very evening, the information screen in the subway displays a version of the story that blames the “chaotic day of proceedings” on the defendants who allowed themselves to be dragged in, and on the lawyers with their motions. This is the epistemic violence that Mimi had said was almost harder to bear than the physical violence of imprisonment and deprivation of liberty: “It’s unbelievable when you experience this live, and then have to hear and read what the state and the media have to say about it—and that’s something completely different.” When you’re being fed a pack of lies; when you’re forced to accept a false, constructed parallel reality instead of the reality perceptible to your own senses.

      Report from Friday, May 22, 2026, the fourth day of the trial

      It is the day on which the defendants’ statements are finally expected. As we wait in the morning sun in front of the supporter camp, Greta Thunberg comes around the corner, with her heavy backpack, accompanied by Judith Scheytt and Hebh Jamal, just like the rest of us from the subway; completely unassuming and without any fuss being made about her arrival.

      Yesterday, Roser, the most active activist, visited another trial that is currently taking place on alternate days in the very same courtroom in Stammheim out of curiosity—one that involved a person charged with membership in a terrorist (!) organization. She reports: This defendant had not been in pretrial detention at all, but had arrived by taxi. He was treated politely and courteously by the court and was informed of his rights; a “normal” trial, which once again shows just how abnormal the Ulm5 trial is. At the entrance in front of the courthouse there is a notice box that shows all the upcoming trials, with hearing dates—for the public, one would think. When I take a photo of them, a police officer approaches and aggressively orders me to stop.

      Security checks: At the entrance, the punk-style policewoman who is nice and discreet and already knows me takes over the pat-down in the booth again. But others end up with a policewoman who is a sadist. Mimi after the afternoon check: “She stuck her hands up inside my bra, pushed the underwire up hard—very painful—and felt my breasts. Like both palms on the whole of both my breasts, I consider it a sexual assault.” In response to her loud complaint: “Hey, what are you doing? That’s not normal,” she replied: “That’s how I always do it,” but at least refrained from reaching into her pants between her legs, as she did with Greta, the other mothers, and four journalists. This happened to every woman as far as we know who was sent to this woman including the very experienced trial observer representatives from the Basic Rights Committee NGO, who have filed a formal complaint already. The lawyers will file a formal complaint about sexual abuse.

       In the courtroom, the slips of paper for the “press” are no longer on the chairs but are laminated and glued to the backs of the chairs in the first two rows. No one is supposed to get the idea to use the slips of paper for writing anymore. It is details like these that make one particularly feel the court’s meanness.

      The defendants are led to their seats behind the glass partition, on foot today. Vi looks much better; in fact, the defendants are in high spirits. Mimi and Jem were able to visit the day before; he’s doing well, despite the terrible prison conditions and even though a fellow inmate he’d befriended during the morning yard walks has disappeared. When the sun creeps over the prison walls, they stand on their tiptoes to feel a few rays on their faces. Daniel does hundreds of push-ups in his cell every day and looks stronger than ever. It seems they won’t succeed in breaking the defendants and their families.

      Now the lawyers are raising the motions that had previously been denied: Regarding the seating arrangement, they have discovered that the presiding judge lied: Stammheim was designated as the courtroom from the very beginning; no other venues were even considered, even though there were 14 or 15 other courtrooms in the region. The fact that no eye contact with the clients is possible, and above all that they cannot simultaneously follow the proceedings and communicate with their lawyers, constitutes a violation of their rights that they will not accept. In response, for the first and only time so far, the young prosecutor sitting next to the Attorney General speaks up and asks—perhaps ironically, since it is quite cramped at the lawyers’ tables—where exactly the defense thinks the defendants should sit? This is a perfect setup: The lawyers laugh, one (Anna Busl) speaks up and thanks her for the question: Where the prosecution is sitting right now—that is the right place for her clients! Because in fact, they are the real plaintiffs, and the real accused are Elbit Systems and the German state, which supports genocidal warfare. The prosecution could then sit down behind the bulletproof glass and see what the trial looks like from there.

      Regarding the issue of recording, the lawyers cite the RAF trial as a historical counterexample, where the court permitted a court reporter. Above all they point to the obvious practicality. The Attorney General counters for now that the RAF trial had media and historical significance for contemporaries and posterity, whereas he considers this trial as insignificant. (Posterity will see it differently.)

      On the question of pen use in the audience: the attorneys point out that the pretext that pens could be used as stabbing weapons is absurd. The Attorney General claims that he has reasons to be afraid as he and the judges have been named on Indymedia and threatened “with sanctions.” Defense: they are sorry to hear this, but the audience can’t be blamed for that, and what does it have to do with the pens?

      The motion to make an audio recording of the trial is denied. In most cases, the Attorney General does not present oral arguments but instead refers to written statements, for which the presiding judge sets a deadline for the following week. When the attorneys point out that the motion to at least bring the defendants out of the glass enclosure for their opening statements must be decided immediately due to time constraints, the judge wants to end the day’s proceedings entirely—it is noon, after only an hour and a half of proceedings. Great unrest in the courtroom: are the defendants once again not to be given an opportunity to speak? Several lawyers cite the principle of expeditious proceedings, their clients’ civil liberties, and the fact that the presiding judge herself had referred to the principle of expeditious proceedings on the very first day; they also mention the families who had traveled from abroad to hear their children. The judge has to give in, but orders another two-hour lunch break, probably in the hope that most of the press will no longer be present by then.

      I, too, am prevented by this long lunch break from hearing the statements. But according to reports from others and Mimi’s account, only Daniel managed to speak up, and not the whole of his statement. At first, the presiding judge granted the request to let the prisoners out of the glass box for their statements, but with a “meanness” attached (as one of the lawyers put it): They were to be led to the witness stand in handcuffs. Daniel therefore preferred to deliver the speech behind glass after all, rather than be paraded “like an animal”, according to Düsberg. Daniel spoke in German about his exclusively humanitarian motives for the act: the systematic destruction of the foundations of life in Gaza, the artificial famine, the sexual violence against Palestinian prisoners. The Ulm5 had wanted to “cause a stir,” to at least temporarily interrupt the arms shipments. “Looking the other way is reprehensible, but supplying the equipment for it is even worse.” The accusation of anti-Semitism did not surprise him, but it outraged him: “To label resistance against occupation and mass murder as anti-Semitism is a disgrace.” –

      After this sentence, which landed powerfully in the room, the presiding judge completely lost it: She seized upon a brief and isolated cheer from the audience as a pretext to interrupt Daniel’s statement—not to remove the disruptor from the courtroom, but to have them led through a side door from the gallery into the courtroom itself and to stage a small trial within the trial there: She had the person’s ID card handed to her and began to read out their personal details before everyone. When the lawyers, the defendants, and the audience covered their ears and protested, she must have realized the illegality of her action. She abruptly closed the hearing and went off for the weekend.

      To be continued.

    • Rent, Power and Abuse at the University in Freiburg and its surroundings

      Rent, Power and Abuse at the University in Freiburg and its surroundings

      “Fear, too, will change sides. Here, the dignity of 800 women lies in unrest”, photo taken by a victim who wishes to remain anonymous.

      The Facts

      At least 800 women were secretly filmed on the toilet, under the shower and during student advisory consultations in Freiburg over a course of several years. On the 9th of March a German white male was convicted of the crime of “invasion of the most personal private sphere”, a term coined by German jurists to describe the filming of people in intimate contexts without their consent (see Section 201a of the German Criminal Code (StGB)). Ever since the case became public, more and more women discovered that they themselves were affected by this crime through independent research. The fact that the offender used these recordings for sexual gratification, which should be seen as a sexual assault, is of no relevance under criminal law. The perpetrator was sentenced to one year and nine months on probation.

      The offender installed hidden cameras in the toilets at the student advisory offices of the university (Service Centre Studium, also SCS), where he worked, as well as in the toilets of the flats he rented out. The people affected were female colleagues, students whom he advised,  and first year students who rented a room in one of his flats, after being scrutinised for their appearance at personal meetings. The offender regularly entered the flats under false pretences, in order to change the cameras’ memory cards. It was only 16 years after he had begun to make the secret recordings that some women were able to find the cameras there. Four hard drives filled with recordings were found at the perpetrator’s house during a search.

       The Court’s Role

      According to reporting by the Badische Zeitung, 70 female tenants from the period 2019-2024 were identified and 61 cases heard at the Freiburg District Court. Female employees from the student advisory offices were present as civil claimants, a legal status in German criminal proceedings that allows affected parties to actively participate, assert their rights, and seek compensation. Many of the tenants who were filmed before 2019 were not informed by authorities, as their violation “of the most personal private sphere” had exceeded the statute of limitations. They as well as the students who had been filmed in on the university premises had to have their involvement confirmed by the police upon request. Had the Freiburg police informed them they would have had the opportunity, among other things, to to assert civil claims for damages and compensation for pain and suffering.

      The prosecution sought a two-and-a-half-year prison sentence for the perpetrator and argued that the act should be classified as “perfidious”, given the hidden cameras and that the footage was used for sexual gratification. The district court judge Andreas Leipold opted for a more lenient sentence and rejected the classification as perfidious. His reasoning was that the crime’s very nature (“in der Natur der Sache”) implied both the hidden camera and the sexual gratification. However, the perfidy of the sexual violence is well documented: the footage found on the perpetrator’s hard drive is not organised by date, but by the victims’ physical characteristics, sexuality and origin.

      The judge reportedly told one victim that they must learn to live with the fact that some men, not all, were capable of such acts. A statement that absolves the perpetrator of guilt by referring to allegedly natural impulses and downplays individual responsibility.

      The naturalisation and normalisation of sexual violence leave a bitter taste, and the sentencing casts doubts on how seriously the court takes these kinds of crimes. The names of the 803 afflicted women were known at the start of legal proceedings, the number of undetected cases likely being much higher. All of these women had their dignity and sexual self-determination violated, in some cases severely, with long-lasting personal and psychological consequences. The court’s proceeding and ruling did not generate a sense of justice but rather  a feeling of repeated violation of their dignity, this time by the court. Court observers reported that the already convicted man asked the court if he could now get the footage back. This interaction conveys the impression that he feels neither remorse nor shame for his crimes. A sobering conclusion when considering Giselle Pelicot’s appeal that shame must shift sides. Now that the court proceedings have ended, the perpetrator is de facto a free man, given his suspended sentence. He had to pay 3.500 Euro to 30 victims, representing only a fraction of those affected, 105.000 Euro in total. According to local news he had to sell one of his two properties, however, he remains a property owner, possibly a landlord.

      The University’s Role

      The prosecution has appealed the verdict. The appeal concerns not only the sentence but also the determination of the extent of the offence(s) and, the participation of the joint plaintiffs. The perpetrator  filmed in university’s bathrooms and during consultation in his office. Nevertheless, the university refrained from acting as civil claimant and victims who were filmed in university bathrooms were not represented in the proceedings.

      The university claims to have been unaware of the situation previous to the conviction in March 2026. However, according to local news, the SCS offices had been searched by police in February of 2024, after the perpetrator’s hard drives had been seized. Moreover, the university stated in an information letter from the Vice-Rectorate for Studies and Teaching (Prorektorat für Studium und Lehre) dated 12 March 2026 that it had terminated the perpetrator’s employment immediately due to “concrete evidence of the offence”. In order to prevent continuous employment of the perpetrator a court settlement was reached. The Human Ressources office must therefore have been aware of the allegations of sexual assault.

      By failing to assume the role of a joint plaintiff, the University of Freiburg failed to fulfill its institutional responsibility. University employees had to take on the role of civil claimant on their own, in order to participate in court proceedings and to be able to ask questions. In addition, the vice rectorate failed to inform the victims that the Baden-Württemberg Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts provides a trusted legal advisor for sexualised discrimination, harassment and violence. Only on the 20th of March 2026 the Minister for Science, Research and the Arts, Petra Olschowski (Alliance 90/The Greens) informed the audience at a university event that such a trusted legal advisor is available. Outraged members of the audience received no answer as to why the vice-rector for Studies and Teaching had told them that there was no such point of contact.

      The University of Freiburg failed to fulfill its duty of care toward its employees, students and alumni. Only after the mobilisation by the students and employees and growing public pressure did the university offer information and invite people for discussion. Negative public attention comes at an inopportune time for the university, given its application for Excellence University status and the upcoming site visit by the evaluation committee in April 2026.

      Sexual Violence as a Structural Problem at Universities

      At the event, Minister Olschowski and the university leadership first emphasised the criminal energy of individuals, then the minister went on to address patriarchy as a structure that operates everywhere, “in the ministry just as at the Aldi counter”. In doing so, she failed to engage with the issue of sexual violence as a phenomenon at universities. While universities are often regarded as places of enlightenment and communal and societal progress, they are by no means free from discriminatory and violence-enabling structures.  According to the UniSAFE study (2022) on gender-based violence in academia, almost one third of the students and employees surveyed at 15 European institutions have already experienced sexual harassment at their university or research institution. The study draws attention to the hierarchies and the relationships of dependency within university operations, which account for both the number of incident reports and the fear of disclosing them (Beaufaÿs, 2022).

      Until now the handling of cases of sexual assault at universities has not inspired confidence. Studies reveal that the gap between reported cases of abuse and consequences or convictions for the perpetrators is substantial: most cases go unpunished (Hoebel et al., 2022). Nevertheless, the possibility of a false accusation is reliably invoked as a concern by professors. When sexual assault allegations arise, there is often a disturbing reversal of roles between perpetrator and victim, as was the case with a historian who worked at the Humboldt University in Berlin. He was accused of sexual assault by numerous women and yet was defended by many colleagues across Germany.

      Students are particularly vulnerable in the university context, not merely because of the hierarchies and dependencies. Under Section 3 (3) of the General Equal Treatment Act (AGG), the university is in fact obligated to protect students from discriminatory harassment. However, the specific protection against sexual harassment under Section 3 (4) of the AGG applies exclusively to employees of a university and not to students. Since the requirements for establishing discrimination under Section 3 (3) AGG are higher than those under Section 3 (4) AGG – in particular because, in addition to a violation of dignity, a hostile environment must also be demonstrated – this creates, according to Kocher and Porsche (2015), a significant protection gap for students, which leaves them dependent on the protective function of their own university.

      Furthermore, the implementation of the principle of gender equality and the prohibition of discrimination varies considerably across the individual federal states as well as individual universities (Kocher & Porsche, 2015). The University of Freiburg identifies sexualized violence and stalking as components of the prohibition of discrimination and has developed an action plan and a catalog of measures for sexualized assaults (Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg, 2021). However, the current case demonstrates that action is needed with regard to image-based and digital sexual violence, as well as the extension of the AGG to include students. Yet the opposite is looming: both the AfD nationwide and the CDU in Berlin want to abolish the AGG.

      The Government’s Role

      The fact that the law only protects victims to a certain extent has also become apparent with the case of Collien Fernandes, which has attracted attention nationwide. Minister Olschowski also emphasised that public toilets should be examined for cameras and that the law regarding digital sexual abuse should be revised.

      Beyond criminal law, however, the structural causes that enabled the sexual assaults by the perpetrator at the University of Freiburg should also be addressed. Here is where the government holds a different kind of responsibility. The main victims were vulnerable tenants.

      Women often experience sexual harassment from landlords or primary tenants, particularly in the context of housing crises in many cities, where young people just starting their education, studies, or careers are desperately searching for a place to live. Young women in particular must endure misogyny and sexual assault, and migrants and people of color must endure racism, in order to avoid becoming homeless. This abuse of power is fueled by material inequalities and dependencies that, driven by political will, are steadily increasing (WSI Inequality Report, see Spannagel, 2025). While, according to data from 2019, nearly 70% of millionaires in Germany are men and rental properties in Germany are almost exclusively owned by the wealthiest ten percent (Bach & Eichfelder, 2021), the search for housing is a nightmare not only for first-year students. Rents for a room in a shared apartment in German university towns continue to rise and will average 530 euros in Baden-Württemberg during the summer semester of 2026. For this reason, students at the University of Freiburg have come together to form an “Initiative for Affordable Student Housing” and, in November and December 2025, spent months in a protest camp to draw attention to the precarious housing conditions in Freiburg.

      One of the women filmed by the perpetrator told the Badische Zeitung: The way he looked at her body during the viewing made her feel uncomfortable. She also found it strange that she had to send a photo of herself when applying for the apartment and that only young women were present during the viewing. The fact that the landlord constantly entered the apartment unannounced with his own key infringed on her privacy. But giving up the apartment and removing herself from this situation could have meant becoming homeless due to the tight and overpriced housing market.

      Conclusion

      To combat sexualized violence, we need meaningful laws that address the protection needs of those affected and classify gender-based violence as such. These laws must also be enforced. However, the growing awareness of the problem must not turn into so-called “carceral feminism” (punitive feminism), which relies solely on punishment in individual cases. Feminism is a liberation movement, and its goal of eliminating violence—particularly gender-based violence—cannot be achieved within punitive and incarceration-oriented systems, but only through the establishment of social justice.

      Policies that demand and promote social inequality—and thus structural violence—enable and reward the abuse of power and sexualized and racialized assaults at universities, in rental relationships, and elsewhere. Current policies reinforce the conditions in the housing market and at universities, as well as the neoliberalization of academia, with strong dependencies within precarious funding structures. Stricter laws can act as a deterrent, raise awareness of the problem, and contribute to a sense of justice for victims and witnesses. Above all, however, stricter laws can denormalize sexualized violence. Furthermore, political vision and the will to shape policy are needed to combat the causes of strong dependency relationships and institutional hierarchies

      Sources and Background Material

      This text is based on information from observations, participation in debates and demonstrations, discussions with those affected, and the following sources:

      1. News reports and blog articles

      2. Reports and Monitoring

      3. Academic Articles and Studies

      • Beaufaÿs, Sandra. (2022). Power Relations and Abuse of Power in Academia. In L. Mense, H. Mauer, & J. Herrmann (Eds.), Countering Sexual Harassment, Violence, and Abuse of Power at Universities: A Guide. DuEPublico: Duisburg-Essen Publications online, University of Duisburg-Essen. https://duepublico2.uni-due.de/receive/duepublico_mods_00075205
      • Hoebel, Merle; Durglishvili, Ana; Reinold, Johanna and Leising, Daniel. (2022). Sexual Harassment and Coercion in German Academia: A Large-Scale Survey Study. Sexual Offending: Theory, Research, and Prevention, 17, Article e9349. https://doi.org/10.5964/sotrap.9349
      • Lipinsky, Anke, Schredl, Claudia; Baumann, Horst; Humbert, Anne Laure; Tanwar, Jagriti; Bondestam, Fredrik; Freund, Frederike and Lomazzi, Vera. (2022). UniSAFE Survey – Gender-based violence and institutional responses (Version 1.0.0) [Data set]. GESIS, Cologne. https://doi.org/10.7802/2475

      English translation by Maddalena Weigel

    • Serbia’s government ends the autonomy of universities altogether

      Serbia’s government ends the autonomy of universities altogether

      Student protest at the anniversary of the tragedy of Novi Sad.

      More than a year has passed since the Serbian 2024 student uprising, sparked by the collapse of the canopy in Novi Sad that killed 16 people. What began as a call to hold those responsible accountable for the tragedy evolved into a broader social struggle against corruption, criminality, and the ruling regime’s authoritarianism. Universities—alongside secondary schools—became key hubs of resistance, with blockades backed not only by faculty but by society at large. Over the past year, the regime has used a range of tactics to not only crack down on protest but to intimidate and suppress both students and professors and deans who supported them. Those who resisted—or even expressed solidarity—risked repercussions.

      In April 2025, the government of Serbia adopted a regulation that punished academic staff who had joined the blockades and suspended their teaching. The regulation changed the previous distribution of working time—20 hours per week allocated to research and 20 hours to teaching—by reducing research time to five hours. On that basis, the government was able to penalise faculty by cutting their pay to 12.5% of the full salary.

      However, after classes resumed, the government went further, using financial threats to weaken university autonomy altogether. Unlike last year’s punishments, a special system of financial oversight enables the government to exert pressure on faculties in a far more subtle way. In an interview for KriSol, Professor Biljana Stojkovic describes the latest measure introduced by the government: “What has now been implemented, more broadly and systematically, is a mechanism called SPIRI, under which funds held by faculties and universities are no longer treated as ours: they are transferred to a centralized account, and decisions on spending are made by the Ministry of Finance. This applies as well to international projects and research funding. In that sense, we have lost our autonomy. It discourages anyone from pursuing research in the context of international cooperation. The specific problem is not so much the technical question of how the system will operate or how long it will take to release funds to faculties and different accounts. The most important point is that this effectively creates a kind of ‘kill switch’ for the entire university system. If we are not ‘good,’ the regime can now very easily suspend all payments, because the Ministry of Finance directly controls our finances. And without money for the university to function at all, there can be no independence.”

      In addition to financial pressure, the regime has moved to target teaching staff more directly: a large number of secondary-school teachers were not offered contract renewals, and some sources report that around 100 people were dismissed in September last year. The most prominent case is that of the University of Novi Pazar, where about 30 staff members did not have their contracts renewed, and where some students reportedly lost their student status.

      On this, professor Stojkovic says:  “We also fear that this will open the door to a systematic way of dismissing ‘undesirable’ professors. Up to now, what we have seen is that for each individual, they have had to devise a specific method to remove them. In the cases of Jelena Kleut and two professors at the Faculty of Medicine, for example, they waited for the reappointment/re-election process and then simply did not re-elect them—that is one method. And we will see how that unfolds, unless they decide to amend the law, so that they can dismiss anyone they want. In terms of legislation—legal solutions—they are working on that intensively. Until they finalise it, they target people individually. Those in the most precarious position are those who are not full professors, because full professors no longer go through reappointments, so it is harder to find a way to dismiss them. But associate professors, assistant professors, and teaching assistants who stood with the students are at risk, because they are waiting for the moment when these staff members are due for a new appointment or reappointment.”

      Financial pressure, coupled with the risk of dismissal through the manipulation of appointment and reappointment procedures, has deepened fears and made continued resistance feel increasingly costly. Despite impressive and strong mass protests and university blockades, the climate of fear has not eased but steadily intensified. Alongside institutional and legal measures, the regime also relies on tabloids and mainstream media to expose and target professors who speak out publicly and support the students. Last year, Professor Biljana Stojković was among those singled out in this way.

      We also interviewed Natalija Stojmenović, an MP from the Green-Left Front. She notes that such attacks on the university are not new and describes the pattern as follows: “These attacks begin with staffing infiltration, then move on to materially worsening the position of both school and university workers, and ultimately to hollowing out the very purpose of education itself. For years, the authorities have worked to control student parliaments, to place their people on faculty councils and at the Rectorate. Then, during the blockades, they kept university staff without pay for months, and afterwards tried to undermine the entire system through a regulation that changed the way teaching and research are assessed. This is a trend in Serbia, and I believe we can also see traces of this trend in other countries. We are witnessing a wave of authoritarian tendencies that, I would say, is putting even the minimum requirements of democracy to the test. I would like to believe that this wave is trying to redefine the conditions and processes we associate with democracy, but there is also a real danger that the rise of authoritarianism is attempting to dismantle education and reduce it to a market function rather than an educational one.”

      Asked how the student uprising expanded into a broader push for political change, Stojmenović says: “In terms of mobilised citizens, I would say that a crucial generational mobilisation has taken place thanks to the student movement. I wouldn’t highlight only the past year, because I think some processes need to be viewed over the longer term. Over the past five years in Serbia, citizen mobilisation around key issues has been steadily increasing—from the protests over lithium, to the ‘Serbia Against Violence’ protests, and then over the past year. This shows that the government can no longer control the consequences of a system built on corruption, and, on the other hand, that the number of citizens who believe the authorities are acting in Serbia’s interest is shrinking. The canopy collapse laid this bare, because it tragically showed that the consequences of their actions can cost any one of us our life. Still, the student movement’s greatest contribution has undoubtedly been the mobilisation and organisation it brought. ”

      Although the regime appears to be entering one of its most repressive phases, these dynamics also seem to be pulling different social groups and political parties toward a common front of resistance. Whether this will translate into a unified opposition—and whether the regime can withstand it—remains to be seen. What is clear, however, is that the university has become a key site of collective mobilisation and democratic struggle, and that the defence of university autonomy has emerged as a baseline point of agreement across ideological and political divides.