Interim relief (référé-liberté) proceeding: rejected the applications of the Ligue des droits de l'homme and the Fédération départementale des libres penseurs de l'Hérault against the Préfet de l'Hérault's order banning pro-Palestinian rallies in Montpellier and Béziers, finding the ban proportionate to the risk of public-order disturbance.

Emergency suspension of an administrative decree banning demonstrations (référé-liberté) under Article L. 521-2 of the Code of Administrative Justice (CJA)

On January 27, 2024, during a demonstration titled "Freiheit für Palästina" in Hamburg, the two defendants loudly chanted the slogan "From the sea to the river, Palestine will live forever". The Public Prosecutor's Office issued penal orders, alleging that the first part of this chant was confusingly similar the prohibited slogan "From the river to the sea". The court held that the phrase "From the river to the sea – Palestine will be free" does not qualify as a prohibited symbol under § 86a StGB.

Public use of symbols of unconstitutional and terrorist organizations (§ 86a StGB in connection with § 86 StGB); Freedom of expression (Art. 5 Abs. 1 GG).

A former member of the Gestapo and the SS was convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The convicted man worked at the Gestapo headquarters in Breslau from 1940 to 1945. Beginning in 1942, he was also incorporated into the SS. He was tasked with investigating “opposition activities,” a term that included, for example, simply listening to Allied radio stations. As part of these investigations, he participated in the persecution of at least 1,340 people. Furthermore, in 1941, during the deportation of the Jewish population from Breslau, he carried out confiscations and performed guard and security duties. That same year, he was also a member of a task force tasked with identifying Jewish people in a camp for Soviet prisoners of war in order to subsequently deport them to the Auschwitz extermination camp. He was involved in the selection of at least 400 people, whose transport to the camp he also oversaw - a journey that took place under horrific conditions. The convicted person's appeal was denied. However, the court of second instance modified the conviction because it found that the lower court had underestimated the gravity of the offense in one respect.

Art. 6 lit. b., c. of the Charter of the International Military Tribunal, Art. 8, 91 VerfDDR, §§ 91 I, 93 I lit. 2, II StGB, § 1 VI EG zum STGB u ZPO der DDR, Convention on the Non-Applicability of Statutory Limitations to War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity

Conviction for Volksverhetzung (§ 130 StGB): a shopkeeper displayed a shop-window sign reading "JUDEN haben hier Hausverbot!!!" ("Jews are banned from entering"); sentenced to six months' imprisonment (suspended). Such an anti-Semitic statement does not fall within the scope of protection afforded by freedom of expression (Article 5(1) of the Basic Law): It undermines the human dignity (Article 1(1) of the Basic Law) of Jews living in Germany by, on the basis of the history of Nazi persecution, denying them any right to social recognition and respect across the board and defaming them as ‘non-persons’.

§ 130 Abs. 1 Nr. 1 und Nr. 2 StGB.

Rejected the State of Berlin's application for leave to appeal against VG Berlin's judgment (24 K 493/24, political-activity ban unlawful) for failure to meet statutory pleading requirements.

Judgment on the merits: the police dissolution and prohibition of the "Palästina-Kongress 2024 – Wir klagen an!" (organized by "Jüdische Stimme für gerechten Frieden in Nahost") was unlawful because the police failed to sufficiently examine less intrusive alternatives (e.g., excluding individual speakers) before a total ban.

§ 22 Abs 1 Nr 3 VersammlFrhG BE, § 4 Abs 1 S 1 VersammlFrhG BE, § 4 Abs 2 VersammlFrhG BE, Art 8 Abs 1 GG, Art 5 Abs 1 GG

Held that a blanket ban on disputing Israel's right to exist is unlawful per se, as such statements alone do not fulfil a criminal offence and are generally protected by freedom of expression; distinguished from slogans like "Yalla, yalla, Intifada" (lawfully banned) and left open the criminal-law status of "From the river to the sea".

§ 86a Abs. 1 Nr. 1 i.V.m. § 86 Abs. 1 und 2 StGB

Continued the court's line of case law (following its 2023 lead decision) on the classification of denying Israel's right to exist as antisemitic symbolism potentially attributable to Hamas within assembly-law danger prognoses.

§ 20 Abs. 1 Satz 1 Nr. 5 VereinsG, § 86 Abs. 1 Nr. 1 i.V.m. § 86 Abs. 2 StGB

Criminal-appeal decision on the interpretation of § 86a StGB in conjunction with association-ban law regarding use of Hamas-attributable symbols/slogans at demonstrations.

Art 5 Abs 1 S 1 GG, § 86 Abs 1 Nr 1 StGB, § 86 Abs 1 Nr 2 StGB, § 86 Abs 1 Nr 4 StGB, § 86 Abs 2 StGB, § 86 Abs 4 StGB, § 86a Abs 1 Nr 1 StGB, § 86a Abs 2 StGB, § 86a Abs 3 StGB

Conviction for incitement to hatred (Volksverhetzung) under § 130 Abs. 3 StGB for publishing an image of a concentration-camp gate captioned "Impfen macht frei" ("vaccination sets you free"), held to trivialize the Nazi genocide of European Jews.

§ 130 Abs. 3 StGB.

Revision judgment: the 2019 Bundestag resolution condemning the BDS movement as antisemitic is a "simple parliamentary resolution" not subject to review by administrative courts; jurisdiction lies with constitutional courts only. Clarified administrative-court remedies remain open against individual implementing measures.

§ 40 VwGO; § 17a Abs. 5 GVG

Interim proceeding on assembly conditions requiring organizers to announce restrictions (incl. on "From the river to the sea") at the start of a rally; court discussed the ambiguity of the slogan and its potential relevance under § 130 StGB.

§§ 86a Nr. 1 i.V.m. § 86 Abs. 1 Nr. 1 , ; § 130 StGB

Interim relief proceeding: court held that denying Israel's right to exist during a pro-Palestinian assembly likely constitutes a prohibited symbol of Hamas (§ 86a StGB) and may fulfil §§ 130, 140 StGB; upheld the police prohibition of the slogan.

VersG NRW § 13 Abs. 1 S. 1, GG Art. 5, Art. 8; StGB §§ 86a Abs. 1 Nr. 1 i.V.m. 86 Abs. 1, Abs. 2 , StGB §§ 86a Abs. 3 i.V.m. 86 Abs. 4; StGB § 130 Abs. 1, StGB § 140 Nr. 2

A former member of the fascist police filed a petition for rehabilitation against his conviction for war crimes and crimes against humanity. From 1940 to 1943, he served in a police battalion that was deployed in the Polish and Soviet territories occupied by the Nazis. According to the findings of the trial court, he participated in arbitrary executions, during which he personally killed at least one person; in violent arrests and roundups for the purpose of deportation to Germany and the subsequent use of the victims as forced laborers there; in the mass extermination of political opponents; in brutal reprisals against the civilian population, and in mass extermination operations carried out under Hitler’s decree for the “Barbarossa” area. The number of victims of the operations in which the convicted person participated, according to the aforementioned findings, runs into the thousands. The Regional Court granted the motion for rehabilitation by declaring the underlying judgment to be contrary to the rule of law. The Higher Regional Court agrees with the substance of the Regional Court's ruling and rejects the application for rehabilitation on only two of the eight points.

Art. 6 lit. b., c. of the Charter of the International Military Tribunal, Art. 8, 91 VerfDDR, §§ 91 II, 93 III StGB, § 1 VI EG zum STGB u ZPO der DDR, Convention on the Non-Applicability of Statutory Limitations to War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity

O. Balke, a former member of the SA, the NSDAP, and the fascist police in Nazi Germany, was convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity. From 1940 to 1943, he served in a police battalion that was deployed in the territories of occupied Poland. The police played a key role in carrying out and supporting the fascist policies of oppression and extermination in the occupied territories. Balke took part in arbitrary executions by firing squad of the local population, during which he personally murdered at least one person. He was also tasked with providing security for reprisal operations in which entire villages were looted and destroyed. In this capacity, he was involved in the murder of 417 men, women, and children. In late 1942, his battalion was deployed to ransack the Jewish ghetto in Brest and to murder and exterminate its inhabitants. During this brutal massacre, 16,000 Jewish people were shot to death.

Art. 6 lit. b., c. of the Charter of the International Military Tribunal, Art. 8, 91 VerfDDR, §§ 91 II, 93 III StGB, § 1 VI EG zum STGB u ZPO der DDR, Convention on the Non-Applicability of Statutory Limitations to War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity

On September 11, 2001, the day of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, the applicant created a drawing representing the collapsing towers with the caption: "NOUS EN AVIONS TOUS RÊVÉ ... LE HAMAS L’A FAIT" ("We all dreamed of it ... Hamas did it"). The drawing was published on September 13, 2001, in the Basque weekly magazine Ekaitza.Following the publication, the applicant was prosecuted and convicted in France for complicity in condoning terrorism (complicité d'apologie du terrorisme). He was sentenced to a fine of €1,500 and ordered to publish the judgment in several newspapers. The French Court of Cassation dismissed his appeal in 2003. Considering the sensitive political climate in the Basque region and the moderate fine, the Court ruled that the conviction was "necessary in a democratic society" and not disproportionate. But the Court found that the applicant had not been informed of the date the reporting judge's report was filed, nor was he given the opportunity to examine it, while the Advocate General had access to it. This constituted a breach of the principle of equality of arms.

l’article 24 de la loi du 29 juillet 1881; des articles 6, 10 de la Convention

In September 1992, the applicant, a retired engineer, published a technical article in the periodical "Révision" titled "The gas chamber homicide at Struthof-Natzweiler, a special case". In the article, he used chemical and technical arguments to question the existence and functionality of the gas chambers at the Struthof concentration camp during the German occupation. He concluded that the alleged gassings were a "special case" and cast doubt on the reality of mass extermination.The applicant was convicted by the Paris Criminal Court on June 10, 1993, for contesting crimes against humanity. The Commission emphasized that the fundamental aim of the Convention is to protect justice and peace. Negationism and revisionism are seen as attempts to rehabilitate the Nazi doctrine and incite racial hatred. Therefore, the applicant’s attempt to rely on Article 10 to justify his denial of the Holocaust was a manifest abuse of the rights guaranteed by the Convention.The Commission declared the application inadmissible.

Freedom of expression (Article 10 ECHR); Prohibition of abuse of rights (Article 17 ECHR); Holocaust denial (Revisionism/Negationism) under the Gayssot Act (Article 24 bis of the Law of July 29, 1881).

The applicant, the owner and editor of the newspaper Russkoye Veche, was convicted in Russia of inciting ethnic, racial, and religious hatred through the mass media. Between 2000 and 2002, he published a series of articles portraying the Jewish people as the "source of all evils in Russia" and alleging a "Ziono-Fascist" conspiracy against the Russian people. During his trial, he further claimed that Jews did not exist as a race or nation and therefore he could not have incited national hatred. He was sentenced to a fine of 10,000 Russian roubles. The Court reiterated that the Convention does not protect the right to engage in activities aimed at destroying the rights and freedoms of others. It found that the applicant's articles were of a "markedly anti-Semitic tenor" and constituted a "vehement attack" on one ethnic group.The ECHR unanimously declared the application inadmissible.

reedom of expression (Article 10 ECHR) and Prohibition of abuse of rights (Article 17 ECHR)

ollowing the Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023, two messages were published on the defendant's Twitter (now X) account. The first message, "Who's up for going to smash some Zionists, then?" (Qui se chauffe pour aller casser du sioniste, là ?), referred to a solidarity march for Israel. The second was a comment on a video of an Israeli family taken hostage, stating that they "did not make her feel sorry at all" and were "rather annoying, especially the kids". The defendant, the daughter of two members of parliament, contested being the author of the messages and refused to provide the unlocking codes for her seized mobile phones. The court held that while direct proof was absent, a set of consistent clues—including data extractions, connection logs, and private messages in which the defendant implicitly admitted to the publications—established her authorship. The "public character" was confirmed by the account's follower count and the lack of a "community of interest" among them. Concerning the first message on X, the court ruled that in the context of a march in support of Israel, the phrase "smash Zionists" explicitly targeted Jewish or Israeli people.

ne provocation à la violence aggravée prévue par l'article 132-76 du code pénal

On October 19, 2023—shortly after the Hamas attacks—the defendant posted an illustration on his Facebook account titled "ISRAEL [Z]" with the text "Israel assassins," "You are not human beings," and "You are the ultimate problem". The image depicted a horde of "cloned rabbis" in traditional religious attire (white shirts, dark vests, and black hats) devouring a newborn baby, with their mouths smeared with blood. The court ruled that the depiction of individuals in traditional Jewish clothing as "vampires" who feed on the blood of victims and "sacrifice children" invokes classic antisemitic tropes. Such imagery does not represent a specific government or military policy but targets the Jewish community as a whole.The Court of Cassation dismissed the appeal.

des articles 24 de la loi du 29 juillet 1881 et 10 de la Convention européenne de sauvegarde des droits de l'homme et des libertés fondamentales.

The association "Comité Action Palestine," founded in 2004 to support the Palestinian cause, was dissolved by a government decree on March 9, 2022. The Ministry of the Interior justified the dissolution under Article L. 212-1 of the Code of Internal Security, alleging that the association's "radical anti-Zionist" publications provoked discrimination, hatred, and violence against Jews and supported acts of terrorism. The association challenged the decree, arguing it was a manifest and illegal violation of their fundamental freedoms.The court ruled that the association’s positions, while "sharp and sometimes virulent" regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Israeli authorities, did not—in the current state of the investigation—constitute an incitement to discrimination, hatred, or violence. The court noted it was not established that the association disseminated antisemitic content.

l'article L. 521-2 du code de justice administrative :

The five defendants, including three police officers, were involved in an incident in a public establishment (a bar/restaurant),. Under the influence of significant amounts of alcohol, they made openly antisemitic remarks, specifically shouting "mort aux juifs" (death to Jews) and making references to Hitler. One defendant, M. [U], was found to have neo-Nazi photographs at his home, suggesting his actions were rooted in an openly neo-Nazi ideology. The atmosphere created was described as one of "arrogance and challenge," leading some customers to leave and reducing others to silence. The Court of Appeal convicted the defendants. M. [U] was dismissed from the police force, while others received suspended prison sentences (e.g., three months for M. [X] and M. [O]),. The defendants appealed, primarily challenging the publicity of the remarks and the legal qualification of the offense. The court affirmed that the remarks were held in a place open to the public and spoken at a high volume specifically to be heard by those present. The court rejected the defense's argument that the remarks were "private" because they were made while "clinking glasses" at a table.

articles 23 et 24 de la loi du 29 juillet 1881,

On October 12, 2023—five days after the Hamas attacks in Israel—the defendant was having lunch in a restaurant with his wife and a friend. During a conversation regarding the situation in the Middle East, he stated in a loud voice: "it is necessary to exterminate these kikes" (il faut exterminer ces youpins). The remarks were overheard by M. [S] [W], who was seated at a neighboring table. Upon the arrival of the police, the defendant further remarked: "Are you the police of the Jews or the police of the French?". The lower court initially convicted the defendant, but the Court of Appeal of Versailles (November 20, 2024) acquitted him, ruling that the element of "publicity" required for the offense was not established. The civil parties appealed to the Court of Cassation. The court upheld the finding that the remarks were made within the framework of a purely private conversation.

les articles 23 et 24 de la loi du 29 juillet 1881.

The two convicted men, Täschner and Brückner, had been serving in the fascist police since 1939. They were deployed in occupied Poland. Between 1941 and 1943, they participated in the persecution and expulsion of hundreds of people, in executions and murders claiming thousands of victims, in the deportation of tens of thousands of people, in arrests for the purpose of forced labor in Germany, and in the destruction of a village. In the process, they also committed several murders themselves. The two men's appeal against their conviction for multiple counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity was rejected.

Art. 6 lit. b., lit. c. of the Charter of the International Military Tribunal, Art. 8, 91 VerfDDR, §§ 91 II, 93 III StGB, § 1 VI EGStGBuZPO, Convention on the Non-Applicability of Statutory Limitations to War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity

The case concerns ownership shares in a property that had belonged to Jewish owners who disappeared during or after the Holocaust. The court emphasized that post-war legislation on abandoned property was intended to protect, rather than extinguish, the rights of Jewish owners and their successors, and rejected the State Treasury’s claim of adverse possession because it had not possessed the property as an owner.

Art. 172, Art. 206, Art. 336, Art. 339 Civil Code

Decree of 8 March 1946 on Abandoned and Former German Property

The case concerns wartime assistance provided to Jewish people during the German occupation and a claim for combatant status based partly on that assistance. The court emphasized the need to fully investigate the applicant’s experiences, including her assistance to Jews facing Nazi persecution and her own alleged wartime persecution.

Art. 1(2)(7), Art. 2, Art. 4(1), Art. 21(1), Art. 22(1) Act on Combatants and Certain Persons Who Are Victims of Wartime and Post-War Repression

Art. 7, Art. 77 § 1, Art. 80, Art. 107 § 3, Art. 138 § 1(1) Code of Administrative Procedure

Art. 134 § 1, Art. 135, Art. 145 § 1(1)(c), Art. 250 Law on Proceedings before Administrative Courts

The case concerns an assault motivated by the victim’s perceived Jewish identity. The Supreme Court held that anti Jewish hostility need not be the sole motive for an offense and that protection applies even when the victim is only perceived to be Jewish, reinforcing legal protection against antisemitic violence and hatred.

Art. 31 § 1–2 Minor Criminal Code

Art. 237, Art. 239, Art. 256 Criminal Code

Art. 375, Art. 384(2) Code of Criminal Procedure

The case concerns the killing of a Jewish woman during the German occupation. The Supreme Court situated the crime within the context of Nazi persecution and ideology, holding that violent emotional agitation did not itself exclude responsibility for intentional participation in Nazi crimes against persecuted persons.

Art. 14 § 1, Art. 17, Art. 18, Art. 225 § 2 Criminal Code

Art. 379, Art. 529, Art. 532 Code of Criminal Procedure

The case concerns an attempt to exclude persons of Jewish nationality from participating in administrative proceedings. The court rejected the request, holding that public officials cannot be excluded from proceedings on the basis of their nationality.

Art. 1, Art. 3(1)(1), Art. 4(1)(1), Art. 12(1)(7), Art. 13d(1) Act on Agricultural Tax

Art. 1(1)–(2), Art. 2(1)(1), Art. 3 Act on Forest Tax

Art. 130, Art. 132, Art. 194 § 1 Tax Ordinance

Art. 21 Geodetic and Cartographic Law

Art. 3 Act on the Constitutional Tribunal

Art. 134, Art. 145 § 1(1), Art. 151 Law on Proceedings before Administrative Courts

The case concerns armed robberies committed by a member of an underground organization, including against a Jewish citizen. The court refused to treat these acts as part of legitimate independence activity, emphasizing that membership in a resistance organization did not justify ordinary crimes against private individuals, including Jewish victims.

Art. 1(1), Art. 1(2), Art. 13 Act of 23 February 1991 on the Recognition as Invalid of Judgments Issued Against Persons Repressed for Activities for the Independent Existence of the Polish State

Art. 86 § 2 Military Criminal Code

Art. 259 Criminal Code

Art. 1 §§ 1–3, Art. 4 § 1 Decree of 13 June 1946