Documentation

My record – and why I am being blocked

This page is not self-promotion; it is documentation. I want you to form your own opinion – based on public minutes anyone can look up. It shows what I have achieved in three years, and why the established parties decided to block my work. The sources are linked. Judge for yourself.

The statement at the Holocaust Memorial (25.11.2023)

This single moment became a pretext for everything that followed. Here are the facts – in context and verifiable.

What happened: After a peace demonstration in Berlin, I published a photo taken at the Holocaust Memorial on 26.11.2023, with the statement "Free Palestine means fighting Antisemitism!" – calling for a free Palestine means fighting antisemitism.

What the statement meant:

  • Remembrance and warning. The memorial commemorates the systematic murder of six million Jewish people – and warns where antisemitism leads. Germany must never become complicit again.
  • A clear line. In the movement for a free, secular Palestine with equal rights for all, there is no place for antisemitism – explicitly including against any appropriation by the far right (the immediate trigger was a neo-Nazi attack on the Ahlem memorial site near Hannover in late October 2023). Source: Ahlem memorial: unknown attackers post Nazi stickers (German) · Region Hannover, press release (German)

As the writer Primo Levi warned: "It happened, therefore it can happen again." Remembrance must not only look back; it must sharpen our view of the present.

Out of respect for the memory of the victims, I took off my cap and deliberately desaturated and kept the photo sombre.

A · What I have achieved

For context: In my own experience, the representatives of DIE LINKE on the Vahrenwald-List district council had not submitted a single motion or inquiry of their own in the ten years before I took office, apart from the one on "free school lunches". Since 2023, by contrast, the following activities are documented in the minutes.

First public bicycle repair station in the district. Passed 19.08.2024, unanimously. The original motion (Lister Platz) was amended by an SPD counter-motion (Celler Straße/Edenstraße) – I agreed to the compromise. Source: Minutes 19.08.2024 (German)

Reviewing and implementing green arrows for cyclists at every junction. Passed 11.09.2023, unanimously. A later inquiry found: 21 junctions reviewed, 9 implemented. Source: Minutes 11.09.2023 (German)

Joint resolution against racism. Passed 11.09.2023, unanimously. Initiated by me, brought in as a joint motion by the SPD, Greens, VOLT, FDP and Die Linke – only the CDU did not take part. Source: Minutes 11.09.2023 (German)

Joint motion on Bonifatiusplatz. Proof that constructive cooperation was possible: passed 10.06.2024, unanimously. Traffic redesign – supported by the SPD, Greens, CDU, FDP, myself, Ms Gehrke (independent) and Mr Wendel (VOLT). Source: Minutes 10.06.2024 (German)

B · When the blockade began

The following excerpts from the minutes show how factual cooperation turned into a politically motivated blockade.

13 November 2023 – betraying their own principles

The established parties introduced a motion invoking the "dignity of all people" and affirming Israel's right to exist. My amendment extended this principle consistently:

"The Vahrenwald-List district council affirms the right of Israel and Palestine to exist and rejects antisemitism and racism. […] Wherever we encounter hatred, violence or intolerance, or where the right of Israel and Palestine to exist is called into question, we stand together and will not accept it."

In my speech I said that Jewish life in Germany must never be endangered – and that if Israel's right to exist is named, Palestine's must be named too. Result: rejected, 13 to 2 votes. The same parties that spoke of the "dignity of all people" voted against applying it consistently. Still, as a single independent representative I managed to win over a second vote. Source: Amendment DS 15-2331/2023 (German) · Minutes 13.11.2023 (German)

11 December 2023 – the smear campaign begins

After my statement at the Holocaust Memorial ("Free Palestine means fighting Antisemitism!"), I issued a personal statement: the post had been a strong statement against antisemitism, the image was taken out of context and circulated without my consent. District councillor Meißner (SPD) nonetheless characterised the action as "only antisemitism" and questioned continued cooperation. Source: Minutes 11.12.2023 (German)

6 June 2024 – leaving Die Linke

I left the party DIE LINKE. The immediate trigger: state parliament member Henriette Quade blocked a pro-Palestinian demonstration – together with representatives of the German-Israeli Society and the Junge Union, without the party leadership reprimanding this. For me this was a break with the principles I had joined the party for. My mandate has been independent ever since. Source: rf-news, June 2024 (German)

23 June 2025 – speech silencing in its purest form

Before the vote on three purely factual, non-partisan motions, the parties openly declared that they would no longer support any motion of mine – regardless of content. Affected were:

MotionContentResult
Traffic lights, Oskar-Winter-StraßeShorter waiting times, longer green phases for pedestrians and cyclists1 : 13 : 1
Memorial for homeless peopleStudent competition, memorial plaque for "Lister Jim" and all homeless people1 : 12 : 1
Pedestrian crossing, ClementinenhausSafe crossing for patients and visitors of the hospital1 : 13 : 0

Source: Minutes 23.06.2025 (German) (result = yes : no : abstention)

9 February 2026 – the blockade continues

Even two motions to support homeless people during extreme cold were rejected for political reasons: an appeal to the district's churches to provide additional emergency beds, and extending the opening hours of existing shelters – both rejected 1 yes, 15 no, 0 abstentions. Source: Minutes 09.02.2026 (German)

C · My statement

In my detailed personal statement of 23.06.2025, I rejected the accusations and documented my position:

  • My statement was a clear sign against antisemitism – in the spirit of the writer Masha Gessen, that active remembrance helps combat antisemitism.
  • I brought in the anti-racism resolution of 11.09.2023 (unanimous).
  • My amendment of 13.11.2023 condemned antisemitism and racism equally.
  • In the 1990s, as a representative of the German student union fzs, I supported the admission of the Israeli student union NUIS into the European umbrella organisation.
  • The Council of Europe's Commissioner for Human Rights warned against "speech silencing" in Germany – criticism must be based on substance, not political reflex.

Source: Minutes 23.06.2025 (German)

D · International sources

The positions for which I have been attacked on the district council are supported by leading institutions and human-rights organisations:

Voices from academia and civil society (October/November 2023)

International law and human-rights institutions

International human-rights organisations

Freedom of expression and speech silencing

Intellectual context – these do not replace council minutes or primary sources, but help place things in a wider context:

E · What this proves

The public minutes prove: I have demonstrably worked against antisemitism and racism – repeatedly, at times unanimously. The blockade of my factual motions is explicitly political, not substantive. This contradicts the free mandate.

I am not perfect. But I am honest. I have never let myself be guided by an ideology that divides human lives into those worth protecting and those less worth protecting. For that I was defamed and blocked. If you believe a district councillor should behave exactly this way – independent, conscientious and courageous – then I ask you for your three votes on 13 September. Because dignity applies to everyone.

F · From Gaza to Hannover

The conflict in the Middle East is not a distant event. It reaches into our city – in the question of who is allowed to speak and who is not, and how safe Jewish and Muslim neighbours feel.

Mosques defaced with "IDF"/"Israel". On the night of 9.12.2025, the IGMG and DITIB central mosques in Hannover were defaced with the words "IDF" and "Israel". Lower Saxony's antisemitism commissioner Gerhard Wegner called it "infamous" that the slogans were meant to suggest Israel sympathisers or even Jews were the perpetrators – clearly intended to incite Muslims and Jews against each other. Sources: islamiq.de, 09.12.2025 (German) · NDR, December 2025 (German)

Cultural funding under pressure. The then director of the Kestnergesellschaft, Adam Budak, posted a heart with the Palestinian flag on Instagram after 7 October 2023; his contract ended prematurely and controversially in 2024, officially "by mutual agreement", in fact following two labour-court proceedings in Hannover that ended in settlements. In September 2025 the anti-Israel-critical blog Mena-Watch publicly demanded the exclusion of two artists from the "collecting:dreams" festival – among them the Palestinian journalist Hebh Jamal. The City of Hannover's culture office then withdrew funding unless the two were excluded; the festival team crowdfunded the missing €10,000 and kept the programme unchanged. Source: taz, 2025 (German)

By comparison: in December 2025 the pianist Igor Levit received the Stadtkulturpreis of the Freundeskreis Hannover for his "democratic engagement". Source: Freundeskreis Hannover (German) Two standards, one city: those who take a stand for Palestine risk funding and contracts. This is my observation, not an accusation against any of the individuals named.

Official closeness at state level. On 15.09.2025 the VolkswagenStiftung celebrated at Schloss Herrenhausen with a "Bridges of Knowledge" ceremony marking 60 years of German-Israeli scientific cooperation as well as the 100th anniversary of Technion Haifa and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Lower Saxony's minister for science, Falko Mohrs, called Israel a "scientific partner and true friend" there. Source: VolkswagenStiftung, 18.09.2025 (German)

Arms exports continue. From 7 October 2023 to 13 May 2025, the German federal government approved arms exports to Israel worth €485.1 million. Between 1 November 2025 and 31 March 2026, a further €167.4 million was added. Source: Bundestag, government response to parliamentary question 21/5605 (German) · Die Zeit, June 2025 (German)

I stand unambiguously against antisemitism – I deliberately emphasised this at the Holocaust Memorial (see above). But anyone who takes antisemitism seriously must not ignore anti-Palestinian racism. For Vahrenwald-List this means: visibly protecting Jewish life, naming anti-Palestinian racism for what it is, and taking the international-law findings on Gaza (see section D) seriously locally too. Because dignity applies to everyone – in Gaza, in Hannover, on Lister Platz.

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