Thread by @Al_issG

Dear @kschnurbein, to add to the important evidence already communicated to you on this platform, the European Legal Support Center has documented a consistent amount of incidents showing abuse of the IHRA WDA to suppress Palestinian rights advocacy.🧵 1/13

https://twitter.com/kschnurbein/status/1593294851814166529

1⃣In Vienna, the IHRA WDA was raised by a Jewish student union to file a complaint purporting unfounded allegations of antisemitism against decolonial scholar Walaa Alqaisiya.
Result: she was brutally smeared and disinvited without cause.
elsc.support/cases/palestin… 2/13

2⃣In the UK, 15 university staff members of the same university were subjected to lengthy disciplinary investigations, and for some, public smearing, involving the IHRA WDA after anonymous complaints for alleged antisemitism were filed against them. 3/13

3⃣At another UK university, a student faced an investigation into alleged antisemitism after sharing an infographic of @hrw denouncing Israel's apartheid regime on social media. 4/13

4⃣ Another student who had received a job offer from a public body, was notified the offer was rescinded after they considered that some of the student's social media posts about Israel & Zionism breached the IHRA WDA. We have many more similar cases👇🏽elsc.support/our-work-in-th… 5/13

5⃣In Germany, RIAS Berlin - that reports antisemitic incidents and endorses the IHRA WDA - breached EU data protection law, prepared & disseminated a secret dossier misrepresenting Palestinian scholar Dr Younes to exclude her from a public event.👇
elsc.support/cases/germany-… 6/13

6⃣German public broadcaster Deutsche Welle (DW) fired 7 Arab journalists including Palestinians, for alleged antisemitism. Basis for their very controversial investigation was the IHRA WDA.
So far, two journalists were successful in court against DW.
elsc.support/cases/berlin-c… 7/13

7⃣May 2022, Berlin police issued a pre-emptive ban against the protests planned by Palestinians in commemoration of #NakbaDay. The IHRA WDA was a reference in the decision.
@hrw claimed "undue interference with rights to free expression and assembly".
elsc.support/news/the-elsc-… 8/13

& more evidence is coming @kschnurbein.
⚖️It is time EU institutions recognize that the use of the IHRA WDA is infringing on fundamental freedoms and is having real, long-term consequences on people legitimately exercising their freedom of expression in the name of justice. 9/13

🤐The definition and its promotion have enabled the conflation of antizionism with antisemitism to become systematic and legitimized, leading to the slander of Palestinians who address the state and ideology that have led to the historic and ongoing denial of their rights. 10/13

⛔️While the IHRA WDA is said to be "non-legally binding" & laws may remain unchanged, authoritative institutions use it as a basis to issue binding decisions. Therefore, giving it a *de facto binding status* with real effects, as documented above.

https://twitter.com/kschnurbein/status/1588409475949826051

11/13

⛔️It does not enable “counter-speech” but often concrete limitations of fundamental rights for advocates.
This is not democracy but concrete participation in shrinking space, which the EU institutions & Member States have an obligation to prevent.

https://twitter.com/kschnurbein/status/1595409848589484032

12/13

And finally, it is about creating a new category of acts that become de facto illegal. The evidence discounts the arguments you put forward.
⚠️This has to stop if we want an EU free from racism and repression. #NOIHRA 13/13