Dr Ghassan Abu-Sittah (left)

A chamber of three judges in Berlin’s administrative court this week ruled that the ban on political activity imposed by Berlin’s immigration office in April 2024 was disproportionate.

Dr Abu-Sittah had travelled to Germany the day after his inauguration as rector of the University of Glasgow to provide testimony about his experience working in Gaza hospitals following the renewed conflict in October 2023.

An accomplished British-Palestinian plastic and reconstructive surgeon, he was due to speak at a three-day conference called the Palästina Kongress (Palestine Congress), organised by Palestine solidarity activists.

However, the conference was banned by local authorities in Berlin and forcibly broken up by police in what organisers said was an example of state repression of the Palestine solidarity movement.

On his arrival in Germany, Dr Abu-Sittah was detained by police and told he had been banned from the country for a year and would have to return to the UK.

He later discovered that his ban from Germany also prevented him from entering other Schengen countries when he was refused entry to France in order to address an event in the French parliament.

The European Legal Support Center (ELSC), with support from the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP), quickly took legal action over the travel ban, which was overturned by the administrative court in Potsdam in May 2024.

This week’s court case concerned a second, separate legal challenge against a ban on political activity in Germany, leading to a ruling in Dr Abu-Sittah’s favour on Tuesday.

Alexander Gorski, lawyer with the ELSC, said before the hearing that he was seeking to establish a precedent “which prevents the German authorities from misusing sections of German migration law for authoritarian political purposes”.

Speaking to Scottish Legal News, Dr Abu-Sittah said he found it “outrageous that western governments are prepared to trample on the rule of law in their defence of Israel’s genocide” and encouraged others to take legal challenges.

“Anybody who’s been suspended from university, anybody who’s lost their job, anybody who has been banned – we need to make sure that the rule of law, which is what protects us as citizens, is defended,” he said.

“This goes beyond Gaza – this is about the rest of the 21st century.”

He added that he “absolutely” intended to speak in Germany following the ruling.