Pro-Palestinian protesters heckled and interrupted German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Wednesday as he tried to give a speech at the opening of the Leipzig Book Fair.
Several loud shouts were heard as Scholz began his speech at Germany’s second largest book fair after Frankfurt.
The Leipziger Volkszeitung newspaper said the protesters appeared to be pro-Palestinian activists and one person could be heard exclaiming, “This is not a humanitarian disaster, this is genocide”.
Scholz stopped his speech to address the protesters, telling them: “Stop shouting, that’s enough.”
“The power of words unites us all here in Leipzig, not the power of shouts,” he added, to loud applause.
A man can then be heard calling on the audience to protest arms shipments to Israel.
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Pro-Palestinian protests have mushroomed in Germany and Europe since the Hamas attack on October 7 sparked the Israel-Hamas conflict.
The October 7 attack resulted in about 1,160 deaths in Israel, most of them civilians, according to an official AFP tally.
The militants also held around 250 hostages, and Israel estimates around 130 people are still in Gaza, including 33 people thought to be dead.
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The Israeli military has since launched a relentless offensive against Hamas that has killed at least 31,900 people in Gaza, most of them women and children, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-controlled territory.
The outbreak of war in Gaza has shaken Germany, where Berlin’s strong support for Israel has sparked protests that pro-Palestinian voices are being sidelined.
The group “Strike Germany” has called on creative workers to boycott the country’s cultural institutions, with a petition gathering hundreds of signatures, among them Nobel-winning writer Annie Ernaux.
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At the Berlinale film festival awards ceremony in February, several winners were accused of making anti-Semitic statements on stage in light of the Israeli military offensive.
In his opening speech, Scholz emphasized the value of literature in helping readers understand different perspectives.
“With each chapter, each new page, we can overcome the differences that sometimes seem irreconcilable in everyday life,” he said. (AFP/Z-3)
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