Autonomes Zentrum Köln Silences Solidarity with Palestinians on their Instagram and during an Event on the “Arab-Israeli Conflict”

Autonomes Zentrum Köln has been blocking Arab and Palestinian voices and has been refusing to recognize the victims of Israel's offensive on Gaza. I have commented on a post by AZ Köln’s Instagram on October 9, 2023 (the post was made on Oct. 8, 2023), where AZ Köln condemned Hamas' attack and failed to condemn the Israeli ultra-right-wing government military action. The post called the Intifada a trial to exterminate the Jews in their Jewish sanctuary. I expressed solidarity with the civilian victims in Gaza and Israel, and called for a place where Jews and Palestinians could feel safe on the grounds of justice. I asked AZ Köln to name the Palestinian civilian victims in the description of their post, as they did for the Israeli civilian victims. However, I got blocked. They have an email address on their website for conflict reporting, so I sent an email asking why I was blocked and if there was anything I said that doesn't go with their 'self-declared' non-discriminatory values. However, I got two automatic replies saying that the delivery of the email temporarily wasn't possible, then a third reply stating that the conflict reporting email address could not be reached.

In the following weeks, AZ Köln showed extreme apathy towards the Palestinian victims of Israel. They organized an event called Antifa ConnAct on December 14, 2023, by Antifa CGN, on what they called the “Arab-Israeli conflict”. In the description of the event, they mentioned that 1200 Israeli victims were killed and many others. Initially, they didn't mention Palestine, the Palestinians or Gaza once. Commentators on the post who attended the event said that the event presented only the view of Israel and that there were Islamophobic sentiments. These comments have now been deleted, and commenting has been disabled. The event description was changed to include Gaza in a side note.

In response to the criticism, AZ Köln published a statement on January 29, 2024.