“We Have Chosen Life” Students’ Speeches for Palestine

“The statements collected here provide insight into students’ resistance against the normalization of state violence propped up by the Staatsräson.
After being violently prohibited from organizing events on Palestine at their universities, students were left to push back against their universities and the German state through courts. Included in this pamphlet are speeches given in 2024-2025, following four heavily criminalised student actions.

Facing the judge and the prosecutor, students reiterate the reasons behind their interventions. In their statements, originally presented in English, German, and Spanish, students emphasize not only their right to protest, but also their moral responsibility to disrupt business as usual at their institutions, given the universities’ complicity in the ongoing genocide. In response, judges frequently interrupt students, insisting such speeches belong not in the courtroom, but lecture halls and seminar rooms, disregarding the very reasons for which students are being criminalized.

In light of tireless attempts at silencing, students’ voices must be remembered so I will and shared. Their speeches serve as testimonies of their resistance against Germany’s complicity in the genocide and settler-colonial violence against Palestinians. We present them to you as part of a living archive of global student solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for liberation. For a free Palestine in our lifetime.”

- Berlin, October 2025 (from the introduction)