Discrimination

Serious concerns were raised by reports of increased racist, antisemitic and Islamophobic hate crimes, as well as hate crimes against women, LGBTI people and other minoritized groups. Such crimes more than doubled in number compared with pre-pandemic levels. Reports of attacks on Pride marches increased, while stigmatizing language by state representatives and their lack of commitment to LGBTI people’s rights fuelled fear of hate crimes among the LGBTI community.

In November, the Federal Criminal Police Office reported a rise in gender-based violent crimes against women in 2024.

The fatal shooting of a 21-year-old Black man, Lorenz A., by a police officer in Oldenburg in April drew nationwide attention. According to data from civil rights reporting organization CILIP, fatal police violence peaked once again in 2025, resulting in 17 deaths, disproportionately affecting racialized people and those living in poverty.

Draft legislation to replace the Federal Police Act, introduced to parliament in December, proposed to expand police powers allowing arbitrary police stops and racial profiling. It failed to include mandatory identification badges to counter impunity.

Police officials and police union representatives made inflammatory and racist statements, primarily targeting Black, Arab, Muslim and refugee groups. A federal study published in May found that discrimination could occur in practically all areas of police work.

LGBTI people’s rights

The timeline for reviewing legislation that facilitated access to legal gender recognition was reduced from five years to one and a half years, raising concern among LGBTI groups. They were especially concerned due to new draft regulations enabling tracking of previous legal gender and names, which risked people being forcibly outed.

Freedom of peaceful assembly

In February, Berlin police ordered that speeches and slogans at a Palestinian solidarity demonstration be conveyed in German and English only. When protesters chanted in Hebrew and Arabic at a demonstration on 8 February, the protest was immediately violently dispersed by police.

In March, at a peaceful protest in Berlin, a woman was repeatedly hit in the face and on the head by a police officer. Similar violence by police officers was documented during protests on Nakba Day as well as at the Internationalist Queer Pride event in Berlin in July.

In February, the Christian Democratic Union Party led a parliamentary inquiry into the financing of civil society organizations. The inquiry consisted of 551 questions, aimed at assessing the political neutrality of state-funded organizations, particularly those campaigning against racism and for migrant rights. It thereby put such organizations under general suspicion.

On 20 March, the Administrative Court of Berlin ruled as unlawful the use of pain-compliance holds by the police to remove peaceful climate protesters from a previously dispersed gathering.

In March, the Berlin immigration authorities notified four foreign – EU and US – nationals of the termination of their residency status due to their involvement in student protests in support of Palestinians in 2024. None were convicted of any criminal charges. Leaked correspondence indicated that the Berlin Ministry of the Interior had pressured the immigration authorities to deport the four. All the cases were successfully challenged in preliminary proceedings and the deportations temporarily halted.

In May, following a Nakba commemoration protest, the Berlin Police claimed that an officer had been seriously injured at the hands of demonstrators. This allegation was used by police spokespeople, the mayor and the federal minister of interior to demand new police powers against protesters acting in solidarity with Palestinians. However, an independent investigation later discovered that the police officer had injured himself while beating protesters.

On 26 November the Administrative Court of Berlin ruled that the dissolution of a pro-Palestine conference in 2024 had been unlawful.

Freedom of expression

On 29 January, parliament adopted a resolution establishing that schools and universities should use the working definition of antisemitism adopted by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). The resolution conflicted with the determination of prominent legal scholars and civil society groups that the IHRA definition was incompatible with international standards on freedom of expression. It called for surveillance of students and closer cooperation with security and intelligence authorities to address any perceived deficits with regard to tackling antisemitism in schools.

Authorities continued their attempts to criminalize the slogan “from the river to the sea”, which was banned in 2023 having been deemed “a symbol of Hamas”.

Refugees’ and migrants’ rights

Resettlement and humanitarian admissions to the country were suspended in April. In July, parliament enacted a two-year suspension of family reunification rights for people granted subsidiary protection, with limited exceptions for hardship cases.

Only 3,087 admissions had been approved under the humanitarian admission programme for Afghanistan, launched in 2022, with only 2,230 individuals actually entering Germany. The scheme’s original target had been to admit 1,000 people per month.

More than 1,300 people accepted to various admission programmes remained stranded in Pakistan or, in some 250 cases, were forcibly returned from Pakistan to Afghanistan. Despite close to 150 rulings by administrative courts obliging the government to issue visas, these had led to entry in only 756 individual cases by the end of the year. Overall, the new government had cut admissions for those waiting in Pakistan by half.

In July, Germany deported 83 individuals to Afghanistan and one person to Syria, violating the principle of non-refoulement.

Despite a Berlin Administrative Court ruling in June declaring it unlawful to deny asylum seekers access to German territory, authorities continued to summarily return people at EU borders.

In September, the government introduced a legal proposal to parliament to implement the Common European Asylum System (CEAS) reforms. The proposal introduced measures exceeding the tightening of regulations stipulated by CEAS. These included measures to allow the determination of safe third countries and countries of origin by ministerial decree as well as a significant expansion of scope for the detention of migrants.

Right to privacy

The State of Hesse deployed a biometric facial recognition system in the Frankfurt central station district. This enabled surveillance cameras to scan all passers-by in real time to identify individuals who had been named in court orders. New federal and draft state laws would grant police authorities extensive new powers to automatically analyse large volumes of data and to extract all publicly available biometric information from the internet to identify and locate people of interest.

Corporate accountability

In September, the cabinet adopted a draft amendment to the Corporate Due Diligence Obligations in Supply Chains Act. This would roll back key enforcement and transparency measures, weakening corporate accountability.

Sexual and reproductive rights

A cross-party draft law to partially legalize abortion, which had been stuck in parliament before snap elections were held in February 2025, stalled after the new coalition government took office. In August, a government-funded research project on unwanted pregnancies revealed major deficiencies in abortion care.

In August, a doctor lost a labour court case after challenging a hospital’s directive banning staff from performing abortions. Following the merger of two church-run but publicly funded hospitals in the East Westphalia-Lippe region, non-life-saving abortions were prohibited, severely limiting access to essential reproductive healthcare.

Right to truth, justice and reparation

The UN Special Rapporteur on the right to development visited Germany in November. In his end of mission statement, he called for reparations for Germany’s genocide against Ovaherero and Nama Peoples between 1904 and 1908 in the former colony of German South West Africa (see Namibia entry).

Right to a healthy environment

In September, a report commissioned by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy revealed glaring shortcomings in Germany’s transition to renewable energy. Nevertheless, the minister for economic affairs announced plans to reduce support for renewable energy and to further expand gas infrastructure – delaying the phase-out of fossil fuel use and production.

In May, the Higher Regional Court in Hamm dismissed a landmark case brought by Peruvian farmer Saúl Luciano Lliuya against German energy giant RWE. The court found the risk of climate-induced flooding to his property insufficiently imminent. However, it affirmed in principle that major emitters could be held liable under German civil law for trans-boundary climate harms.

Irresponsible arms transfers

In August, the chancellor announced that Germany would not authorize further exports to Israel of arms that could be used in the occupied Gaza Strip. However, previously granted licences were not revoked, and other military equipment continued to be exported. In November, the halt was reversed and individual export reviews were resumed. In the first half of the year, Germany authorized exports of weapons and other military equipment to Israel worth approximately EUR 90 million.