Comment by thyristan

Thousands for weeks on end protested the carpet bombing of Gaza, Germans as well as Foreigners. Many respectable foreign and German organisations invited to participate and organized those protests. And only very few of those protesting were arrested or even investigated.

Those who were usually did something more than protest, like showing support for terrorist organizations like Hamas or ISIS by showing the respective flag, harassing counter-protesters, shouting controversial slogans like "from the river to the sea..." (which is thought to imply destroying Israel and therefore "Volksverhetzung", although I'm not sure if the courts are already through with that one) or just plainly calling for the killing of Jews or the eradication of Israel.

Actually, the police was very patient and tame with those protests, too patient and too tame for the taste of many. A common, not totally unjustified opinion was that if those protests were just Germans protesting about a strictly German issue (like "Stuttgart21" or "Startbahn West" back in the day) and behaving like the pro-Palestine protestors did, there would have been riot police tear-gassing and bludgeoning everyone within half an hour.

> Non-citizens in Germany have no free speech rights period. You get banned and deported even for making lectures about unfavorable topics, as it seems.

No, the right to utter your opinion in Germany applies to everyone, not only Germans. The constitution has two categories of people, Germans and Everyone, some rights apply only to Germans, some to Everyone. The right to assembly and public protests is one just for Germans, the right to freely utter your opinion applies to everyone.

However, that right isn't what Americans think when they hear "free speech" (which is why I avoided the term earlier): There are far more limits to it, like the criminalization of giving offense ("Beleidigung"), promoting or misinforming about Nazism and other crimes against humanity ("Volksverhetzung"), deadnaming, speaking ill of foreign heads of state or domestic politicians, and condoning criminal acts. Also, only an opinion is protected, not a statement of fact, no matter if it is right or wrong. For example, a journalist was fined for writing about chancellor Schroeder dying his hair. The court didn't even try to find out if it was right or wrong, it was a statement of fact, so unprotected, and it was offensive to Schroeder, so an offense ("Beleidigung").

So in conclusion you are kind of right in that there is actually no freedom of speech for anyone in Germany, not even Germans, that right simply doesn't exist. Its just that foreigners are treated the same as Germans, there is no difference in rights there.