Luxembourg’s Education Ministry has confirmed it fired a teacher for social media activity deemed unacceptable, while she insists her pro-Palestine posts were anti-war rather than antisemitic and taken out of context.
Last Thursday, reports circulated on social media that “a teacher was fired by the Luxembourg Ministry of Education for stories posted on her personal page in support of Palestine”. Although the ministry could not disclose specific details relating to the case, it confirmed to RTL that the teacher in question had indeed been let go due to her activity on social media, which it saw as unacceptable behaviour.
The teacher herself sees her dismissal as the result of a continuous, targeted campaign to frame her pro-Palestine activism as antisemitic: a selection of Instagram stories she had reposted were screenshotted and then submitted to the Ministry, which in turn launched procedures to terminate her contract. “The [screenshots] were taken completely out of context”, she explained to RTL. “I’m not against Jews; I have been trying from [October 7th] to raise awareness on the distinction between Zionism and Judaism, because I’m against war crimes being conducted in their name”.
While maintaining its employees’ right to freedom of expression, the Ministry’s press spokesperson stressed its limits: it ends where such expressions breach the law, for instance in cases of incitement to hatred, calls for actions that qualify as criminal offences, and the dissemination of extremist ideologies. At the same time, those employed by the government are bound by specific obligations, meaning they cannot inflict harm to the public interest and must behave with dignity in regards to their function, both professionally and privately.
The social media activities that led to the dismissal rest on a selection of screenshots, mostly stories the teacher had reposted on Instagram. The content covers a broad spectrum of issues, ranging from educational messages to calls for boycott – at times relying on contentious historical figures to substantiate her arguments.
One particular accusation held against the teacher stipulates that she denied the state of Israel’s right to existence and incited hatred against the Jewish, respectively Israeli people. She had previously reposted a video depicting an orthodox Jewish atonement ritual known as Kapparot, with an accompanying caption that reads: “All they believe in is killing! Israel has not the right to exist”.
In a follow-up conversation, a representative of the Education Ministry stressed that political expression among teachers and ministry staff is both common and tolerated, particularly with the wars in Ukraine and Palestine. What set this case apart was that her statements “exceeded normal boundaries”, leading to the Ministry’s first-ever dismissal over social-media activity.
In Luxembourg, where government jobs are notoriously well-protected and dismissals rare, the fact that she was let go makes the case all the more noteworthy.
With the teacher now dismissed, the case goes to show that even without a criminal conviction, employers in Luxembourg – like the government – still possess the ability to launch independent disciplinary investigations that may arrive at different conclusions than those of the judiciary.
