Police in London have detained greater than 466 individuals who had been protesting the UK’s resolution to ban the Palestine Motion Group, marking the “largest ever mass arrest” at a single protest within the British capital, in accordance with campaigners.
The arrests got here after a whole bunch of individuals gathered at Parliament Sq. in London on Saturday, denouncing Israel’s struggle on Gaza and holding placards with the message, “I oppose genocide. I assist Palestine Motion.”
Movies posted on-line confirmed the protesters sitting on the bottom, with some chanting, “Palms off Gaza!” The footage additionally confirmed the protesters being carried away by the police as the group chanted “disgrace on you” on the officers.
The Metropolitan Police, in a press release on X, stated that 466 demonstrators had been arrested at Parliament Sq. by 9pm native time (20:00 GMT) “for displaying assist for Palestine Motion”. It stated eight others had been arrested on the protest for different offences, together with 5 assaults on officers.
The group that organised the protest, Defend Our Juries, stated on X that some 800 individuals had held up indicators, and that the detention of greater than half of the protesters marked “the most important mass arrest ever by the Met Police at a single protest”.
It added, “The persons are collectively opposing the genocide in Gaza and the Palestine Motion ban.”
A whole bunch of individuals joined the protest holding indicators saying, ‘I oppose genocide, I assist Palestine Motion’, in Parliament Sq., central London, on Saturday (Chris J Ratcliffe/AFP)
The protests are the most recent in a sequence of rallies denouncing the UK authorities’s ban of Palestine Motion underneath the Terrorism Act 2000 in July. The ban got here after members of the group broke right into a army airbase in June and broken two planes.
Membership in or assist for the group is now a legal offence punishable by as much as 14 years in jail.
Critics say the ban infringes on freedom of speech and the correct to protest, in addition to goals to stifle demonstrations in opposition to Israel’s struggle on Gaza.
Al Jazeera’s Sonia Gallego, reporting from Parliament Sq., stated the specter of arrest or punishment “hasn’t deterred any supporters” of Palestine Motion from expressing their backing for the group.
“One thing so simple as sporting a t-shirt saying, ‘I assist Palestine Motion’, and even having that written on a sheet of paper”, might result in an arrest, Gallego stated.
‘Different universe’
Paddy Buddy, a protester, advised Al Jazeera on Saturday that the mass arrests at Parliament Sq. raised severe questions on freedoms within the UK.
“If we are able to’t come down with seven phrases on an indication and sit quietly, then what does freedom of speech imply?” Buddy stated.
One other demonstrator, grandmother Manji Mansfield, returned to protest on Saturday, regardless of having been arrested at a earlier rally.
“This isn’t the Britain that I grew up in,” she advised Al Jazeera.
“We’re now dwelling in another universe, and I’m not going to simply accept it.”
John McDonnell, a Labour Get together MP, additionally condemned the arrests. “It’s a shame that persons are being arrested for upholding our democratic rights,” he wrote on X.
Amnesty Worldwide UK denounced the arrest of peaceable protesters solely for holding indicators, saying such motion constitutes “a violation of the UK’s worldwide obligations to guard the rights of freedom of expression and peaceable meeting”.
Palestine Motion, which accuses the UK’s authorities of complicity in what it says are Israeli struggle crimes in Gaza, has more and more focused Israel-linked corporations within the nation, usually spraying crimson paint, blocking entrances or damaging gear.
UK Secretary of State for the Residence Division Yvette Cooper tabled the order to ban the group in parliament days after its activists broke into RAF Brize Norton, the most important station of the Royal Air Drive in Oxfordshire, and sprayed two army planes with crimson paint, leading to thousands and thousands of kilos of legal harm, in accordance with police.
The ban was handed on July 2.
The transfer, nonetheless, has drawn concern from United Nations human rights exerts, who say labelling Palestine Motion as a “terrorist” group was “unjustified”, because the group’s actions had been restricted to civil disobedience and “mere property harm, with out endangering life”.
However Cooper, chatting with reporters on Saturday, insisted that Palestine Motion had been outlawed “based mostly on sturdy safety recommendation” and following “an evaluation from the Joint Terrorism Evaluation Centre that the group prepares for terrorism”.
“Many individuals might not but know the fact of this organisation,” she stated, claiming the group “will not be non-violent”.
“The precise to protest is one we shield fiercely, however that is very totally different from displaying assist for this one particular and slim, proscribed organisation,” she added.
Repressive penalties
Earlier than the arrests on Saturday, no less than 200 individuals had been detained for protesting the ban.
Greater than 350 teachers from world wide have additionally signed an open letter, printed this week, applauding a “rising marketing campaign of collective defiance” in opposition to Cooper’s resolution to proscribe Palestine Motion.
The signatories “deplore the repressive penalties that this ban has already had, and are particularly involved in regards to the seemingly affect of Cooper’s ban on universities throughout the UK and past”, the letter learn.
Israeli historian and College of Exeter professor Ilan Pappe, Goldsmiths, College of London professor Eyal Weizman, and political thinkers Michael Hardt and Jaqueline Rose had been amongst those that signed the letter.
In the meantime, a separate march organised by the Palestine Coalition group was additionally held in London on Saturday.
The Metropolitan Police stated one individual had been arrested at that march, which went from Russell Sq. to Whitehall, for displaying a banner in assist of Palestine Motion.
London’s Excessive Courtroom has, in the meantime, dominated that Palestine Motion cofounder Huda Ammori can convey a judicial evaluate in opposition to the ban, with Choose Martin Chamberlain saying that it was “fairly debatable” that proscription amounted to a disproportionate interference with the correct to freedom of expression.
Nonetheless, the total judicial evaluate is not going to happen till late 2025, in accordance with the legal professionals representing Ammori.
Law enforcement officials arrest a demonstrator throughout a protest in assist of the Palestinian individuals, in Parliament Sq., London, on Saturday (Alberto Pezzali/AP Picture)
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