Police in London say they’ve arrested a minimum of 200 folks at a protest in help of the group Palestine Motion, which was categorized as a “terror organisation” by the British authorities final month.
The Metropolitan Police stated on Saturday that 200 demonstrators had been arrested at Parliament Sq. “for displaying help for a proscribed organisation”.
“It’s going to take time, however we are going to arrest anybody expressing help for Palestine Motion,” the police pressure stated in an earlier put up on X.
The arrests are the newest at a collection of protests denouncing the federal government’s ban on Palestine Motion, a transfer critics say infringes on freedom of speech and the fitting to protest, in addition to goals to stifle demonstrations towards Israel’s struggle on the Gaza Strip.
Underneath the Terrorism Act 2000, membership in or help for the group is now a felony offence punishable by as much as 14 years in jail.
Reporting from Parliament Sq. on Saturday, Al Jazeera’s Sonia Gallego 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 help Palestine Motion’, and even having that written on a sheet of paper” might result in an arrest, Gallego stated.
Cops detain protesters throughout a rally organised by Defend Our Juries, difficult the British authorities’s proscription of ‘Palestine Motion’ [Jaimi Joy/Reuters]
Upfront of Saturday’s protest, greater than 200 folks had been detained in a wave of demonstrations throughout the UK denouncing the ban because it got here into pressure in July.
Greater than 350 teachers from world wide signed onto an open letter this week applauding a “rising marketing campaign of collective defiance” towards the choice by Residence Secretary Yvette Cooper to proscribe Palestine Motion.
The signatories “deplore the repressive penalties that this ban has already had, and are particularly involved concerning the possible influence of Cooper’s ban on universities throughout the UK and past”, the letter learn.
Israeli historian and College of Exeter professor Ilan Pappe, Goldsmiths 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 particular person had been arrested at that march from Russell Sq. to Whitehall for displaying a banner in help of Palestine Motion.
Amnesty Worldwide UK has condemned 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 has more and more focused Israel-linked corporations within the UK, usually spraying pink paint, blocking entrances or damaging gear.
The group accuses the UK’s authorities of complicity in what it says are Israeli struggle crimes in Gaza, the place Israel’s bombardment and blockade have killed tens of 1000’s of Palestinians since October 2023.
The British authorities issued the ban after Palestine Motion broke right into a army airbase in June and broken two Airbus Voyager plane, used for air-to-air refuelling.
Manaal Siddiqui, a spokesperson for Palestine Motion, advised Al Jazeera that the plane “can be utilized to refuel and have been used to refuel Israeli fighter jets”.
In accordance with the group, planes from the Brize Norton base additionally fly to a British Air Power base in Cyprus to then be dispatched to gather intelligence shared with the Israeli authorities.
