Police in London on Saturday arrested 522 people who were protesting against the United Kingdom’s recent decision to ban the group Palestine Action, a tally thought to include the highest-ever recorded at a single protest in the British capital.
The Metropolitan Police on Sunday updated its previous arrest tally of 466 and said that all but one of the 522 arrests took place at a protest in central London’s Parliament Square and were for displaying placards backing Palestine Action.
The other arrest for the same offence took place at nearby Russell Square as thousands rallied at a Palestine Coalition march demonstrating against Israel’s war in Gaza, which has killed at least 61,430 people and wounded 153, 213.
The Met made 10 further arrests on Saturday, including six for assaults on officers, though none were seriously injured, it added on Sunday.
The protests were the latest in a series of rallies denouncing the British government’s ban of Palestine Action under the Terrorism Act 2000 on July 5, days after the group took responsibility for a break-in at an air force base in southern England that caused an estimated 7 million pounds ($9.4m) of damage to two aircraft.
The group said its activists were responding to the UK’s indirect military support for Israel amid the war in Gaza.
Huda Ammori, cofounder of Palestine Action, said ahead of Saturday’s protests that they would “go down in our country’s history as a momentous act of collective defiance of an unprecedented attack on our fundamental freedoms”.
The force said the average age of those arrested on Saturday was 54, with six teenagers, 97 aged in their 70s, and 15 octogenarians.
A roughly equal number of men and women were detained.
In a statement following the latest mass arrests, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper defended the government’s decision, insisting: “UK national security and public safety must always be our top priority”.
“The assessments are very clear – this is not a non-violent organisation,” she added.
But critics, including the United Nations and groups such as Amnesty International and Greenpeace, have condemned the government’s proscription as legal overreach and a threat to free speech.
“If this was happening in another country, the UK government would be voicing grave concerns about freedom of speech and human rights,” Greenpeace UK’s co-executive director Areeba Hamid said on Saturday.
She added the government had “now sunk low enough to turn the Met into thought police, direct action into terrorism”.
Police across the UK have made scores of similar arrests since July 5, when being a member of Palestine Action or supporting the group became a criminal offence punishable by up to 14 years in prison.
Police announced this week that the first three people had been charged in the English and Welsh criminal justice system with such backing following their arrests at a July 5 demonstration.
In its update on Sunday, the Met revealed a further 26 case files following other arrests on that day are due to be submitted to prosecutors “imminently” and that more would follow related to later protests.
It believes that 30 of those held on Saturday had been arrested at previous recent Palestine Action protests.
Eighteen people remained in custody by Sunday lunchtime, but were set to be released on bail within hours, the Met added.
It noted officers from its counterterrorism command will now “work to put together the case files required to secure charges against those arrested as part of this operation”.
Protesters call for release of Israeli captives
Meanwhile, demonstrators calling for the release of Israeli captives held in Gaza marched in central London on Sunday.
The protesters, who planned to march to Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s residence in Downing Street for a rally, include Noga Guttman, a cousin of 24-year-old captive Evyatar David, who featured in a video that enraged Israelis when it was released by Hamas last week. The video showed an emaciated David saying he was digging his own grave inside a tunnel in Gaza.
In the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel, which triggered Israel’s war on Gaza, more than 200 people were taken captive. Some 50 of the captives still have not been released. Twenty are thought to be alive.
Israel last week announced its intention to seize Gaza City as part of a plan to end the war and bring the captives home. Family members and many international leaders have condemned the plan, saying it would lead to more bloodshed and endanger the captives.
“We are united in one clear and urgent demand: the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages,” Stop the Hate, a coalition of groups organising the march, said in a statement.
Source: Aljazeera
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