Hundreds arrested at London protest supporting Palestine Action
UK police have carried out the most arrests in a single day for a decade, detaining about 500 peaceful pro-Palestinian protesters in London for “terrorism”. The demonstrators expressed support for the banned activist group Palestine Action and condemned Israel’s war on Gaza.
Many said the crackdown violates free speech and targets peaceful dissent.
Palestine Action co-founder calls arrests ‘momentous act of collective defiance’
Huda Ammori, co-founder of Palestine Action, has labelled the mass arrests at protests against the group’s ban as “an unprecedented attack on our fundamental freedoms”.
Her comments come after 466 people were arrested in London on Saturday for allegedly showing support for the group, which the British government proscribed in July under “anti-terrorism” legislation.
Ammori said images from the weekend showed “peaceful protesters – including many elderly or disabled people – being dragged off by the Met Police as ‘terrorists’ for holding cardboard signs opposing those war crimes by Israel and supporting the group which disrupted the flow of weapons from Britain arming Israel’s genocide”.
She added: “Everyone can see that it’s the Israeli army – not civil disobedience protesters in Britain – who are committing acts of terrorism.”
UN special rapporteurs have previously condemned the proscription, saying that “acts of protest that damage property, but are not intended to kill or injure people, should not be treated as terrorism” and describing the ban as a “disturbing misuse of UK counter-terrorism legislation”.
