London police owned more than 466 people who protested the United Kingdom’s decision to ban the Palestine action group, marking “the greatest mass arrest never carried out” in a single demonstration in the British capital, militants.
The arrests occurred after hundreds of people gathered on the Place du Parliament in London on Saturday, denouncing the War of Israel against Gaza and holding signs with the message: “I oppose the genocide. I support the action in Palestine. “
Videos published online showed demonstrators sitting on the ground, with a little song “Hands Off Gaza!” The images also showed that the demonstrators were swept away by the police while the crowd chanted “shame” against the police.
Metropolitan police, in a statement on X, said that 466 demonstrators had been arrested in place of Parliament at 9 pm local time (8:00 pm GMT) “for showing support for action in Palestine”. He said that eight others were arrested during the demonstration for other offenses, including five assaults against police officers.
The group which organized the demonstration, defends our juries, said on X that some 800 people had held signs and that the detention of more than half of the demonstrators marked “the greatest mass arrest ever carried out by the MET police during a single demonstration”.
This added: “People collectively oppose the genocide in Gaza and the prohibition of action in Palestine.”
The demonstrations are the last people in a series of rallies denounced the ban of the British government of action in Palestine under the law of 2000 on terrorism in July. The ban came after the members of the group burst into a military air base in June and damaged two planes.
Membership or support for the group is now a criminal offense liable to 14 years in prison.
Critics say that the prohibition undermines freedom of expression and the right to protest, and aims to stifle demonstrations against the War of Israel against Gaza.
Sonia Gallego, from Tel Aviv Tribune, reporting from Place du Parliament, said the threat of arrest or punishment “had not dissuaded any supporter” of the action in Palestine to express her support for the group.
“Something as simple as wearing a T-shirt saying:” I support the action of Palestine “, or even to have written it on a sheet of paper”, could lead to an arrest, said Gallego.
‘Alternative universe’
Paddy Friend, a protester, told Tel Aviv Tribune on Saturday that mass arrests on Parliament Place had raised serious questions about freedoms in the United Kingdom.
“If we cannot come with seven words to a sign with seven words and sit down quietly, what does freedom of expression mean?” Said friend.
Another demonstrator, grandmother Manji Mansfield, returned to protest on Saturday, despite his arrest during a previous rally.
“It is not the Britain in which I grew up,” she told Tel Aviv Tribune.
“We are now living in an alternative universe, and I’m not going to accept it.”
John McDonnell, a MP for the Labor Party, also condemned arrests. “It is a shame that people are arrested for maintaining our democratic rights,” he wrote on X.
Amnesty International United Kingdom has denounced the arrest of peaceful demonstrators only for having held signs, affirming that this action constitutes “a violation of international obligations of the United Kingdom to protect the rights of freedom of expression and the Pacific Assembly”.
Palestine Action, which accuses the government of complicity of the United Kingdom in what it says to be Israeli war crimes in Gaza, has targeted more and more companies linked to Israel in the country, often spraying red paint, blocking entries or harmful equipment.
The Secretary of State in the United Kingdom for the Department of Origin, Yvette Cooper, has laid down to ban the group in Parliament a few days after his activists broke into Raf Brize Norton, the largest Oxfordshire Royal Air Force station, and sprayed two military aircraft with red painting, resulting in millions of books of criminal damage, according to the police.
The ban was adopted on July 2.
This decision, however, has aroused the United Nations Human Rights concerns, which say that the labeling of action in Palestine as a “terrorist” group was “unjustified”, because the actions of the group were limited to civil disobedience and “simple material damage, without life in danger”.
But Cooper, addressing journalists on Saturday, insisted that action in Palestine had been prohibited “on the basis of solid security advice” and following “an assessment of the joint terrorism assessment center that the group is preparing for terrorism”.
“Many people may not yet know the reality of this organization,” she said, saying that the group “is not violent”.
“The right of protest is that which we protect with fierce, but this is very different from the display of this specific and close and proscribed organization,” she added.
Repressive consequences
Before the arrests on Saturday, at least 200 people had been detained for protesting the ban.
More than 350 academics from around the world have also signed an open letter, published this week, applauding a “growing campaign of collective challenge” against Cooper’s decision to proscribe action in Palestine.
The signatories “deplore the repressive consequences that this ban has already had, and are particularly concerned with the probable impact of Cooper’s ban on universities through the United Kingdom and beyond,” said the letter.
The Israeli historian and professor of Exeter Ilan Pappe, Goldsmiths, the professor of the University of London, Eyal Weizman, and the political thinkers Michael Hardt and Jaqueline Rose were one of those who signed the letter.
Meanwhile, a separate walk organized by the Palestine coalition group also took place in London on Saturday.
Metropolitan police said that a person had been arrested during this walk, which went from Russell Square to Whitehall, for having displayed a banner in support of the action in Palestine.
The High Court of London, on the other hand, judged that the co -founder of the Palestine Huda Ammori action could provide a judicial examination against the prohibition, judge Martin Chamberlain saying that he was “reasonably questionable” that the proscription constituted a disproportionate interference in the right to freedom of expression.
However, the complete judicial examination will not take place before the end of 2025, according to lawyers representing Ammori.