Stop suppressing protest for Palestine
Nearly two years into Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza, confirmed as such by UN this week, the British government is facing growing public outrage at its refusal to take any meaningful action to end its complicity in these crimes. Instead, the government seems determined to use draconian police powers to crack down on all those speaking out for Palestinian rights. This stands in shocking contrast to the kid gloves approach to Saturday’s large mobilisation by the fascist far-right, at which violence was not only widespread but openly advocated from the demonstration platform.
Disgracefully, anti-terror legislation is now being used to label non-violent direct action as terrorism, prosecute performance artists, and criminalise entirely peaceful protesters. In recent weeks, Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood and her predecessor Yvette Cooper, have tried to draw a line between different forms of protest action, falsely claiming to support and uphold the democratic right to protest. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Over the past two years, the Palestine Coalition has faced continuous attempts to suppress our marches. The demonstrations have been subjected to unprecedented conditions imposed by the police – making it increasingly difficult to organise a march for Palestine anywhere in central London. Four leaders of the movement, Ben Jamal, Chris Nineham, Sophie Bolt and Alex Kenny and many others are facing criminal charges for taking part in a peaceful protest on January 18.
At the behest of successive Home Secretaries, the police have routinely imposed restrictions on the duration, routes and location of marches, and enforced exclusion zones around sites of legitimate protest, including the headquarters of the BBC. They have now imposed a de facto ban on us marching via any route through central London to the Israeli embassy on a Saturday, based on the spurious pretext that it could cause “serious disruption” to synagogues, none of which are even on the proposed routes.
Most recently, the police have tried to literally silence our protests – employing the same draconian powers to criminalise the banging of pots and pans, the banging of drums, and even the use of megaphones. Meanwhile, the government is using the Crime and Policing Bill currently going through parliament to further empower the police to suppress freedom of expression and assembly.
We will be marching again in London on Saturday, 11 October. This will mark a full two years of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. We will not be prevented from building the largest possible demonstration. Join us in calling on the government to drop its attempts to suppress the movement for Palestinian rights and help us to make this the biggest march for Palestine so far.