Police in London yesterday arrested over 474 demonstrators at Parliament Square simply for “showing support for Palestine Action.” in a solidarity protest against the Israeli Genocide in Gaza.
The demonstration was organised by Defend Our Juries (DOJ), a protest group that has coordinated challenges to the ban almost every week since the government proscribed the activist group under anti-terror laws on 4 July, following an incident in which members broke into the Royal Air Force Brize Norton base earlier this month and spray-painted two planes they said were "used for military operations in Gaza and across the Middle East".
The legislation made membership of and support for the group a criminal offence punishable by up to 14 years in prison - the first time a direct action group has been proscribed in the UK as a terrorist group.
Since then, hundreds of people have been arrested at weekly protests by campaign group DOJ which said this week that the protests have "changed the meaning" of an arrest under the Terrorism Act and that it is considered a "badge of honour" within the movement.
The group highlighted that the mass arrests could place strain on a prison system already "on the brink of collapse" and remains at 97.5 percent capacity, according to an independent review this week. Saturday's protest comes amid mounting pressure on the UK government to lift the controversial ban amid concerns that it could be used to stifle criticism of Israel and the right to protest.
In a post on X, DOJ said that there were "approximately a thousand protesters sat in Parliament Square with signs which read 'I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action'." "In a collective act of resistance, people are risking their liberty for our civil liberties and for the Palestinian people."
A spokesperson for the group later said: "The fact that unprecedented numbers came out today risking arrest and possible imprisonment shows how repulsed and ashamed people are about our government's ongoing complicity in a livestreamed genocide, and the lengths people are prepared to go to defend this country's ancient liberties."
The protest comes as Israel is set to expand its war on Gaza, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approving a complete occupation of the enclave and a new offensive on Gaza City.
MP John McDonnell, who made his way to Parliament Square after participating in an adjacent protest for Palestine in London, said in a post on X that "it's a disgrace that people are being arrested for upholding our democratic rights".
The other protest, organised by a coalition of groups led by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), saw people on Saturday, marching from Russell Square to the Prime Minister’s Office under the slogan “Stop Starving Gaza.” The Palestine Solidarity Campaign accused Israel of starving Palestinians to death and urged the UK government to act against what it called “genocide.”
Protesters carried Palestinian flags and chanted against Britain’s “complicity.” According to the PSC, "hundreds of thousands" took part in the demonstrations, which saw speeches from Palestinian Journalist Ahmed Alnaouq and Irish actress Denise Gough.
One protester - Claudia Penna-Rojas 27 - told the BBC: "I don't think anyone wants to get arrested, but I'm more concerned with what is happening to people in Palestine right now, and I refuse to be a bystander."
Among those arrested was a 90 year old woman, Moazzam Begg a British survivor of torture who was freed from Guantanamo Bay, Colonel (retired.) Chris Romberg, former British army officer and the son of a holocaust survivor, his Jewish father fled from Austria to the UK, aged 25, to escape the Nazis He served as a military attache at UK embassies in Egypt and Jordan.
He remembers, more than 25 years ago, the Foreign Office advising the government that Israel was committing war crimes in Palestine. And he remembers the government's response: to say nothing committal; the UK would "hide in the EU pack"
Others arrested included NHS workers, Quakers and a blind wheelchair user and a man holding a sign that read “I DON’T support Palestine INaction!” Around half of them (259) were aged 60 and above - including almost 100 people who were in their 70s. All of them good, honest people driven only by their conscience and their compassion for others. Heroes, every single one of them.
Carrying signs supporting action against killing children can now land you 14 years in prison, while killing children in mass carries no prison sentence. The Metropolitan Police bragged that the number of arrests was the largest made by the force on a single day in the last 10 years! Home Secretary Yvette Cooper thanked police for their response. What a waste of money and resources.
Yvette Cooper has previously expressed support for the suffragettes, a safe thing to do 100 years on. But if the Suffragettes were active today, Yvette Cooper would ban them as a terrorist organisation.
Amnesty International UK's chief executive Sacha Deshmukh said in a statement: "The protesters in Parliament Square were not inciting violence and it is entirely disproportionate to the point of absurdity to be treating them as terrorists. Instead of criminalising peaceful demonstrators, the government should be focusing on taking immediate and unequivocal action to put a stop to Israel's genocide and ending any risk of UK complicity in it."
Last month, UN human rights chief Volker Turk said that the ban was "disproportionate and unnecessary" and called for the designation to be rescinded, also on July 30, 2025, High Court Judge Mr. Justice Chamberlain ruled that the Home Secretary’s decision to proscribe Palestine Action may breach natural justice and rights to free expression and assembly under Articles 6, 10, and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights. While a bid to pause the ban was rejected, the judicial review is ongoing, with a potential ruling not expected until 2026.
Amnesty International warned on Thursday that the mass arrests could break international law, with Amnesty UK Chief Executive Sacha Deshmukh saying: "Arresting people on terrorism offences for peacefully holding a placard flies in the face of international human rights law." "At a time when people are quite rightly outraged by the genocide they see being perpetrated in Gaza, it is more crucial than ever that there is space to peacefully express that outrage."
And on the same day scores of leading global academics, including Judith Butler, Tariq Ali, Angela Davis, Naomi Klein, Rashid Khalidi, Avi Shlaim and Ilan Pappe, signed an open letter denouncing Palestine Action's proscription as an "attack on fundamental freedoms".https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/06/palestine-action-ban-is-an-attack-on-fundamental-freedoms
The immeasurably shameful lack of UK media coverage for these huge, peaceful London marches, or the international marches, or the workers blockading weapons shipments, or the resistance in Israel itself, continues, even as Germany suspends arms shipments over the ruins of Gaza, and former heads of Shin Bet, Mossad and the IDF call on the Israeli government to stop. In response, the Israeli government murdered the entire Al Jazeera press team.
Palestine Action is not an armed group. It has never been responsible for any fatalities and does not pose any risk to the public. Its methods do involve property sabotage, aimed almost exclusively at disrupting the manufacture of weapons by the Israeli arms company Elbit Systems, and its subsidiaries and are part of a long tradition of campaigners taking direct action against companies involved in war and genocide. Their actions may amount to criminal damage, but they are definitively not terrorism.
It's a terrible overreach of the law to proscribe them because of government embarrassment that Palestine Action broke into an RAF base and spray painted two planes that they said were "used for military operations in Gaza and across the Middle East". a plane. They are opposed to genocide, the government is not. Acts of daring civil disobedience should be applauded.
The attack on Palestine Action spearheads an offensive against opposition to the Gaza genocide and all political and social opposition. Meanwhile Israel has murdered 100,000+ Palestinians, since October 2023 and blown up every hospital in Gaza and is starving 2.3 million Palestinians to death.
In November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza. Israel is also facing a genocide case at the International Court of Justice over its ongoing assault on the enclave.
Palestine Action's are proportionate and on the right side of history. It's absurd to brand them a "terrorist" group. Proscribing Palestine Action is fascist authoritarianism designed to silence all criticism of "Israel" and to protect a lawless, violent, ethno supremacist apartheid State.
I stand in unequivocal support with Palestine Action and am against the outrageous decision by this government to try to proscribe them. I support people who engage in direct action to prevent genocide and war crimes. As the genocide in Gaza continues and Western governments stand complicit it is a farce that activists against the genocide are those being arrested. Netanyahu, Starmer, Trump and the whole Israeli state are the real criminals.
In this moment in time. we must all declare: We are all Palestine Action and not be silent in the face of genocide, occupation, and injustice. Full Arms Embargo and Sanctions on Israel Now. Free Palestine.
In all 522 were arrested for protesting against Palestine Action ban.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, Defend Our Juries say the fact that only half of the protesters faced arrests shows how unworkable and unenforceable this ban is. Do not stop speaking up for Palestine. Do not stop attending protests. Do not stop marching.