London
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Police have arrested 466 people in central London on Saturday for protesting the British authorities’s determination to ban the pro-Palestinian activist group Palestine Action beneath anti-terrorism legal guidelines.
“As of 9pm, 466 people had been arrested for showing support for Palestine Action,” the Metropolitan Police wrote on X on Saturday.
Eight arrests had been made for different offences, together with 5 for assaults on officers, however police stated none had been critically injured.
Palestine Action is a UK-based group which says it goals to disrupt the operations of weapons producers supplying the Israeli authorities.
Last month, UK lawmakers voted to proscribe the group after two Palestine Action activists broke into Britain’s largest air base in central England in June, damaging two army plane.
The group’s ban makes it unlawful beneath UK regulation to be a member of – or invite help for – Palestine Action and places them on par with terrorist organizations resembling Hamas, al Qaeda and ISIS.
Large crowds turned up for demonstrations organized by Defend Our Juries on Saturday afternoon at London’s Parliament Square. London’s Metropolitan Police had cautioned that it could arrest anybody exhibiting help for the proscribed group.
One 80-year-old protestor from Surrey, England, who wished to stay nameless, informed NCS that she attended the protest to indicate “what a farce” the federal government’s determination on Palestine Action was.
She stated organizers had been aiming to have at the very least 500 people sitting peacefully with indicators. “I watched a few being carried off by police but there simply weren’t enough police to arrest all,” she added.
The demonstration organizers stated on social media that upwards of 1 thousand people attended the protest, “holding up signs that read ‘I oppose Genocide, I support Palestine Action’” in a mass show of defiance towards (British Home Secretary) Yvette Cooper’s ban.”
The Metropolitan Police acknowledged that roughly 500 to 600 people had been in attendance when the demonstration started. “Many were onlookers, media, or people not holding placards supporting Palestine Action,” police stated in an earlier assertion.
“We are confident that anyone who came to Parliament Square today to hold a placard expressing support for Palestine Action was either arrested or is in the process of being arrested,” Scotland Yard added.
Those arrested on the protest had been taken to “prisoner processing points in the Westminster area, and those whose details could be confirmed were bailed, with conditions not to attend any further protest in support of Palestine Action,” police additionally stated.
A NCS staff on the bottom witnessed scuffles between protestors and police, as demonstrators had been arrested and brought away for supporting Palestine Action. Onlookers had been heard shouting “shame on you” as police officers eliminated peaceable protestors from the realm.
British Home Secretary Yvette Cooper thanked police for “dealing with the very small number of people whose actions crossed the line into criminality.”
“The right to protest is one we protect fiercely but this is very different from displaying support for this one specific and narrow, proscribed organisation,” she stated, in keeping with the UK’s Press Association.
Amnesty International UK condemned the arrest of peaceable protesters as “a violation of the UK’s international obligations to protect the rights of freedom of expression and assembly,” in a submit on X.
Last week, Palestine Action’s co-founder Huda Ammori won a bid to challenge the ban, with a London High Court decide granting permission to hunt a judicial evaluation.
NCS’s Jonny Hallam and Billy Stockwell contributed reporting.