Police say over 500 arrested at pro-Palestinian rally in London

LONDON: Police in London said they had arrested more than 500 pro-Palestinian protesters at a demonstration in support of the banned group Palestine Action on Saturday.

Officers carried away activists to cheers and clapping from other demonstrators who gathered for the sit-down demonstration in the capital’s Trafalgar Square.

The protesters held placards in support of the banned group Palestine Action, making them liable for arrest.

London’s Metropolitan Police said on social media platform X just before midnight that they had arrested 523 people aged between 18 and 87.

Palestine Action was proscribed as a terrorist organisation in July, making it a criminal offence to belong to or support the group, punishable by up to 14 years in prison.

The High Court in London upheld a challenge to the ban in mid-February, saying it had interfered with the right to freedom of speech.

The government has been granted leave to appeal against the decision.

London’s Metropolitan Police paused arrests in the wake of the High Court ruling before announcing in late March that they would resume.

“It’s really important to continue to show up,” said Freya, 28, manager of a London environmental organisation, one of those sitting towards the front of the crowd of protesters.

“It’s important that we all continue to oppose genocide… The government might flip-flop in their legal argument but the morals of these people (here) do not change,” she said.

‘Misguided crackdown’

There have been nearly 3,000 arrests since the ban on Palestine Action was imposed, mainly for carrying placards defending it. Hundreds of people are facing charges.

Protester Denis MacDermot, 73, from Edinburgh, said he had been arrested before and had no hesitation about turning out again.

“I’m a supporter of these great people,” he said, waving towards other protesters, adding that if the court process was definitive “there would be no need for all this”.

Protest organisers Defend Our Juries said hundreds of people had taken part in Saturday’s demonstration, protesting against “the UK Government’s complicity in Israel’s genocide in Gaza and the misguided crackdown on peaceful protest at home”.

Police were “choosing to make arrests despite the government’s ban on the group being ruled unlawful by the High Court, and leading lawyers warning that any arrests would be unlawful”, it added in a statement.

Amnesty UK condemned the arrests as “yet another blow to civil liberties in this country”.

“The Met rightly said it would stop making arrests. It has now gone back to its old, failed policy – mass arrests of people holding pieces of card, including today an elderly woman with walking sticks,” it said in a statement on X.

The ban, which put Palestine Action on a blacklist that also includes Palestinian militants Hamas and the Iran-backed Lebanese group Hezbollah, has sparked severe backlash.

A judge has put on hold all trials of people charged with supporting Palestine Action, scheduling a blanket review of cases for July 30.

Set up in 2020, Palestine Action’s stated goal on its now-blocked website is to end “global participation in Israel’s genocidal and apartheid regime”.

It has mainly targeted weapons factories, especially those belonging to the Israeli defence group Elbit Systems.