Met Police, Home Sec. take tentative steps to calm down Palestinian protests in London

 

Met Police bans pro-Palestinian demonstration in front of Parliament

By Paul Godfrey

Met Police officers arrest a protester Monday during a demonstration in support of Palestine Action, which is facing being designated a terror organization by the British government, in Trafalgar Square in central London. Photo by Neil Hall/EPA-EFE

June 23 (UPI) -- Britain's Met police banned a pro-Palestinian protest in front of the Houses of Parliament in central London scheduled to take place on Monday to "prevent serious public order," property damage and disruption to elected representatives.

Shouldn't that be "prevent serious public disorder"?

Met Commissioner Mark Rowley said in a statement Sunday that while he could not stop the demonstration going ahead, he was using powers under public order legislation to impose an exclusion zone preventing protestors from assembling in a roughly 0.5 square mile area around the Palace of Westminster and restrict the duration to between noon and 3 p.m. local time.

The We Are All Palestine protest was being organized by Palestine Action but backed by around 35 other groups, including the Stop the War Coalition, Cage and Muslim Engagement and Development.

Calling Palestine Action "an extremist criminal group" with members awaiting trial on serious charges, Rowley said he was frustrated that he lacked legal authority to ban the protest outright.

"The right to protest is essential and we will always defend it, but actions in support of such a group go beyond what most would see as legitimate protest," he said.

Rowley added that criminal charges faced by Palestine Action members, including allegedly attacking a police officer with a sledgehammer and causing millions of dollars of damage, represented extremism of a type that the vast majority of the public found abhorrent.

Palestinian Action responded by moving the protest, telling supporters in a post on X early Monday that it would now go ahead in Trafalgar Square, which is just outside the northern edge of the exclusion zone.

"The Metropolitan police are trying to deter support from Palestine Action by banning the protest from taking place at the Houses of Parliament. Don't let them win! Make sure everyone is aware of the location change to Trafalgar Square, London. Mobilize from 12 p.m."

The move came as Home Secretary Yvette Cooper updated lawmakers on plans to proscribe Palestinian Action as a terrorist organization after members of the group claimed responsibility for damaging military aircraft Friday after breaking into an RAF base northwest of London.

They also allegedly damaged the offices of an insurance company, which the group claimed provided services to Elbit Systems, an Israel-based military technology company and defense contractor.

Activist Saeed Taji Farouky called the move to proscribe the group a ludicrous move that "rips apart the very basic concepts of British democracy and the rule of law."

"It's something everyone should be terrified about," he told the BBC.

Cooper said in a written statement to the House that she expected to bring a draft order amending the country's anti-terror legislation before Parliament next week. Proscribing Palestine Action would make membership or promotion of the group punishable by up to 14 years in prison.

Palestinian Action, escalated from targeting arms producers to vandalizing the two Airbus refuelling tanker aircraft because Britain was, it claimed, deploying aircraft to its Akrotiri airbase on Cyprus from where it can "collect intelligence, refuel fighter jets and transport weapons to commit genocide in Gaza."

The attack at RAF Brize Norton, the British military's main hub for strategic air transport and refuelling, including flights to RAF Akrotiri, came the same day a British man appeared in a closed court in Cyprus on charges of planning an "imminent terrorist attack" on the island and espionage.

The suspect was arrested by Greek anti-terror officers on a tip-off from a foreign intelligence service claiming he'd had the RAF Akrotiri base under surveillance since April and had links with the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

He faces charges of terrorism, espionage, conspiracy to commit a felony and other related offences.

RAF Akrotiri is the U.K. military's largest base for the Middle East region and a key waypoint en route to its giant Diego Garcia base in the Chagos Islands, 3,800 miles to the southeast in the middle of the Indian Ocean.