LONDON\u00a0\u2014\u00a0British police scuffled with protesters outside Parliament on Saturday as they arrested more than 400 demonstrators who gathered to defy a ban on the group Palestine Action, which the government labels a terrorist organization. <\/p>\n
Defend Our Juries, the campaign group organizing the protest, said 1,500 people took part in the London demonstration, sitting down and holding signs reading. \u201cI oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action.\u201d<\/p>\n
Within minutes, police began arresting the demonstrators, as bystanders chanted, \u201cShame on you,\u201d and \u201cMet Police, pick a side, justice or genocide.\u201d There were some scuffles and angry exchanges as officers dragged away demonstrators who went limp as they were removed from the crowd.<\/p>\n
Eight hours after the protest started, police said they had arrested more than 425 people, over 25 of them for assaulting officers or public order offenses and the rest under the nation\u2019s Terrorism Act.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn carrying out their duties today, our officers have been punched, kicked, spat on and had objects thrown at them by protesters,\u201d said Deputy Assistant Commissioner Claire Smart, who called the actions directed at police \u201cintolerable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Defend Our Juries said aggression had come from police officers and dismissed as \u201cfrankly laughable\u201d claims that protesters had been violent.<\/p>\n
More than 700 people were arrested at earlier protests, and 138 have been charged under the Terrorism Act.<\/p>\n
Mike Higgins, 62, who is blind and uses a wheelchair, was arrested last month but returned to demonstrate Saturday.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I\u2019m a terrorist? That\u2019s the joke of it,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve already been arrested under the Terrorism Act and I suspect I will be today.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cOf course I\u2019ll keep coming back. What choice do I have?\u201d<\/p>\n
Direct-action protests<\/p>\n
The government proscribed Palestine Action in July after activists broke into a Royal Air Force base and vandalized planes to protest against Britain\u2019s support for Israel\u2019s offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The activists sprayed red paint into the engines of two tanker planes and caused further damage with crowbars.<\/p>\n
Proscription made it a crime to publicly support the organization. Membership of, or support for, the group is punishable by up to 14 years in prison.<\/p>\n
Palestine Action has carried out direct-action protests in the U.K. since it formed in 2020, including breaking into facilities owned by Israeli weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems UK, and has targeted other sites in Britain that participants believe have links with the Israeli military.<\/p>\n
The group has targeted defense companies and national infrastructure, and officials say their actions have caused millions of dollars in damage that affect national security.<\/p>\n
Banning the group, then-Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said, \u201cThe assessments are very clear, this is not a nonviolent organization.\u201d<\/p>\n
Palestine Action has won approval from the High Court to challenge the ban, a ruling the government is seeking to overturn. The case is ongoing, with a hearing scheduled for Sept. 25.<\/p>\n
Supporters say the ban stifles free speech<\/p>\n
The United Nations human rights chief has criticized the British government\u2019s stance, saying the new law \u201cmisuses the gravity and impact of terrorism.\u201d <\/p>\n
The decision to designate Palestine Action as a terrorist group \u201craises serious concerns that counterterrorism laws are being applied to conduct that is not terrorist in nature, and risks hindering the legitimate exercise of fundamental freedoms across the UK,\u201d Volker Turk warned. <\/p>\n
He added that according to international standards, terrorist acts should be confined to crimes such as those intended to cause death or serious injury or the taking of hostages.<\/p>\n
Huda Ammori, Palestine Action\u2019s co-founder, has condemned the government\u2019s decision to ban it as \u201ccatastrophic\u201d for civil liberties, leading to a \u201cmuch wider chilling effect on freedom of speech.\u201d<\/p>\n
The group has been supported by prominent cultural figures including bestselling Irish author Sally Rooney, who said she planned to use the proceeds of her work \u201cto keep backing Palestine Action and direct action against genocide.\u201d<\/p>\n
Israel \u2014 founded in part as a refuge in the wake of the Holocaust, when some 6 million European Jews were murdered \u2014 vehemently denies it is committing genocide.<\/p>\n
Britain\u2019s government stressed that proscribing Palestine Action as a terrorist group does not affect other lawful groups \u2014 including pro-Palestinian or pro-Israel voices \u2014 campaigning or peacefully protesting.<\/p>\n
About 20,000 people, by a police estimate, attended a separate pro-Palestinian march in London on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Hui and Lawless write for the Associated Press. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONDON\u00a0\u2014\u00a0British police scuffled with protesters outside Parliament on Saturday as they arrested more than 400 demonstrators who gathered…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":404291,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[748,139321,139323,393,139324,44400,1234,4884,119753,257,115779,457,3113,529,18744,119755,21029,139322,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-404290","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-campaign-group","10":"tag-demonstrator","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-further-damage","13":"tag-genocide","14":"tag-government","15":"tag-great-britain","16":"tag-group-palestine-action","17":"tag-london","18":"tag-officer","19":"tag-people","20":"tag-plane","21":"tag-police","22":"tag-protest","23":"tag-protester","24":"tag-saturday","25":"tag-terrorism-act","26":"tag-uk","27":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115160969857781220","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=404290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/404290\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/404291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=404290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=404290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=404290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}