Police in London have started arresting people for allegedly supporting Palestine Action the same day a controversial ban came into force. The Metropolitan Police posted on X on Saturday afternoon saying officers are responding to the protest in Parliament Square and making arrests, while warning expressing support is a criminal offence.
Palestine Action lost a late-night Court of Appeal challenge on Friday which sought to stop the protest group being proscribed, less than two hours before the new law came into force at midnight. The designation as a terror group means that membership of, or support for, Palestine Action is a criminal offence punishable by up to 14 years in prison.
However, it appears some have defied the ban with a silent protest in Parliament Square. The Press Association news agency reports a mass of Metropolitan Police circled around dozens of protesters standing quietly beneath the statue of Mahatma Ghandi, with placards that said: “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action”.
The move to ban the organisation was announced after two Voyager aircraft were damaged at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire on June 20, an incident claimed by Palestine Action, which police said caused around £7 million worth of damage.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper announced plans to proscribe Palestine Action in June, stating that the vandalism of the two planes was “disgraceful” and that the group had a “long history of unacceptable criminal damage”.
Palestine Action says it is a ‘civil disobedience group’ that carries out direct action but does not advocate for violence. At the High Court, legal counsel said the group was inspired by ‘suffragettes, anti-apartheid activists, and Iraq war activists’. They added that the group’s goal is to put itself ‘in the way of the military machine’.
For more than fifty years, Palestinians have faced human rights abuses due to Israeli occupation. On October 7 2023, Hamas militants attacked Israel, killing 1,195 and taking 251 hostages. Israel retaliated with an air and ground assault on Gaza, which has displaced 1.9million and killed at least 57,000. Amnesty International and a United Nations Special Committee have called it genocide.
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