More arrests expected as multiple Palestine Action protest to take place on Saturday

On Saturday 19 July, dozens of people across the country are expected to be arrested under counter-terrorism legislation for holding cardboard signs. It is, of course, over the government’s proscription of Palestine Action. Locations include:

• London, Gandhi statue in Parliament Square, 1pm
• Manchester, Gandhi statue in Cathedral Yard, 12pm
• Edinburgh, top of the Mound, 11am
• Bristol, in front of the Council House on College Green, 1pm
• Truro, front steps of Truro Cathedral, 11am

Since home secretary Yvette Cooper ordered that Palestine Action be banned as a ‘terrorist organisation’ on 5 July, after the group entered an RAF base at Brize Norton and spray-painted two military planes red, more than 100 people have been arrested around the country for holding cardboard signs saying:

Orwellian over Palestine Action protests

Last Saturday, in Orwellian scenes, peaceful protestors in Cardiff were arrested under Section 12 of the Terrorism Act, kept in police custody for an extended period, while their homes were raided and their personal belongings seized.

In further evidence of the chilling effect of the ban, on Monday Kent Police threatened to arrest a woman, Laura Murton, on terrorism charges simply for holding a sign referring to Israel’s genocide with a Palestinian flag, on the basis that that was sufficient to provide grounds for ‘suspicion’ that she was a supporter of a proscribed group:

 

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Despite such extreme repression that is shocking to the conscience of democracy, the protests are expected to resume on Saturday, including in Parliament Square, Bristol, Edinburgh, Manchester, and Truro.

Saturday’s protests come ahead of a High Court hearing on Monday 21 July in the legal challenge to the ban, in which the Claimant, Huda Ammori, will seek permission for a full judicial review of the proscription.

A spokesperson for Defend Our Juries, which is supporting the campaign to de-proscribe Palestine Action, said:

These protests will see many more ordinary people across the country take a stand, who don’t want to be handcuffed and detained in a police cell but refuse to stand by while our country collapses into an Orwellian nightmare where opponents of genocide are criminalised and silenced, and arrested just for holding a sign.

Protest groups targeting property, not people, in order to disrupt the flow of arms to Israel’s war machine while it commits horrific atrocities – is obviously not terrorism. It aims to stop violence and terrorism being committed against the Palestinian people. How long until this unprecedented, authoritarian proscription is used against racial justice, climate, disability rights groups and trade unions, unless we resist the ban now, before it’s too late?

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