The United Kingdom announced on Sunday (5) that British police are expected to receive greater powers to repress protests after hundreds of pro-palestine activists were arrested in London for supporting the forbidden Palestine Action group.
Almost on Trafalgar Squarein the center of London, for protesting in support of the group, according to the London Metropolitan Police.
The announcement of the ministry occurs after the police and the legislators asked the organizers to cancel the “Lift the Ban” on Saturday (4), a few days after the attack on the Manchester synagogue, where two people were killed in Yom Kippurthe most sacred day of Judaism.
Protest organizers, Defend Our Juries, rejected these appeals, saying that “canceling peaceful protests allows terror to win.”
Jewish activists were among the 493 people arrested on Saturday (4), including Elizabeth Morley, a 79 -year -old woman, daughter of a Holocaust survivor who was arrested for the third time, and a 79 -year -old Jew with a terminal disease, the organizers said.
Like most other arrested protesters, Jewish activists carried posters that said, “I oppose genocide, I support Palestinian action.”
The 83 -year -old Sue Parfitt, an Anglican priestess, was also among those arrested for the third time on Saturday.
A protest video showed elderly and people with disabilities among prisoners, including a blind man using a cane and two people in wheelchairs.
Citing mass arrests in its announcement, the interior ministry said expanded police powers – which will be implemented “as soon as possible” – would allow extra conditions to be imposed on what they called “repeated protests.”
The powers will give the high -ranking police officers to ban or relocate protests based on their “cumulative impact.”
Since Palestine Action was designated a terrorist organization In July, more than 2,000 people were arrested in similar demonstrations throughout the United Kingdom.
Pro-Palestinian manifestations
Protests in favor of the Palestinian group led by several other groups have frequently occurred in London since the Hamas attack to Israel on October 7, 2023 and the subsequent Israeli war in Gaza.
The largest powers for the police will be introduced through an addition to an existing police law, Public order lawthat will need to be debated and approved in Parliament before becoming law.
The Interior Ministry said the new rules, if implemented, would give the police the authority to “instruct organizers to hold the event elsewhere” if “a protest occurred in the same place for weeks and caused repeated disorders.”
“Anyone who violates conditions will risk being arrested and processed,” he said.
The government’s proposal was received with harsh criticism from defenders of civil liberties and a handful of opposition legislators, many of whom have already criticized the designation of terrorism of Palestinian action as an attack on freedom of expression and warned that applying terrorism laws to such a group establishes a dangerous precedent for protest rights.
