“It is unacceptable that the police are yielding to this pressure and threatening to impose conditions to prevent legitimate protest at the BBC” – Ben Jamal
The coalition of demonstration organisers for Palestine respond to the Met Police attempt to stop the National march for Palestine on January 18th.
The Metropolitan Police have announced they will impose conditions on the march for Palestine on 18 January in London. These conditions would prevent people proceeding from BBC HQ at Portland Place to Westminster.
The Palestine coalition agreed the route with the Police in November 2024 and with their agreement announced the march that month.
At short notice the Police are now planning to renege on this agreement and on spurious grounds disbar tens of thousands of people from legitimate protest outside the BBC. They have indicated that in future Pro Palestine protests will not be allowed at the BBC on a Saturday
The Palestine coalition had planned to use this route for the march for Palestine in November 2024. However, the police indicated that this would cause huge issues for shoppers in the busiest period of the year. On that basis the coalition agreed with the Police to shift the use of this route to the planned march in January.
The Police are now reneging on this deal. They are citing ‘cumulative disruption to the synagogue’ as the reason for this. However, protesters have only marched twice on this route from the BBC since October 2023, the last time being in February 2024. The nearest synagogue is not actually on the route of the march. The Police have specified that they are responding to the pressure of the Chief Rabbi in issuing these conditions. The Chief Rabbi has openly celebrated the horrific and criminal actions of the Israeli military in Gaza, describing them as the ‘most outstanding possible thing that a decent responsible country can do.’
The Police have indicated that no future protests will be allowed to take place in support of Palestinian rights outside of the BBC HQ on a Saturday.
The Palestine coalition rejects the implication that our marches are somehow hostile to or a threat to Jewish people. The Met Police have acknowledged there has not been a single incident of any threat to a synagogue attached to any of the marches. Every march has been joined by thousands of Jewish people – many in an organised Jewish bloc – and addressed by Jewish speakers on the demonstration platforms. Representatives of the Jewish bloc have written to the police seeking a meeting to express their concerns that the police are choosing to listen solely to pro-Israel Jewish voices, but they have not had any response.
PSC Director Ben Jamal said
“Israel is intensifying its genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and the UK government remains complicit in this horrific violence. Meanwhile, pro-Israel groups and individuals including the Chief Rabbi are putting pressure on the police to prevent public support for Palestinian rights. It is unacceptable that the police are yielding to this pressure and threatening to impose conditions to prevent legitimate protest at the BBC . We call on them to reverse this decision and allow people to exercise core democratic rights.”
- Further details of the next march for Palestine, which takes place in Central London on January 18th can be found here.
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Is anyone surprised? Westminster has long-since capitulated to Washington’s Zionist mafia, as has the EU. The UK and Europe are not free, and it has nothing to do with Russia or China. The true enemy lies across the Atlantic, using pliant vassal state puppets as command and control mechanisms. Plus ca change!