“Thousands more have been arrested for simply holding up signs in support of a proscribed organisation – including many outside the conference centre on Sunday.”
By Stop the War Coaltion
Stop the War Coalition is calling on Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband to join the Palestine movement in demanding that Prime Minister Andy Burnham and Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood drop the charges against all those arrested for peacefully protesting genocide.
Miliband’s important admission in his Labour conference speech that the millions of people in this country who have been outraged by the plight of the Palestinian people ‘were right’ is in danger of being hypocritical if he remains silent on their right to protest, the group’s convenor Lindsey German said.
Commenting on the foreign secretary’s Labour conference speech, Lindsey said:
“For nearly three years our pro-Palestine movement has brought hundreds of thousands of people onto the streets of this country, demanding the British government ends its complicity in the Gaza genocide and stops arming Israel.
“During that time our vice chair Chris Nineham and the former director of Palestine Solidarity Campaign have been arrested and found guilty of breaching the Public Order Act for organising a peaceful protest. Our chair Alex Kenny and CND’s Sophie Bolt still face trial. Thousands more have been arrested for simply holding up signs in support of a proscribed organisation – including many outside the conference centre on Sunday.
“Miliband describes the suffering in Gaza as a ‘stain on the world’s conscience’ and that his parents taught him to ‘never walk by’. Yet his silence on Palestine Action and on the government’s attack on the right to protest is the opposite of that and is in danger of appearing hypocritical.
“If he truly believes in his responsibility to leave the world a better place, then he would join us in demanding Burnham and the home secretary de-proscribe Palestine Action, reverse the legislation that now criminalises large amounts of previously lawful protest and drop the charges!”
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- This article was taken from a press release sent by Stop the War on 28 September 2026.
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