UK Palestine Action ban to be met with 'biggest ever day of defiance'

Campaigners standing in solidarity with Palestine Action have announced the “biggest ever day of defiance” against the UK government’s ban of the direct action group, with over 1,000 people ready to participate in a protest on Saturday.

Defend Our Juries (DOJ), which has staged regular protests since the government moved to proscribe Palestine Action in July, had scheduled a press conference on Tuesday to announce that an estimated 1,500 people were going to risk arrest under the Terrorism Act for holding signs reading, “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.”

But the conference was postponed after seven of its key speakers, including former government lawyer Tim Crosland, were arrested under section 12 of the Terrorism Act 2000. DOJ said arrestees had been held over the custody time limit of 24 hours and had their homes raided.

London’s Metropolitan Police subsequently confirmed that the arrestees’ interviews were complete and their releases are expected soon.

Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori, journalist George Monbiot, and film director Ken Loach were among the speakers at the rescheduled conference on Wednesday.

Monbiot described the pre-emptive arrests of the spokespeople as “classic police state stuff”, warning that “anyone who cares about democracy, anyone who cares about freedom of assembly, anyone who cares about freedom of speech should object to this in the strongest possible terms”.

'I think they know the stupidity of it. They know they are being caught out in the argument, but it has deep intent'

- Ken Loach, filmmaker

“We all have a stake in this because we’re seeing a slippage from a nominally broadly democratic nation into one with very strong, authoritarian characteristics, and this is something I feel we all have a duty to resist,” he said. 

DOJ said they “would not be silenced”, and that the arrests had only spurred “hundreds” more participants to volunteer to risk arrest.

At the conference, the group confirmed mass actions were set to take place across England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, describing it as “an unprecedented simultaneous challenge to all three legal systems within the UK’s constitutional framework”. 

‘I have no option but to act’

More than 500 people - most of them over the age of 60 - were arrested under the Terrorism Act at the previous action in London's Parliament Square on 9 August.

To do this, the police implemented a “street bail” system that involved processing arrestees in makeshift gazebos. 

But this time, DOJ is asking participants not to comply with this process, to refuse to hand their details to the police and to “go floppy” on arrest, noting that this will make it “practically impossible” for the police to conduct mass arrests.

Claudia Penna Rojas, a 27-year-old legal support worker who was arrested at the previous protest and is set to participate again on Saturday, told Middle East Eye that she had rejected the street bail system and was taken into custody.

“I wasn’t going to comply with illegal arrests,” she said. “[The police] were trying to intimidate people into giving their details”.

This time, she said, “I just don’t think it’s going to work. People are willing to risk arrest, people are willing to go through inconvenience because of this, because it’s so important.”

Palestine Action campaigners seeking to lift ban rounded up in dawn raids

Read More »

“I have no option but to act,” Rojas said, “because however intimidating the threats from our government are, it is nothing compared to what the people of Palestine are facing, and it is nothing compared to what we will face if we do not stand up and take action now.”

Ken Loach, one of Britain’s most decorated filmmakers, said the UK’s move to proscribe Palestine Action was intended to “send a message out to the far-right governments, particularly to Trump and to the Israelis: ‘I am with you, whatever you do.’”

“I think they know the stupidity of it. They know they are being caught out in the argument, but it has deep intent,” he said.

Speaking from Belfast, Gerry Caroll, a member of the Legislative Assembly of Northern Ireland, highlighted the discrepancy between the Northern Irish police’s tolerance of proscribed paramilitary groups, the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) and the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), and its crackdowns on activists expressing support for Palestine Action.

“There’s never been any attempts by the police to enforce the law in these cases,” he said.

 “If the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) would arrest even a half of those people who express support for a proscribed paramilitary organisation by wearing a t-shirt or flying a flag or painting a mural, the justice system would collapse.”

“Why the double standards?” he demanded, noting that the PSNI arrested a 74-year-old woman in Belfast for wearing a Palestine Action t-shirt during the last round of protests in August.