British police stated they arrested 365 individuals in central London on Saturday as supporters of a just lately banned pro-Palestinian group deliberately flouted the regulation as a part of their effort to power the federal government to rethink the ban.
Parliament in early July handed a regulation banning Palestine Motion and making it against the law to publicly assist the group. That got here after activists broke right into a Royal Air Power base and vandalized two tanker planes to protest towards Britain’s assist for Israel’s offensive towards Hamas within the Gaza Strip.
Backers of the group, who’ve held a sequence of protests round the UK over the previous month, argue that the regulation illegally restricts freedom of expression.
An aged activist is arrested in Parliament Sq. in London, England, on Aug. 9, 2025, by law enforcement officials throughout a protest to point out assist for the Palestine Motion group, which is a banned group within the U.Okay. Protesters marched from Holborn to Parliament Sq. the place 365 individuals had been arrested, every week after Palestine Motion’s co-founder Huda Ammori gained a bid to carry a Excessive Court docket problem over the group’s banning.
Richard Baker /In Photos through Getty Pictures
Greater than 500 protesters crammed the sq. exterior the Homes of Parliament on Saturday, many daring police to arrest them by displaying indicators studying “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.” That was sufficient for police to step in.
However because the demonstration started to wind down, police and protest organizers sparred over the variety of arrests because the organizers sought to point out that the regulation was unworkable.
“The police have only been able to arrest a fraction of those supposedly committing ‘terrorism’ offenses, and most of those have been given street bail and allowed to go home,” Defend Our Juries, which organized the protest, stated in an announcement. “This is a major embarrassment to (the government), further undermining the credibility of this widely ridiculed law, brought in to punish those exposing the government’s own crimes.”
London’s Metropolitan Police Service shortly hit again, saying this wasn’t true and that a lot of those that gathered within the sq. had been onlookers, media or individuals who didn’t maintain placards supporting the group.
“We are confident that anyone who came to Parliament Square today to hold a placard expressing support for Palestine Action was either arrested or is in the process of being arrested,” the police power stated in an announcement.
On Friday, police stated the demonstration was uncommon in that the protesters wished to be arrested in giant numbers in order to position a pressure on police and the broader felony justice system.
Protesters maintain placards at a “Lift The Ban” demonstration in assist of the proscribed group Palestine Motion, calling for the just lately imposed ban to be lifted, in Parliament Sq., central London, on August 9, 2025.
HENRY NICHOLLS/AFP through Getty Pictures
Why is Palestine Motion banned within the U.Okay.?
The federal government moved to ban Palestine Motion after the activists broke right into a British air power base in southern England on June 20 to protest British army assist for the Israel-Hamas warfare. The activists sprayed purple paint into the engines of two tanker planes on the RAF Brize Norton base in Oxfordshire and prompted additional injury with crowbars.
Palestine Motion had beforehand focused Israeli protection contractors and different websites within the U.Okay. that they consider have hyperlinks with the Israeli army.
Supporters of the group are difficult the ban in court docket, saying the federal government has gone too far in declaring Palestine Motion a terrorist group.
Whereas Prime Minister Keir Starmer has angered Israel with plans to acknowledge a Palestinian state later this 12 months, many Palestinian supporters in Britain criticize the federal government for not doing sufficient to finish the warfare in Gaza.
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