This Saturday, hundreds of people could be arrested for taking part in a mass demonstration against the banning of Palestine Action, a direct action group which is now against the law to support.
Defend Our Juries, the organisation behind the Lift the Ban campaign, has asked people to gather at an as-yet-undisclosed location in central London and hold placards which read, “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.” Activists have been using this tactic since the group was first proscribed as a terrorist organisation on July 5, which has led to multiple arrests across Britain and three people today being charged with a terror offence (although a relatively minor one). A spokesperson for the Metropolitan police has warned that “anyone showing support for the group [on Saturday] can expect to be arrested”.
Several senior Labour politicians, including Keir Starmer and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, have urged members of the public to stay away, and there have been reports of prisons being cleared out ahead of a possible influx. “We think it’s highly unlikely that they’re going to imprison people for holding a sign. It feels like a scare tactic, but obviously we have to be prepared,” a spokesperson from Defend Our Juries, which was formed in 2023 to protect the rights of British protestors to a fair trial, tells Dazed.
At the same time, pressure has been building on Labour to reverse the ban. Yesterday, (August 7), an open letter signed by leading global scholars, including Angela Davis and Naomi Klein, described the measure as “an attack both on the entire pro-Palestine movement and on fundamental freedoms of expression, association, assembly and protest.” That same day, Amnesty International released a statement urging the Met Police not to arrest any protestors on Saturday, arguing that doing so would be violating their rights to freedom of speech and assembly. Earlier in the week, a coalition of 300 Jewish public figures delivered a letter to Yvette Cooper, describing the ban as “illegitimate and unethical” and calling for it to be dropped. A High Court judge has recently granted Palestine Action’s co-founder the right to repeal the decision, setting a court date in November, which could render all of the arrests which have taken place so far unlawful.
While it’s against the law to support Palestine Action, opposing the group’s proscription remains perfectly legal. “As a basic principle, if we can’t speak freely about the genocide, and if we can’t condemn those who enable it and support those who resist it, then ultimately the right to freedom of expression has no meaning in this country,” the Defend Our Juries spokesperson says.
At least 500 people have signed up to take part in Saturday’s protest, knowing that it is likely they will be arrested and could even be charged with a terrorism offence. We spoke to some of these people about why they are taking this action.
First of all, I’m shocked that Palestine Action has been proscribed as a terrorist organisation. A terrorist is someone who causes harm to human life, which is something that Palestine Action would never do. They’re a non-violent direct action group. I’m also taking this action because the right to protest is a very important aspect of human rights, democracy and freedom, and I feel that our democracy is under threat. Due to the threats coming out of Downing Street, it looks increasingly likely that we will be arrested. I admit that I’m nervous. I’m in my eighties, I’ve never been arrested before and I have limited mobility – I walk with a stick – so it’s nerve-racking for me. But this is such an important issue that I have no choice. I have to do this.
I have been to Palestine myself, some time ago. I went with a group to the West Bank and saw things there which changed my view of the world. I was just appalled at the police state, the apartheid, having to go through checkpoints all the time, and the brutality of the Israeli settlers towards the Palestinians – throwing faeces into their homes and things like that; it was disgusting. We met people who had been chucked out of their houses, people whose olive trees had been cut down, people whose schools had been destroyed. And this was all before October 2023. Since then, every day, I’ve seen children being mutilated, murdered, orphaned, and now the whole population is being starved. It’s just the most horrible thing I’ve seen in my lifetime.
I understand completely the legal ramifications, and I accept that. Anything that happens to me can only be a very small measure of what’s happening to people in Gaza at the moment
I’m taking this action because I don’t like genocide. I’ve done many actions in the past, some of which involved going into nuclear bases and military bases, and I’ve been allowed jury trials, which I won. Now they’re proscribing an organisation for doing far less damage than I’ve done myself. I’m really unhappy about the fact that they are muddling up what a real terrorist is, while not dealing with the state terrorism being carried out by Israel with the support of Britain and the US.
I was arrested on July 5, and it was fine. I think some of the police themselves are in two minds about the proscription, and realise that it’s no good. I was asking them, ‘What are you going to do if we continue to slide towards fascism, and you are asked to do something that you really wouldn’t do as a human being?’ You can’t just say, ‘I was following orders’. When I was interviewed by counter-terrorism people, I said, ‘Isn’t this going to make your job harder when you’re dealing with real terrorists?’ That actually got some nods. So I think the police themselves are quite divided about it.
I feel very strongly that protesting peacefully is everybody’s right, and that we should protect it with everything we’ve got. So many of the freedoms we have today come from protest (and in the case of the suffragettes, not very peaceful protest!) Then, of course, there’s the ongoing situation in Gaza. It is an absolute disgrace that our governments are allowing this to happen, training IDF soldiers in this country and supplying surveillance planes.
There’s always a worry about being arrested. But I’m very clear that I will take every consequence that comes my way – I don’t have any qualms about that. I understand completely the legal ramifications, and I accept that. Anything that happens to me can only be a very small measure of what’s happening to people in Gaza at the moment.
What’s happening in Gaza now is just diabolical, and the government and Starmer have got to do something about it. I’m a trade unionist, and I’m worried that the proscription of Palestine Action could spell the end of our democratic right to protest. So far, I’ve been arrested twice, and might be arrested on Saturday for a third time. The first time, I spent the whole night in the police cells, and the second I was there for eight hours – all for sitting down, not even chanting, and displaying a sign. I was very apprehensive at first, but I realised it had to be done, and I will continue protesting for as long as I need to.
Names and some identifying details have been changed
