PRESS RELEASE –

IHRC has written to the Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick over calls from government ministers for the police to investigate university students demonstrating against the presence of Israeli ambassador to the UK, Tzipi Hotovely, at a university event in London on Tuesday 9 November.

The calls are being led by the Home Secretary, Priti Patel, who appears to want to turn what was a peaceful anti-Israel protest into a panic about anti-Semitism. By deliberately and falsely conflating the two, she is attempting to scare and intimidate campaigners who are critical of Israel into silence.

The faux outrage over a supposed threat to Hotovely is not supported by the facts which are that the protest was peaceful, if noisy, and no arrests were made.

Police officers were present amid the young students standing up for the rights of the Palestinian people. The event included young students from all backgrounds, as well as rabbis and academics from a Jewish background as well as people of many different faiths.

The letter says that the Home Secretary and other ministers’ intervention in this matter is anti-democratic as they seek to conflate peaceful protest against Israeli policy with anti-Semitism.

It calls on the commissioner to publicly state that people are free to express their views peacefully in a democratic society without the risk of being investigated on trumped up allegations.

The full letter can be read here.

For more information or comment please contact the Press Office on (+44) 7958522196[ENDS]

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IHRC is an NGO in Special Consultative Status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations.
Islamic Human Rights Commission
PO Box 598
Wembley
HA9 7XH
United Kingdom
Telephone (+44) 20 8904 4222
Email: info@ihrc.org
Web: www.ihrc.org
Twitter: @ihrc