A number of organisations have sent a strongly worded letter to the Metropolitan Police Commissioner demanding that he fulfils his responsibility to ensure that Friday’s Al-Quds Day event is policed independently without fear or favour.
The letter comes in the wake of an increasing number of incidents in which the Metropolitan Police has abused its legal powers to harass pro-Palestine protestors, especially since pro-Palestine protests erupted last October.
This harassment has responded to pro-Israel politicians and media demonising the protests, e.g. as hate marches, antisemitic, extremist, pro-terrorist, etc. Protesters have been arrested, detained for long periods, only for the overwhelming majority of them to be released without charge, but sometimes with bail conditions which curtail their freedom for no valid reason. Few charges and even fewer prosecutions have resulted from the arrests.
The arrests play several political roles. They disrupt protesters’ lives, theatrically portray the protests as dangerous, perversely vindicates the politicians’ demonization of the protests, and builds support for greater police powers to limit or ban pro-Palestine protests. All these harms accommodate pro Israel politicians. In short, the harassment is politically driven policing, rather than a response to any criminal behaviour by protestors.
The letter also expresses concern that in the latest national demonstration for Palestine in the capital on 30 March police allowed a small pro-Israel demonstration to take place very close to marchers.
“It is difficult not to conclude that its placement was deliberately provocative, almost as if the Met Police were seeking to engineer a physical conflict and then blame the pro-Palestinian demonstrators for it, thus vindicating the accusations from pro-Israel politicians,” says the letter. “We would expect you to ensure that any pro Israel counter-demonstrations are kept well away from the Al-Quds Day rally and march this Friday.”
In the 40-plus years that the annual Al-Quds Day demonstration has taken place it has always been good natured and peaceful. The Met Police has itself remarked on the peaceful, family-friendly nature of the event.
Thousands of protestors are expected to descend on London from all over the country on Friday April 5 for this year’s rally and march.
The turnout could be the biggest to date in view of the continuing genocide in Gaza. Israeli forces have killed 33,000 civilians in Gaza, some 70% of them women and children. At the same time armed colonial settlers and troops are running amok in the occupied West Bank, invading, looting and attacking Palestinian towns and villages.
The full letter can be read here.
This year’s event will start at the Home Office in central London at 3pm before proceeding to Downing Street.
Further details about the Al-Quds Day event are available here.
For more information or comment please contact the Press Office on (+44) 208 904 0222Â or (+44) 7958 522196 or email media@ihrc.org [ENDS]
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IHRC is an NGO in Special Consultative Status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations.
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