A week of mass actions protesting in opposition to the ban on Palestine Motion has been introduced, starting on the Labour get together convention in Liverpool and culminating in a nationwide mobilisation in Parliament Sq. in London on 4 October.
The plans have been introduced by Defend Our Juries on Friday, every week after 857 individuals have been arrested beneath the Terrorism Act at an indication outdoors parliament opposing proscription. It mentioned the subsequent part of the protests represented a “main escalation” that will create an “unprecedented problem” for the police, with 1,100 individuals already registered to participate and danger arrest.
“There ought to be no confusion about the place the blame lies: it sits squarely with the federal government for pursuing this authoritarian ban, plunging an overstretched police power and court docket and jail techniques that are already in disaster, into additional chaos,” a spokesperson mentioned. “The facility lies with the brand new residence secretary to finish this farce by listening to MPs, lords, UN specialists, authorized professionals, human rights advocates – and the vast majority of her personal get together’s members – and elevate this harmful, anti-democratic ban.”
They accused the prime minister, Keir Starmer, of “grotesque double requirements” for assembly the Israeli president, Isaac Herzog, this week, whereas individuals had been arrested for holding cardboard indicators in assist of Palestine Motion. They mentioned it made individuals “much more decided to do no matter it takes to overturn this unjust ban, together with by concentrating on Starmer’s upcoming convention”.
Protests on the get together convention, which begins on 28 September, can be an unwelcome distraction for the prime minister as he makes an attempt to handle Labour’s hunch within the polls.
Defend Our Juries launched a brand new name for individuals throughout the nation to point out their defiance by putting an indication saying “I oppose genocide. I assist Palestine Motion” – the identical wording individuals have brandished on placards on the demonstrations – of their entrance home windows. It follows a viral video of a former Labour councillor, Keith Hackett, being advised by police he might legally show a poster in assist of Palestine Motion as a result of it was “not in public”.
Final Saturday’s demonstration was the second main protest organised by Defend Our Juries in defiance of the ban. Defend Our Juries claimed there have been 1,500 individuals holding indicators saying “I oppose genocide, I assist Palestine Motion” and that the police’s failure to arrest everybody confirmed they have been overwhelmed.
On the earlier demonstration, final month, 532 individuals have been arrested, half of whom have been aged 60 or above. A spokesperson claimed opposition to the ban, the primary of a direct motion protest group, was “rising at an exponential fee”.
The then residence secretary, Yvette Cooper, introduced plans to proscribe Palestine Motion in June, three days after it claimed accountability for a break-in at RAF Brize Norton, though it later emerged that she was suggested to proscribe the group in March. She mentioned the group, which focused organisations it claimed have been complicit in Israeli conflict crimes in opposition to Palestinians, had a “lengthy historical past of unacceptable legal harm” and was a risk to nationwide safety.
Because the ban got here into power on 5 July, greater than 1,600 individuals have been arrested beneath the Terrorism Act, together with vicars, clergymen, medical doctors, former authorities advisers, military veterans, and plenty of aged and disabled individuals. The determine is greater than have been arrested throughout the complete “conflict on terror” since 2001.
Most haven’t been charged though seven individuals appeared in court docket final week accused of being organisers of the demonstrations.
On Wednesday, the Trades Union Congress annual congress unanimously handed a movement calling on the federal government to repeal the proscription of Palestine Motion.
The president of the civil servants’ union mentioned the ban represented a “important abuse of counter-terrorist powers and a direct assault on our proper to protest in opposition to the genocidal Israeli regime”.
