Palestine Coalition Statement: Police repression of 18 January protest
https://palestinecampaign.org/palestine-coalition-statement-police-repression-of-18-january-protest
Posted on March 3, 2025
In Press Releases and Statements
The Palestine Coalition condemns the decision of the Metropolitan Police to issue letters ordering a range of activists, including Stephen Kapos, an 87-year-old Jewish Holocaust survivor, to attend formal interviews over their alleged roles in the Palestine solidarity protest on January 18th, 2025.
Letters have also been issued to prominent actor Khalid Abdalla, Stop the War Coalition officers Lindsey German, Alex Kenny and Andrew Murray, CND General Secretary Sophie Bolt, Friends of Al-Aqsa Chair, Ismail Patel, and probably will be to others.
The police claim in the letters sent to these activists, that they breached conditions imposed by the police to limit the right to protest against the genocide in Gaza.
These restrictions almost certainly came as a result of political pressure from supporters of Israel’s pro-genocide policies.
The protest’s chief steward Chris Nineham and Palestine Solidarity Campaign director Ben Jamal have already been charged with offences arising from the same protest, along with many others. Chris Nineham was violently arrested on the day.
MPs Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell have also been interviewed under caution by the police.
This apparently co-ordinated attack against the Palestine solidarity movement is endeavouring to halt public protest on the issue, through harassment of those involved in the movement, and through increasingly draconian restrictions on demonstrations.
That a Holocaust survivor is called in by the police for the alleged offence of carrying a bunch of flowers into Trafalgar Square, underlines the unjustifiable extremes to which the Metropolitan Police are prepared to go, to restrict the right to public protest and silence the Palestine solidarity movement.
What is claimed by the police as justification for this massive overreach of their powers is a complete misrepresentation of what took place, not just on the day but beforehand.
Our cause is to mobilise support for the Palestinian people suffering a genocidal onslaught by the Israeli state, backed by the British government. To pursue this just cause, we must also defend the right to protest – alongside many others who face similar restrictions.
We will not be cowed by these attacks on our rights.
We demand that the Metropolitan Police halt any prosecutions or proceedings against those involved in this entirely peaceful protest.
We further insist that the Metropolitan Police respects the right to protest and that it ceases to take instruction from those who are determined to back Israel’s genocidal actions, to maintain British state support for them, and to drive our movement off the streets.
Those who seek to do so will not succeed under any circumstances. We urge all those committed to preserving long-established freedoms to join us in protesting against this mounting campaign of state harassment.
https://palestinecampaign.org/palestine-coalition-statement-police-repression-of-18-january-protest
