UK police arrest protesters after ban on Palestine Action goes into effect
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Scores of protesters were arrested in London on Saturday after a ban on the group Palestine Action officially came into effect, Anadolu reports.
The UK government will, for the first time, legally redefine a non-violent protest group, Palestine Action, as a terrorist organization after a last-minute legal challenge to suspend the group’s ban under anti-terrorism laws failed at a high court on Friday.
As of this Saturday, membership in, or showing support for, Palestine Action will become a criminal offense in Britain.
The Metropolitan Police confirmed on Saturday afternoon that officers were responding to a demonstration in Parliament Square and had begun making arrests.
READ: AOHR UK calls on British Gov’t to sanction GHF officials
“The group is now proscribed, and expressing support for them is a criminal offense,” the force said in a statement. “Arrests are being made.”
Officers have arrested more than 20 people on suspicion of offenses under the Terrorism Act 2000.
It added: “There are a number of events taking place in London this weekend and anyone attending should be aware that officers policing these will act where criminal offenses, including those related to support of proscribed groups or organizations, are committed.”
MPs overwhelmingly voted in favor of Home Secretary Yvette Cooper’s decision to proscribe the group under the Terrorism Act 2000 on Wednesday. The House of Lords has also approved the move.
UN experts, civil liberties organizations, cultural figures, and hundreds of lawyers have condemned the ban as “draconian.”
They argue that it sets a dangerous precedent by conflating protest with terrorism.
Palestine Action said it is seeking an “urgent appeal to prevent a dystopian nightmare, which criminalizes thousands of people overnight.”
Another court hearing is scheduled for July 21, when Palestine Action will apply for permission to launch a judicial review in an effort to overturn the order.
Unless the review is successful, being a member of or inviting support for the group that protests Israeli genocide in Gaza will carry a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison.
Meanwhile, pro-Palestine activists disrupted the London Pride parade by covering a float in red paint.
Four protesters from the group Youth Demand targeted a truck belonging to US-based company CISCO, accusing the firm of “genocide” and claiming it has “no place” at the event.
The incident comes less than 24 hours after the protest group Palestine Action was officially banned and designated a terrorist organization.
READ: Palestine Action again targets Israeli defense firm in UK amid risk of being placed on terror list
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Far-Right Group Sent List of Palestine Defenders to Trump Officials for Deportation
Original article by Brett Wilkins republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
(Photo: Lev Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Betar—which the pro-Israel Anti-Defamation League has blacklisted after comments like “not enough” babies were killed in Gaza—says it provided “thousands of names” for possible arrest and expulsion.
Betar, the international far-right pro-Israel group that took credit for the Department of Homeland Security’s arrest of former Columbia University graduate student and permanent U.S. resident Mahmoud Khalil for protesting the annihilation of Gaza, claimed this week that it has sent “thousands of names” of Palestine defenders to Trump administration officials for possible deportation.
“Jihadis have no place in civilized nations,” Betar said on social media Friday following the publication of a Guardian article on the extremist group’s activities.
Earlier this week, Betar said: “We told you we have been working on deportations and will continue to do so. Expect naturalized citizens to start being picked up within the month. You heard it here first. Those who support jihad and intifada and originate in terrorist states will be sent back to those lands.”
Betar has been gloating about last week’s arrest of Khalil, the lead negotiator for the group Columbia University Apartheid Divest during the April 2024 Gaza Solidarity Encampment.
On Thursday, immigration officers arrested another Columbia Gaza protester, Leqaa Kordia—a Palestinian from the illegally occupied West Bank—for allegedly overstaying her expired student visa. Kordia was also arrested last April during one of the Columbia campus protests against the Gaza onslaught.
On Friday, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said that Ranjani Srinivasan, an Indian doctoral student at Columbia whose visa was revoked on March 5 for alleged involvement “in activities supporting” Hamas—the Palestinian resistance group designated as a terrorist organization by the U.S. government—used the Customs and Border Protection’s self-deportation app and, according to media reports, has left the country.
Khalil and Kordia’s arrests come as the Trump administration targets Columbia and other schools over pro-Palestinian protests under the guise of combating antisemitism, despite the Ivy League university’s violent crackdown on demonstrations and revocation of degrees from some pro-Palestine activists.
U.S. President Donald Trump, who in January signed an executive order authorizing the deportation of noncitizen students and others who took part in protests against Israel’s war on Gaza, called Khalil’s detention “the first arrest of many to come.”
The Department of Justice announced Friday that it is investigating whether pro-Palestinian demonstrators at the school violated federal anti-terrorism laws. This followed Thursday’s search of two Columbia dorm rooms by DHS agents and the cancellation earlier this month of $400 million worth of funding and contracts for Columbia because the Trump administration says university officials haven’t done enough to tackle alleged antisemitism on campus.
On Friday, Betar named Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian studying philosophy at Columbia, as its next target.
Critics have voiced alarm about Betar’s activities, pointing to the pro-Israel Anti-Defamation League’s recent designation of the organization as a hate group. Founded in 1923 by the early Zionist leader Ze’ev Jabotinsky, Betar has a long history of extremism. Its members—who included former Israeli Prime Ministers Yitzhak Shamir and Menachem Begin—took part in the Zionist terror campaign against Palestinian Arabs and British forces occupying Palestine in the 1940s.
Today, Betar supports Kahanism—a Jewish supremacist and apartheid movement named after Meir Kahane, an Orthodox rabbi convicted of terrorism before being assassinated in 1990—and is linked to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party. The group has called for the ethnic cleansing and Israeli recolonization of Gaza. During Israel’s assault on the coastal enclave, which is the subject of an International Court of Justice genocide case, its account on the social media site X responded to the publication of a list of thousands of Palestinian children killed by Israeli forces by saying: “Not enough. We demand blood in Gaza!”
Ross Glick, who led the U.S. chapter of Betar until last month, told The Guardian that he has met with bipartisan members of Congress who support the group’s efforts, naming lawmakers including Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and John Fetterman (D-Pa.). Glick also claimed to have the support of “collaborators” who use artificial intelligence and facial recognition to help identify pro-Palestine activists. Earlier this month, the U.S. State Department said it was launching an AI-powered “catch and revoke” program to cancel the visas of international students deemed supportive of Hamas.
Betar isn’t alone in aggressively targeting Palestine defenders. The group Canary Mission—which said it is “delighted” about Khalil’s “deserved consequences”—publishes an online database containing personal information about people it deems antisemitic, and this week released a video naming five other international students it says are “linked to campus extremism at Columbia.”
Shai Davidai, an assistant professor at Columbia who was temporarily banned from campus last year after harassing university employees, and Columbia student David Lederer, have waged what Khalil called “a vicious, coordinated, and dehumanizing doxxing campaign” against him and other activists.
Meanwhile, opponents of the Trump administration’s crackdown on constitutionally protected protest rights have rallied in defense of Khalil and the First Amendment. Nearly 100 Jewish-led demonstrators were arrested Thursday during a protest in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York City demanding Khalil’s release.
“We know what happens when an autocratic regime starts taking away our rights and scapegoating and we will not be silent,” said Sonya Meyerson-Knox, the communications director for Jewish Voice for Peace. “Come for one—face us all.”
Original article by Brett Wilkins republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).
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