Palestine Coalition statement in response to Met Police ban – 13 January 2025
Last week, the Metropolitan Police publicly confirmed its intention to prevent our planned protest at the BBC on Saturday 18 January, by imposing an exclusion order banning Palestine solidarity protestors from entering the area surrounding the BBC throughout the day. We will not be silenced.
Since the Police announced their imposing of orders to prevent a protest at the BBC, nearly 200 MPs, trade union and civil society leaders and groups including Amnesty International UK and Akiko Hart, Director of Liberty, Holocaust survivors and their descendants, lawyers, journalists and prominent cultural figures have spoken out in support of the right to protest. Today, they have been joined by over 700 members of the Jewish community.
In recent weeks, Israel has intensified its genocide against the Palestinian people – including massacres of civilians sheltering in so-called ‘safe zones’ and the destruction of the last remaining medical facilities in the north of Gaza. Our marches reflect the overwhelming outrage felt by those who have witnessed these atrocities for more than a year alongside the ongoing complicity of the British government.
Recent investigations have exposed widespread anger amongst BBC staff at the skewed nature of its coverage, and its consistent failure to adhere to its own editorial standards, including by dehumanising Palestinians and obscuring the truth of Israel’s crimes against them. It is entirely unacceptable for the Metropolitan Police to abuse public order powers to shield the BBC from democratic scrutiny.
Contrary to the excuse offered by the police – that they have taken this action to prevent potential disruption to a nearby synagogue – the closest synagogue to the BBC is not even on the route of the march. As the Metropolitan Police have acknowledged, there has never been any threat to a synagogue attached to any of our marches. In fact, every march has been joined by thousands of Jewish people – many in an organised Jewish bloc.
We are calling on all those who support an immediate ceasefire and an end to Israel’s genocide in Gaza, as well as everyone who believes in the democratic right to protest, to join us in London at 12 noon on Saturday 18 January. We will assemble in Whitehall, which will allow us to form up in massive numbers, and we will march in an orderly fashion towards the BBC. We call on the Metropolitan Police to drop these repressive restrictions and accept our right to demonstrate at the BBC.
Palestinian journalists protest against the Israeli attacks on the media workers across the Gaza Strip outside al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah on January 8, 2025. (Photo: Rizek Abdeljawad/Xinhua via Getty Images)
“We have been let down by the international community, particularly the international media organizations,” said Abubaker Abed, sharing a message from Palestinian journalists.
Palestinian journalists gathered outside al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah this week to call attention to Israeli forces’ genocidal assault on the Gaza Strip, their slaughter of those reporting on the ground, and the global community’s failure to hold Israel accountable for the bloodshed.
On Thursday, the day after the event, Abubaker Abed, a Palestinian sports journalist now covering Israel’s war on Gaza, shared on social media a short video of his remarks in English, which he said were delivered on behalf of all the reporters in blue vests who surrounded him and the podium.
Since the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, Palestinian reporters across Gaza have covered what Abed called “the most well-documented and first livestreamed genocide in history,” as Israel—armed by the United States—has launched airstrikes and ground raids, and stopped humanitarian aid and international media from entering the coastal enclave.
Abed said that “we’ve been reporting tirelessly, extensively, and thoroughly on this genocide. It’s indeed a genocide against us, which we’ve been documenting in makeshift tented camps and workplaces… You’ve seen us shedding tears over our loved ones, colleagues, friends, and family members. You’ve seen us killed in every possible way. We’ve been immolated, incinerated, dismembered, and disemboweled—and recently, we’ve been freezing to death.”
“What more ways should you be seeing us killed, then, so that you can move and act and stop the hell inflicted upon us? There are no words to describe what we’ve been going through, because you’ve seen our bodies, how they’ve become fragile, skinny, and fatigued, but we never stopped,” he continued, highlighting how Palestinian journalists have worked “to help the population that has seen every sort of torture and tasted every type of death,” while the world has refused to “stop Israel’s impunity against us.”
“Our message is very clear: We are journalists, and we are Palestinian journalists. We have been let down by the international community, particularly the international media organizations,” Abed declared. “We haven’t seen any sort of support—a single word of support. Even the press vests we’re wearing right now mark us as a target. They do not protect us at all, because we are Palestinians. Maybe if we were Ukrainians or of any other citizenship, with blond hair and blue eyes, the world would rage and rant for us. But because we are Palestinians, we have only one right, which is to die and be maimed.”
“We are just documenting a genocide against us,” he concluded. “After almost a year and a half, we want you to stand foot-by-foot with us, because we are like any other journalists, reporters, and media workers all across the globe—no matter the origin, the color, or the race. Journalism is not a crime. We are not a target.”
Some journalists around the world reposted Abed’s video and called out their colleagues for ignoring Israel’s decimation of Gaza or reporting on it in ways favorable to the far-right Israeli government and its supporters, including the United States.
“The past 15+ months have been one of the most shameful periods in the history of Western journalism,” said Jeremy Scahill, co-founder of Drop Site News, which has published Abed’s reporting from Gaza. “The refusal of so many journalists to speak out in defense of our Palestinian colleagues in Gaza as they and their families have been hunted down and killed is a bloody stain.”
The New Yorker editor Erin Overbey similarly said that “the staggering silence of Western journalists this past year as their Palestinian colleagues have been targeted, intimidated, and killed by Israeli forces during the genocide in Gaza will go down as one of the most shameful periods in media/journalism and human rights history.”
British writer Owen Jones said: “How to describe the refusal of Western journalists to speak out about the biggest slaughter of journalists in the history of human civilization? Damning. Racist. Nauseating. You will never be forgiven. History will damn those who stayed silent—every last fucking one.”
Hamza Yusuf, a London-based British Palestinian writer, said that “we will never forget that whilst Palestinian journalists in Gaza were being systematically slaughtered by Israel, their industry peers at best looked on with indifference and at worst used their positions and their coverage to whitewash Israel’s crimes. Blood on their hands.”
As of Thursday, health officials in Gaza put the death toll from Israel’s 15-month assault at 46,006, with at least 109,378 other Palestinians wounded, the vast majority of the enclave’s population displaced, and civilian infrastructure in ruins. Israel faces global accusations of genocide, including in a case at the International Court of Justice.
Figures for press deaths have varied. The International Federation of Journalists—which works with its affiliate, the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate, to verify information—has documented the killings of 148 Palestinian media workers while the Committee to Protect Journalists has a list of 152 confirmed fatalities, at least 13 of which the group classifies as murders by Israeli forces.
At the end of last year, Al Jazeera published a long-form article titled “Know Their Names” and reported that “from October 7, 2023, to December 25, 2024, at least 217 journalists and media workers had been killed in Gaza. Five more were killed on December 26 when an Israeli airstrike targeted a news van near al-Awda Hospital.”
“Eighty percent of the journalists and media workers killed were between the ages of 20 and 40, a stark statistic that captures the young age of those who risk their lives to document the conflict,” according to Al Jazeera. “They were reporters and writers, photographers and video directors, analysts and editors, sound engineers and voiceover artists, and even founders of media outlets. Their stories remind us of the heavy price paid by those who strive to document humanity’s darkest moments.”
Michael Gove calls for IDF to be nominated for Nobel Peace Prize (Image: Lucy North/PA Wire)
MICHAEL Gove has called for the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) to be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
In a column for the Jewish Chronicle, the former Tory MP and minister said “maybe it’s time” for US president Joe Biden and his Foreign Secretary Antony Blinken to “make amends” with Benjamin Netanyahu before they leave office.
The BBC host and editor of The Spectator wrote: “Words are all very well, but what about something more tangible? Why not nominate the men and women of the IDF for the Nobel Peace Prize?”
JEREMY CORBYN has demanded ministers come clean about the RAF’s use of Cyprus bases to aid Israel.
The former Labour leader, now an independent MP, has written to the Foreign Office urging it to tell the truth about RAF Akrotiri’s role in the continuing genocide in Gaza.
He asked it to confirm if the base in Cyprus was being used to ship weapons to Israel and how many US air force flights had been made from it to assist the onslaught against the Palestinians.
“We deserve to know the full scale of our government’s complicity and participation in genocide,” Mr Corbyn said in the letter.
His intervention follows a Christmas visit by Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer to the base, where he boasted that it was not possible to talk publicly about the vital work being carried out there.
Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAUK Foreign Minister David Lammy confirms that UK government and military are active participants in Israel’s genocides and that the F-35 parts that they suspended from supplying to Israel are instead simply diverted via the United States. He says see https://youtu.be/QILgUHrdWRE
The logo of Human Rights NGO Amnesty International is pictured in Paris on May 28, 2024 [STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN/AFP via Getty Images]
Amnesty International has suspended its Israel branch for failing to align with the organisation’s stance that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza and accused the branch of “anti-Palestinian racism,” according to the New York Post.
The report, published on Tuesday, references a 6 January letter in which Tiumalu Lauvale Peter Fa’afiu, Amnesty’s interim international chairman, stated that the Israel branch had acted in ways that undermined the group’s mission.
The suspension is set to last two years, during which a review panel will evaluate whether to reinstate Amnesty International Israel or impose a permanent ban. The branch retains the option to appeal the decision.
“We take this action in response to evidence of endemic anti-Palestinian racism within AI Israel, which violates core human rights principles and Amnesty values, and evidence of AI Israel’s misalignment with and hostility to Amnesty positions,” read a Monday email from Fa’afiu.
The interim international chairman also stated that Amnesty Israel had actively opposed the organisation’s research and reports, particularly the 2022 publication “Israel’s Apartheid Against Palestinians: Cruel System of Domination and Crime Against Humanity” and the 2024 report, “’You Feel Like You Are Subhuman:’ Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza.”
“AI Israel has sought to publicly discredit Amnesty’s human rights research and positions,” wrote Fa’afiu.
“Its efforts to publicly undermine the findings and recommendations of Amnesty’s 2022 report on Israel’s apartheid against Palestinians and, more recently, Amnesty’s 2024 report on Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, have been deeply prejudicial to Amnesty’s human rights mission, threatening our credibility, integrity and operational coherence.”
In response, members of Amnesty International’s Israeli branch have pushed back against their suspension, accusing the global organisation of overlooking anti-Semitism within its ranks.
Former Amnesty Israel Director, Yonatan Gher, criticised the move, describing the Israeli branch as “the guardian of the Israeli government against the human rights movement.”
In a leaked email, Amnesty International Secretary General Agnes Callamard announced that the suspension would be formally addressed on 21 January. Fa’afiu reportedly added that a committee would “determine whether Amnesty International Israel has a future within the Amnesty movement.”
Amnesty did not reply to MEMO’s request for comment at the time of going to press.
