People take part in a national demonstration for Gaza from Russell Square to Whitehall in London, June 8, 2024
SCOTLAND YARD has been urged to abandon plans to impose new orders that would seriously disrupt Saturday’s March for Palestine demonstration in London.
Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), union leaders, MPs, peers and coalition partners expressed concern over the force severely restricting the protest in an open letter today.
The Met was accused of employing tactics “to deter people from attending” the 18th national peaceful demonstration against the Gaza genocide since last October.
…
On Monday, the Met was accused of refusing to participate in negotiations in a “transparent and accountable” way with the march’s organisers.
Signatories of PSC’s letter raised concerns over the eleventh-hour announcement that the Met wanted the march delayed by nearly two hours “without explanation or rationale” and its refusal to allow Pall Mall as an assembly point.
They added: “We worry that these kind of delays, and late challenges and conditions to the plans of what are entirely peaceful demonstrations, are forming a pattern.”
‘Hastings three’ pursued criminally next week for General Dynamics protest
Three local men, one of them a pensioner, go on trial next Tuesday, 27 August, at Hastings Magistrates Court on charges of aggravated trespass for taking part in a peaceful demonstration at a local arms factory in February.
The ‘Hastings3’ took part in the cross-community demonstration outside the General Dynamics site on Sidley Little Road on 29 February, supported by representatives of Jewish groups, Quakers, trade union bodies, parent groups and political parties. Demonstrators held placards, sung songs calling for a ceasefire in Gaza and handed out leaflets – but several were roughly arrested and dragged off to police vans.
Laurance Holden, 71, Clem McCullough, 31, and Thomas Delves, 24 will plead not guilty to the charges, which carry a maximum penalty of a fine of up to £2500 and a jail term of three months.
Hastings & District Palestine Solidarity Campaign chair Katy Colley said:
The pursuit of these men is clearly political and designed to deter peaceful protests. We have been demonstrating at General Dynamics consistently since the genocidal assault on Gaza began 10 months ago to draw attention to the merchants of death in our hometown complicit in these atrocities.
General Dynamics makes all the casings for the bombs being dropped on Gaza – their Hastings sites makes avionic and communication systems for fighter jets and combat vehicles used by the Israeli military.
Over 40,000 men women and children have been brutally slaughtered in what the world court has deemed a ‘plausible genocide’.
There is a clear legal imperative to stop arming Israel, as was underlined this week when British diplomat Mark Smith resigned on this point, saying it was clear to everyone that Israel was “flagrantly and regularly” perpetrating war crimes in plain sight.
And yet our government continues to issue export licenses to companies like General Dynamics, allowing Israel to continue its barbaric and murderous campaign against the trapped civilian population in Gaza.
The Hastings Three are brave, principled people who do not want our town to be complicit in war crimes. They are with the majority. Poll after poll show that most people want an end to arms sales to Israel immediately. We stand with them, the side of the people, the side of the law and the side of justice.
Dozens of supporters are expected to attend a protest rally at the Magistrates court from 9am in support of the three, and a benefit concert is being held in the evening to raise money for people in Gaza as well as money for court costs.
[S?]imon Hester, Chair of the Hastings & District TUC, said:
Protesting against genocide is not a crime. The Hastings and District Trades Union Council supports the Hastings 3 and demands an immediate end to arms sales to Israel.
Kathy Shapiro of Hastings Jews for Justice added:
Hastings Jews for Justice is outraged that the Hastings 3 are facing trial.
It is General Dynamics that should be on trial, not concerned citizens. As Jews of conscience we will continue to exercise our right and moral obligation to speak out against this criminal complicity until there is an arms embargo of Israel, a permanent ceasefire in Gaza, and justice and freedom for Palestinians.’
Leah Levane, Co-Chair of Jewish Voice for Labour (JVL), said:
The more than 10 months of carnage in Gaza demands a serious response. The ICJ decision makes stopping arms trading with Israel and obligation and these three people have been arrested for protesting in favor of International Law.
I am disappointed, to put it mildly, that the Court’s precious and expensive time is being used to try three men whose acts show their commitment to International Law as well as to justice for Palestinians and, of course, peace.’
Police and demonstrators are seen at a march during the Democratic National Convention on August 19, 2024 in Chicago. (Photo: Scott Olson/Getty Images)
“For Palestinian Americans, this is a fundamental issue,” said one marcher.
What’s expected to be the biggest protest march during this week’s Democratic National Convention kicked off in Chicago Monday afternoon, with demonstrators demanding that Vice President Kamala Harris support an end to unconditional U.S. military support for Israel amid its assault on Gaza, now in its tenth month.
Thousands gathered in Union Park before beginning their march to the United Center, where the convention is taking place.
Protesters carried signs and banners reading, “End State Violence From Chicago to Gaza” and “Dems’ Silence = Israel’s Violence.”
Organizers—who hoped to see 15,000 people in the streets—have expressed alarm in recent months over the Chicago Police Department’s aggressive response to pro-Palestinian protests, with a legal coalition last week expressing concern about Police Superintendent Larry Snelling’s intimidating comments about arresting protesters and other issues, and city officials have clashed with organizers about the route the march will take.
But threats of arrest did not deter groups including Jewish Voice for Peace from joining the march, with the local chapter saying its members would “make clear our commitment to freedom and safety for all people, from Chicago to Gaza” and as they demanded an “arms embargo now.”
We are here, loud and proud, marching in the streets of Chicago, outside the DNC, to make clear our commitment to freedom and safety for all people, from Chicago to Gaza! We demand an #ArmsEmbargoNow! #MarchOnTheDNCpic.twitter.com/ylwt4LvlzH
Organizers of the Uncommitted movement, which emerged during the Democratic primary season to pressure President Joe Biden to end his support for Israel’s assault on Gaza, continue to press the Harris-Walz campaign to break with the administration’s position.
While Harris initially indicated to the group a willingness to discuss support for an arms embargo earlier this month, a top adviser for the Democratic nominee said soon after that the vice president does not support ending weapons transfers to Israel.
“For Palestinian Americans, this is a fundamental issue,” sociologist Eman Abdelhadi told Democracy Now! at the march. “We have spent 10 months watching our people die every day, and to ask us to simply just wait and hope that some change will happen… It’s just offensive and it’s completely insensitive.”
"We have spent ten months watching our people die every day," says Palestinian American sociologist @emanabdelhadi, who is in Chicago protesting against Israel's assault on Gaza. pic.twitter.com/Vvv3loE9Lk
As the protesters assembled on Monday, journalist Mehdi Hasan warned in a column in The Guardian that Harris should see agreeing to the demand for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza and an arms embargo not as a risk, but as “a moral, geopolitical, and—for the Democrats—electoral no-brainer.”
“Biden may want to continue sending more and more weapons to an Israeli government accused of war crimes at the international criminal court and of genocide at the international court of justice,” wrote Hasan, “but Harris should take a different stance—a bolder stance, a stance that is more in line with her party’s base, as well as with the American public at large.”
GREENPEACE has said that a legal case launched by Shell intended to intimidate it and drain its resources has instead had the opposite effect, with members of the public donating over £1 million to support the NGO.
The group launched the fundraiser last November after Shell announced that it was suing over a peaceful climate protest in the North Sea, in which activists occupied a moving oil platform to protest against the damage caused by the oil giant.
Although Shell, which reported a record £22.3 billion in profits last year, acknowledges no damage was caused to its equipment, it is still demanding extensive damages.
Donations are being used to fight the case and to campaign for oil giants to “stop drilling and start paying” for the environmental damage they have caused.
Almost 25,000 donations were received in just nine months, and the funds raised now exceed the amount Shell is seeking in damages ($1m, or £789,000), although it is likely legal costs will run into the millions.
Greenpeace UK campaigner Philip Evans said: “Shell’s attempt to intimidate us is only making us stronger.
Counter protesters at head of an anti-immigration protest in Walthamstow, London, August 7, 2024
PEOPLE power has changed the narrative. The threat of fascist riots is not over, but they look far more isolated than they did before Wednesday night.
Even those who are not usually friends to street demonstrations have saluted the spirit that brought hundreds of thousands out in Bristol, Newcastle, Walthamstow and many other places.
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Mark Rowley acknowledges the role the counter-protests played in preventing far-right violence. “Frankly the show of unity from communities together defeated the challenges that we’ve seen… the fears of extreme right disorder were abated.”
Even more surprising was approbation on the front pages of right-wing papers. The Times, the Mail, the Express are associated with hatred of the left: the latter two, particularly, with migrant-bashing. Yet all ran glowing tributes to anti-racist popular rallies on their front pages.
There is hypocrisy here. But that only underlines the significance of a movement that forces them to take this line. They have read the mood of the country and realised it is not with the racists.
This explodes the logic of anti-socialist fanatic Lord Walney, whose bid to call out “Russia and Iran” for whipping up disorder was an attempt to associate the arson, assault and vandalism of the fascists with peaceful marches in solidarity with Palestine.
It will be harder for authoritarians in government to use the riots as an excuse for a sweeping crackdown on public demonstrations now that the country’s biggest police force and most of its major newspapers are on record praising street demos mobilised by the activist left, most prominently Stand Up to Racism.
