‘FREE Mahmoud Khalil!’ demanded a lively demonstration organised by the Camp4Palestine outside the US Embassy in South London on Wednesday night.
Addressing a rally outside the embassy Aisha from the camp said: ‘None of us are free until all of us are free. I believe millions of us have never been as sure of this as we are today.
‘When Nelson Mandela stated “our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians”, he showed formidable foresight.
‘To all of us now, as clear as the live-streamed genocide in Gaza that we witness still daily, is the total clarity that “our freedom is, in fact, impossible without the freedom of the Palestinians”.
‘The Palestinian student activist, Mahmoud Khalil, must be freed. He has committed no crime, has not been charged with any offence and has the absolute legal right to be in the US.
‘Nobody is fooled by these cynical efforts across the Western world to conflate anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, anti-genocide with pro-“terrorism”. The idea that opposition to US foreign policy constitutes interference in it is absurd and a deeply sinister premise to the targeting of others.
‘Collectively, we must demand Mahmoud’s freedom and protest against the violation of his most basic civil liberties, for his sake and for each and every one of us – because we are all at risk.
‘We are already experiencing a brutal clampdown on our most basic civil liberties by the UK authorities an effort to harass and silence us, to stop us from exposing their participation in apartheid Israel’s crimes and genocide. It is they who are the literal criminals, not us. If we do not stop them, they will not stop.
‘And we are many; they are few. We are mobilised like never before, we are more resolute than ever before, we are joining the dots and more certain than ever before that our liberation is collective and our commitment is total. We will not be intimidated. We will not back down.
‘Free Mahmoud Khalil! Free Palestine! We will not be silenced!’
Student activist Fiona Lali said: ‘The USA are the biggest terrorists on the planet.
‘Mahmoud and the student occupations in the US have inspired a worldwide movement and the ruling class are terrified about how far it can go.
‘There is no force stronger than the collective power of the masses.’
Student Johnny Hill from SOAS said: ‘On 4th March 2025, SOAS student Sarah was charged with ‘inviting support for a proscribed organisation’ under Section 12 of the Terrorism Act 2000 and another SOAS student has been arrested.
‘In October 2023, online Zionists tagged the Metropolitan Police in a video allegedly of Sarah giving a speech at SOAS University the same month, expressing support for the right of Palestinians to armed resistance against occupation and ethnic cleansing by the Israeli state.
‘Under pressure from the Zionist lobby group UK Lawyers for Israel, the Met Police arrested her in a dawn raid on 31st January 2024.
‘The police and Crown Prosecution Service waited more than 13 months after the arrest to bring charges. On the same day Sarah was charged, another SOAS student was also arrested on suspicion of an offence under Section 12 of the Terrorism Act.
This calculated targeting of two young Palestine protesters is an attempt to intimidate and censor any expression of support for the Palestinian freedom struggle. It is an attack on the entire solidarity movement.’