THE METROPOLITAN Police arrested 523 supporters of Palestine in Trafalgar Square in central London on Saturday, claiming they were showing support for a ‘proscribed organisation’.
Protesters were arrested as they sat on the ground or on camping chairs displaying signs saying: ‘We oppose genocide, we support Palestine Action.’
Despite London’s High Court ruling in February that a ban designating Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation was unlawful, Labour Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has been granted approval to appeal the ruling, and she has given the police the go-ahead to make mass arrests.
Since the Israeli regime launched its genocidal war on Gaza, it has killed more than 72,000 Palestinians and wounded more than 171,000, most of them women and children.
Meanwhile, as the retrial of six members of the Filton 24 begins at Woolwich Crown Court in South East London this morning, police arrested Lisa Minerva Luxx under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act on Saturday.
Luxx is a leader of the ‘Filton 24 Defence Committee’, which is working to free Palestine Action supporters who have been imprisoned without trial for almost two years.
Being detained under Schedule 7 means police can interrogate for hours, without the right to say ‘no comment’.
Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act 2000 provides police officers with unique powers to examine people who pass through the UK borders, allowing them to stop, question, search and detain individuals and goods.
The Starmer regime has frequently used Schedule 7 against journalists and others to interrogate without legal representation, because its provisions make it a criminal offence to refuse to disclose passwords.
Border police have used it for harassment and for ‘fishing expeditions’ to go through a journalist’s or activist’s contacts and communications.
Speaking in Trafalgar Square ahead of the mass arrests, Filton 24 Palestine activist Qesser Zyhrah said: ‘Today we are at the Defend our Juries protest nearly a year after the unlawful ban of Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation, still resisting and protesting against this ban, to declare that resistance to occupation is not terrorism.
‘What they wanted for us was to be exiled from our struggle. So it’s important for us to be here and show that no matter what you put us through, no matter how much you make us suffer for our cause, we will not abandon our cause and we will not abandon our struggle.
‘I have to say that to those that care about a world in which there is freedom, a world in which we can all breathe, there is no meaning except in resistance. There is no meaning in anything except resistance, except resisting the occupation, except resisting this injustice and resisting this suffering.
‘To the UK people that are suffering under the poverty line and that think “why should I care about Palestine”, it’s because the money that could be going on our streets, our education, our healthcare, our children, is being used to create bombs and drop them on Gaza and Lebanon and over Iran, to wage a regional genocide and consolidate empire.
‘That’s why you should care, that’s why, at a minimum, if it’s not because the martyrs and the screaming is enough, then care because it affects our lives over here. If I have to appeal to the self interest of the people I will – care because it affects your lives over here.’
