Police ban on planned pro-Palestine march in London sparks anger

By Burak Bir

LONDON (AA) - London police ban on planned pro-Palestine march on next week have brought condemnations by pro-Palestinian groups while many called on the police to retreat from its controversial decision.

The Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) and coalition partners including the Palestinian Forum in Britain, Friends of Al-Aqsa, the Stop the War Coalition, the Muslim Association of Britain and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament on Friday condemned police attempts to stop an agreed march for Palestine from protesting at the BBC on Jan. 18.

In a statement, the coalition, the organizers of the march, noted the ban came after the route for the march has been confirmed with the police nearly two months ago and, as agreed with them, was publicly announced on Nov. 30.

"The BBC is a major institution – it is a publicly-funded state broadcaster and is rightly accountable to the public. The police should not be misusing public order powers to shield the BBC from democratic scrutiny," added the statement.

On Thursday, Metropolitan Police issued a statement to ban the planned march from gathering outside the BBC’s headquarters in central, owing to its proximity to a synagogue.

However a number of Holocaust survivors and survivor descendants have signed a joint letter to oppose the police decision to stop the rally from gathering outside the BBC.

"The excuse offered by the police is that the march could cause disruption to a nearby synagogue which is not even on the march route," said the organizers of the march, reminding that there has not been a single incident of any threat to a synagogue attached to any of the marches.

It added: "Any suggestion that pro-Palestine marches are somehow hostile to Jewish people ignores the fact that Jewish people have been joining the marches in their thousands."

Since Oct. 2023, thousands of Jewish protesters have been attending to the pro-Palestinian marches to protest Israeli attacks on Gaza under Jewish block, with a slogan of "Not in our name."

Cross-party MPs and Peers, trade union general secretaries, cultural figures and celebrities, writers, journalists, health workers and civil society organisations and activists have also condemned the police decision.

"The rights to protest and free speech are precious. It is not acceptable in a democratic society that, in the face of an ongoing genocide in Gaza, people should be barred from protesting at the BBC," said the statement by the organizers, calling the police to drop their objections and allow the protest to go ahead as planned.