UK police say ban still in place to block Gaza protest outside BBC

UK police say ban still in place to block Gaza protest outside BBC

Metropolitan Police and organizers of pro-Palestine march to meet Tuesday due to dispute over assembling location of planned Gaza protest

By Burak Bir

LONDON (AA) - UK police said Monday that they will prevent pro-Palestinian protesters from marching to the BBC’s headquarters in London, despite a change in the route by the organizers.

Amid an appeal to retreat from their decision, the Metropolitan Police said the Public Order Act to prevent the pro-Palestine rally from gathering outside the BBC will be in place on Jan. 18.

Earlier Monday, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) and its 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 announced that on Saturday they will assemble in Whitehall and will march towards the BBC.

"PSC are calling on all those who support an immediate cease-fire 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," the PSC added in a statement.

It came after the Metropolitan Police issued a statement last week on a ban of a planned pro-Palestine protest assembling at the BBC in London because of its proximity to a synagogue.

Following Monday’s change of the assembling point by the organizers, the Metropolitan Police said the new route is a reversal of the original one that had been advertised.

"It is not one we have agreed and it would breach the conditions that have been imposed under the Public Order Act," it said in a statement.

The police added that their assessment is that a demonstration ending and dispersing from the same place would have the same impact.

"Officers will be meeting with the PSC and other organizers tomorrow to discuss the matter further," it noted.

The organizers have condemned the ban, saying 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.

Cross-party members of parliament (MPs) and peers, trade union general secretaries, cultural figures and celebrities, writers, journalists, health workers and civil society organizations and activists have also condemned the police decision.

- 'Partisan campaigning aimed at preventing peaceful, lawful assembly'

In its decision, the police cited concern that a protest forming so close to a synagogue on a Saturday, the Jewish holy day, when congregants will be attending Shabbat services, "risks causing serious disruption."

However, the coalition in response said that "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 October 2023, thousands of Jewish protesters have been attending pro-Palestinian marches to protest Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip under the Jewish bloc with the slogan "Not in our name."

Hundreds of British Jews on Monday called on the Metropolitan Police to reverse the ban on the planned pro-Palestine protest outside the BBC.

In a statement, the Jewish Voice for Labour (JVL) group criticized the ban as bowing to "partisan campaigning aimed at preventing peaceful and lawful assembly."

The groups said the police had faced "strong pressure from pro-Israel organizations" opposed to the rally who claim that Palestine solidarity protests pose a threat to synagogue congregations.

"As Jews, we are shocked at this brazen attempt to interfere with hard-won political freedoms by conjuring up an imaginary threat to Jewish freedom of worship," JVL’s statement added.

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