UPDATE - UK police remain determined to block Gaza protest

ADDS RESPONSE BY METROPOLITAN POLICE; REVISES HEADLINE, DECK, LEDE

By Burak Bir

LONDON (AA) - London police said Friday they will not change a decision to ban a planned pro-Palestine march next week, a move that has sparked controversy.

Amid a wide-range demand to retreat from the disputed decision, Metropolitan Police said the Public Order Act to prevent the pro-Palestine rally from forming outside the BBC will be in place Jan. 18.

"Our position remains unchanged and our statement still stands," a spokesperson for Metropolitan Police told Anadolu in response to a question about whether police will reconsider the 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 condemned police attempts to stop an agreed march for Palestine from protesting at the BBC on Jan. 18.

The coalition, the organizers of the march, noted the ban came after the march route was confirmed with police nearly two months ago and, as agreed, was publicly announced 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.

-'Jewish people have been joining the marches in their thousands'

Metropolitan Police issued a statement Thursday on the ban of the march because of its proximity to a synagogue.

Several Holocaust survivors and survivor descendants, however, signed a 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 march organizers, noting that there has not been a single incident of any threat to a synagogue attached to any of the marches.

Police said they have reached the view that a protest forming up so close to a synagogue on a Saturday, the Jewish holy day, when congregants will be attending Shabbat services, "risks causing serious disruption."

The coalition in response said: "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 pro-Palestinian marches to protest Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip under the Jewish bloc with the slogan: "Not in our name."

Cross-party 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.

"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 organizers, uring police to drop their objections and allow the protest to go ahead as planned.