A Lurch Towards Political Repression

Jewish Voice for Labour states:

The violent arrest on Saturday’s Palestine demonstration of Stop the War chief steward Chris Nineham and dozens of other peaceful protestors represents a frightening lurch towards political repression in Britain.

Statements from the Metropolitan Police, the Board of Deputies of British Jews and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper portraying what occurred as protecting the right of Jews to worship against a mob that “broke through police lines” are both dishonest and totally untrue.

The statement signed by more than a thousand Jewish people when the police first reneged on its agreement that Saturday’s protest would assemble at BBC’s Langham Place HQ was emphatic: there has been an orchestrated attempt to portray the marches as a threat to those attending synagogues. The synagogue in question is half a mile distant, down a back street away from the BBC. No evidence of any antisemitic behaviour towards its congregation has been produced following the previous marches which have started at the BBC. The Rabbi of the synagogue is an outspoken supporter of the actions against Gaza by the current Israeli government. We see the ultimate aim of this partisan clamour to be the banning of the protests completely. 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. It is beyond time for police and politicians to start listening to Jews who support justice for Palestinians and not only to those who back Israel’s far-right government

From the moment demonstrators began arriving in the pre-arranged Whitehall assembly area before noon, police imposed what appeared to be deliberately provocative conditions that shifted from minute to minute. Arrival routes were blocked and then randomly opened, some protestors were allowed through, others were challenged and directed down sidestreets, including on occasions into the area reserved for a small crowd of abusive, right-wing pro-Israel counter-demonstrators. Members of the Jewish Bloc, including elderly and infirm, Holocaust survivors and descendants, were ordered to move away from the pre-advertised assembly point or face arrest, but then allowed to remain.

At the rally near Downing Street a diverse crowd of tens of thousands listened to speeches celebrating the announcement of a ceasefire bringing hope of some respite from 15 months of slaughter and devastation for the people of Gaza, but also demanding a permanent end to decades of occupation, apartheid and ethnic cleansing and calling for a halt to the arms trade with Israel. Speakers condemned the active complicity of the political and media establishment, including the BBC, in the genocide.

As the rally concluded, according to a statement from PSC, a delegation of organisers and rally speakers, including an 87 year old Jewish Holocaust survivor, prominent cultural figures and politicians including MPs, set off in the direction of the BBC, halting once they came up against police lines. An announcement from the platform made quite clear that the delegation intended to leave flowers and children’s toys at the feet of the police who had set up a cordon at the top of Whitehall.

The Jewish Bloc found that the police had removed their vans blocking the top of Whitehall and removed lines of police lower down across Whitehall, signalling to us that we were being allowed to proceed.

An account of the arrest of Chris Nineham and others appears in the PSC statement already referred to. Further arrests occurred as police plunged into a crowd of protestors who had gathered at St Martins in the Fields before dispersing. Walking down Northumberland Avenue on our way to the tube, members of the Jewish Bloc witnessed tens of arrested people being marshalled into a large police coach on standby for the operation.

What occurred on Saturday was a shocking departure from policing policy. On the many previous demonstrations for Palestine, negotiations between the demonstration organisers and the police had always ended with a recognition of the right to march. Saturday’s bully-boy tactics signal a government-sanctioned shift from previous, relatively light-touch, policing marred by occasional arrests of protestors carrying placards considered offensive by pro-Israel lobbyists. Instead we now have the deliberately repressive use of public order legislation to prevent and criminalise pro-Palestinian protest.

This should be a warning to environmental campaigners and all who value our hard-won civil liberties. Political dissent is now under threat in the UK.

The PSC statement is here:

The Metropolitan Police has promoted a misleading narrative about the events in Whitehall and Trafalgar Square, claiming that a peaceful delegation pushed through police lines in an attempt to justify their repressive actions on Saturday 18 January. This could not be further from the truth.

On Saturday 18 January, we organised a rally on Whitehall to call for a permanent end to Israel’s genocide in Gaza. Despite our long-standing record of peaceful demonstrations, the police, under political pressure from pro-Israel groups, banned our planned march to the BBC. In response, we announced plans for a rally and a peaceful protest against this anti-democratic ban.

Ahead of the rally, we publicly called on the police to rescind the restrictions they had imposed and allow our march to go ahead. We had also made clear that if they refused to do so we would hold a rally and protest against the ban as part of that rally. The police were fully aware of these statements and our intentions.

On the day, we were confronted with extremely heavy-handed and aggressive policing. With less than 24 hours’ notice, the police had imposed a series of complex restrictions preventing people from assembling at various points on Whitehall at various times of the day – notably an area at the centre of Whitehall from which rally participants were excluded for part of the day to allow space for a children’s marching band to proceed up and down. As a result, a number of people were arrested without warning, on flimsy pretexts including simply for inadvertently standing in this central area at the wrong time. We understand that a total of 77 people were arrested on the day, 66 of them for alleged violations of these orders.

At the end of the rally, it was announced from the stage that, as an act of protest against the police ban, a delegation of organisers and rally speakers – including an 87-year-old Jewish Holocaust survivor, politicians including MPs, and prominent cultural figures – would walk silently and peacefully towards the BBC. It was clearly stated that the delegation expected to be stopped by the police and that no attempt would be made to push through police lines – the delegation would simply leave the flowers they were carrying at the feet of the police and disperse in an orderly and dignified manner. They anticipated being stopped at the line of police that had been constructed at the top of Whitehall.

When the delegation reached this police line, they were not stopped as expected but were instead invited to proceed into Trafalgar Square by the police who said, ‘please filter through.’ When the delegation reached the other end of the square, they encountered a line of police which prevented them from going any further. They formally requested that the delegation – a maximum of 25 people – be allowed to proceed. The police officer in charge said he would need to ‘pass this up the line for a decision.’ While the delegation was awaiting that response, the police violently and for no apparent reason arrested the chief steward of the rally, Chris Nineham. At this point, the delegation laid their flowers as they had said they would do and dispersed, and Ben Jamal and Ismail Patel used a megaphone to call on the crowd that had gathered around them to do the same, which people then did. At no stage was there any organised breach of the conditions imposed by the police. There is a large amount of video evidence confirming all of these events.

This is a direct assault on freedom of assembly and democracy. The police’s actions, including their false statements after the event, are deeply troubling. We demand the immediate release of all those arrested and remain resolute in our campaign for freedom and justice for the Palestinian people.

Palestine Solidarity Campaign

Palestinian Forum in Britain 

Friends of Al-Aqsa

Stop the War Coalition

Muslim Association of Britain

Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament