A total of 29 people have been arrested on suspicion of terror offences at a Palestine Action protest, hours after the group were officially proscribed by the government.
A mass of Metropolitan Police officers circled dozens of protesters standing silently beneath the statue of Mahatma Gandhi in Parliament Square. Labour MP Clive Lewis pointed to the location of the arrests and the fact that those arrested included “a priest, a professor, medics”. “This is not about terrorism. It’s about silencing dissent – and it’s leading us down an ever-darkening path,” Mr Lewis wrote on X (Twitter).
The protesters were holding placards that said: “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.”
Occasional chants of “Free Palestine” broke out from the surrounding onlookers, and some criticised the police presence.
It came hours after Palestine Action lost a late-night Court of Appeal challenge on Friday, which sought to stop the protest group from being banned.
The move was confirmed less than two hours before the new legislation came into force at midnight.
The designation as a terror group means that membership of or support for Palestine Action is a criminal offence punishable by up to 14 years in prison.
The protest started at about 1.10pm and officers were seen taking people away shortly after 1.30pm.
An elderly woman in a dog collar, who was sitting in a camp chair with one of the placards at her feet, appeared to be taken away by officers.
A woman seen lying on the floor in handcuffs was carried away in the air by officers and put in a police van.
While suspended and flanked by a large group of police, she said calmly: “Free Palestine, stop the genocide, I oppose genocide, I support the rights of the Palestinian people, I support freedom of speech, I support freedom of assembly.”
A mass of people crowded around to film the scene.
Officers placed her in the vehicle parked on the road behind the square before returning to the Mahatma Gandhi statue, where almost no protesters remained.
Chants of “shame” broke out, directed at the police, and officers moved behind the Gandhi statue.
One supporter, who wanted to remain anonymous, said: “These brave people are prepared to keep the spirit of support for Palestine alive, and they’ve stepped up to defend our civil liberties.
“It’s making me feel powerless. I think so carefully about what I can say.
“I can’t be true to my life, to my feelings and beliefs.
“I’ve never felt like that before. It’s a frightening feeling. It’s chilling.
“I was a Labour Party support member for years, and I’m shocked that the Labour government is doing this: Yvette Cooper is doing this, and she’s had heavy pressure from the Zionist regime, this government, from the board of deputies.
“They’ve all been lobbying her to get heavy on Palestine Action.”
Latifa Abouchakra, 35, originally from Nazareth, the largest Palestinian Arab city in Israel, was at the protest in London and said: “We are protesting and resisting this because there’s an unjust law that deserves resistance.
“Yesterday, Palestine Action wrote an open letter to the press, and in it they stated their strategy, and that they will be doing this more and more, because in this way, they are demonstrating to the government that we will not stop. It is an unjust law.
“We will continue to resist an unjust law. We’re starting with 26 [protesters] today. I do believe that within a very short amount of time, there will be 260.
“The decision demonstrated the British government’s friendship, alliance with a genocidal state, and it demonstrated its reluctance to do anything about it.
“I’m a Palestinian activist, I’m a Palestinian teacher, I came to the UK in my childhood, and I am supposed to feel grateful to this country for the liberties and the freedoms that it allows me supposedly – to wear my scarf and to protest.”
In a statement on X, the Metropolitan said: “Officers have arrested more than 20 people on suspicion of offences under the Terrorism Act 2000.
“They have been taken into custody. Palestine Action is a proscribed group and officers will act where criminal offences are committed.”
Most of the police dispersed at around 2.10pm.
Palestine Action lost their late-night Court of Appeal challenge on Friday evening.
In a letter to the home secretary, protesters said: “We do not wish to go to prison or to be branded with a terrorism conviction. But we refuse to be cowed into silence by your order.”
A Home Office spokesperson said about the ban on Saturday: “We welcome the court’s decision and Palestine Action are now a proscribed group.
“The government will always take the strongest possible action to protect our national security, and our priority remains maintaining the safety and security of our citizens.”
It comes after two Voyager aircraft were damaged at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire on 20 June, an incident claimed by Palestine Action.
Police said it caused around £7m of damage.
Home secretary Ms Cooper announced plans to proscribe Palestine Action on 23 June, stating that the vandalism of the two planes was “disgraceful” and that the group had a “long history of unacceptable criminal damage”.
MPs in the Commons voted 385 to 26, majority 359, in favour of proscribing the group on Wednesday, before the House of Lords backed the move without a vote on Thursday.
Four people – Amy Gardiner-Gibson, 29, Jony Cink, 24, Daniel Jeronymides-Norie, 36, and Lewis Chiaramello, 22 – have all been charged in connection with the incident at Brize Norton.
They appeared at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Thursday after being charged with conspiracy to enter a prohibited place knowingly for a purpose prejudicial to the safety or interests of the United Kingdom, and conspiracy to commit criminal damage, under the Criminal Law Act 1977.
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