Met Police chief ‘shocked’ by planned Palestine Action protest in London

The Metropolitan Police chief has mentioned he’s “shocked and annoyed” at a deliberate protest in assist of Palestine Motion in London on Monday.Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley mentioned whereas the appropriate to protest is important, “actions in assist of such a gaggle transcend what most would see as legit protest”.It comes as the house secretary is known to be getting ready a written assertion to place earlier than Parliament on Monday to proscribe the group, successfully branding it a terrorist organisation.On Friday, Palestine Motion activists broke into RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire and sprayed two navy planes with purple paint in protest of the UK’s assist of Israel over the battle in Gaza.The deliberate protest in central London is supported by 35 teams together with varied different pro-Palestinian teams, the Cease the Struggle Coalition, Cage and Muslim Engagement and Improvement (MEND).Describing Palestine Motion as an “organised extremist legal group,” Sir Mark mentioned that till the group is proscribed, the Met had no authorized energy to forestall the protest going down.”We do, nonetheless, have the facility to impose circumstances on it to forestall dysfunction, harm, and severe disruption to the neighborhood,” he added, saying “breaches of the legislation can be handled robustly”.Public Order Act circumstances have been imposed on the protest by the Metropolitan Police.This implies the protest can solely happen between 12:00 and 15:00, and protesters can not collect within the “exclusion zone” which covers a lot of Westminster – stretching from Millbank to Whitehall. On X, Palestine Motion confirmed the protest would happen at 12:00 in Trafalgar Sq., exterior of the exclusion zone. The protest had been anticipated to happen exterior Parliament, earlier than the exclusion zone was introduced.In an earlier publish on social media, Palestine Motion mentioned “the political institution rush to name us ‘terrorists’, while they enact the worst crimes towards humanity”.One of many group’s members, Saeed Taji Farouky, instructed the BBC on Saturday that authorities plans to proscribe the group had been “absurd”. He mentioned the transfer “rips aside the very fundamental ideas of British democracy and the rule of legislation” and added: “It is one thing everybody must be terrified about.”Palestine Motion has engaged in actions which have predominantly focused arms firms because the begin of the present battle in Gaza, with the group claiming accountability in Could for the daubing of a US navy airplane in Eire.Mr Farouky mentioned the group’s “entire cause for being is to interrupt the fabric provide chain to genocide” and mentioned Friday’s incident was an “escalation in ways as a result of the genocide has escalated”.Israel has strongly denied allegations of genocide referring to the continuing battle in Gaza.Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer described the incident at RAF Brize Norton as “disgraceful”. Counter-terrorism police are investigating the break-in on the base.The transfer to ban Palestine Motion was welcomed by some in Westminster, together with former House Secretary Suella Braverman, who mentioned it was “completely the right determination”.Others have reacted critically, together with impartial MP Zarah Sultana, who recalled protests towards the 2003 battle in Iraq: “One million folks marched towards the unlawful battle in Iraq they usually had been proper. Now the identical script is taking part in out once more.”Amnesty Worldwide UK mentioned on Friday that it was “deeply involved at the usage of counter-terrorism powers to focus on protests”.Human rights activist and Labour peer Baroness Shami Chakrabarti mentioned she shared the views of Amnesty Worldwide that proscribing the group can be a “severe step” and might be “an escalation too far”. She instructed BBC Radio 4’s At the moment programme she was involved that anyone loosely related to the group, together with those that attend conferences or assist the organisation, may face legal prices whether it is proscribed.Common protests associated to the battle in Gaza have been held in London since Israel started a navy marketing campaign to destroy Hamas in response to the cross-border assault on 7 October 2023, by which about 1,200 folks had been killed and 251 others had been taken hostage.Greater than 55,000 folks have been killed in Gaza since then, together with greater than 15,000 youngsters, in line with the territory’s Hamas-run well being ministry.