Protest organizers face charges as UK government bans critics of Israel
This is not only a Palestine Solidarity protest, but also a show of support for those who have organized the largest such protests since the start of the Gaza genocide.
Ben Jamal of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, and Chris Nineham of the Stop the War Coalition, are facing public order charges over an incident at an anti-genocide march in January this year near the prime minister’s office.
When these people were protesting on that specific day, they were allowed to go through the barriers by the police to go towards the BBC.
At the time, they were allowed to do that. They were not stopped.
And now these charges have been brought against them as organizing a group to go against what the police ordered on that day.
That is specifically what occurred.
This is an erosion of our civil rights that slowly, people are feeling they are being intimidated to go on marches and to go on protests, because they may be arrested, they may be charged.
Protester 01
Others believe what’s really on trial here is not just two men, but the right to protest.
They’ve attempted to ban protests or to restrict their movements, or put them in places where nobody will see them.
And this is a trial of people for resisting that order and insisting on the right to hold protests at the key moments of the Gaza genocide.
Craig Murray, Human Rights Activist
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As the British government drags peaceful protest organizers through the courts, it’s also banned Palestine Action, a direct action group that targeted UK arms companies supplying Israel with lethal weapons.
British and Irish musicians like Bob Vylan and Kneecap have been removed from festival lineups. Campaigners say these incidents show how pro-Palestine speech is being systematically silenced in Britain.
We can always be next on their list of so-called terrorists. It’s not that we’re terrorists; any of us. It’s that we’re terrifying. We terrify the state because we refuse to stop.
Sam Weinstein, International Anti-Zionist Jewish Network
What they’re trying to do is to shut all of us up. The whole Palestine Action stuff is precisely just to shut us up, and this was a stage just before that.
And so they are escalating continually, but again, I have to say they’re escalating because we are growing, because we are becoming stronger all the time.
Protester 02
A day before the hearing, the court decided to postpone the trial of the two men.
The protesters assert that the government is using legal tools, police powers, and, political pressure, to shut down solidarity for Palestine and that defending free speech now matters more than ever.
