Scots planning Palestine Action demo to break the law in support of banned group
Activists are planning to break the law in Glasgow tomorrow to show their support for the banned Palestine Action group.
The Record understands a small rally is planned for Nelson Mandela Place in the city centre at noon to protest what one described as the UK sliding into a "police state".
Activists plan to hold placards with the same slogan that was allegedly printed on the t-shirt of a man arrested near to the TRNSMT festival last weekend. The 55-year-old activist had allegedly been leafleting near Glasgow Green when police stopped him.
He was also alleged to be wearing a T-shirt from the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign (SPSC) which read: 'Genocide in Palestine. Time to take action."
The terror group designation for Palestine Action, brought in by the Labour UK Government, means that membership of or support for the group is a criminal offence punishable by up to 14 years in prison.
One activist told the Record: "This peaceful protest at Mandela Place in Glasgow on Friday is a call to stop the genocide in Gaza and calling for the de-proscription of Palestine Action, as it was a legitimate non-violent protest organisation and not a terrorist group.
"Britain is on the slippery slope to becoming a police state where we will end up seeing other legitimate democratic protest groups being proscribed as being terrorists.
"We are standing up against the one sided slaughter in Gaza and also standing up for our hard won civil liberties which includes the democratic right to protest."
The planned action in Glasgow comes after groups of protesters opposing the proscription of Palestine Action were removed by police in London last week.
Two small groups of protesters sat at the steps of both the Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela statues in Parliament Square for the demonstration, organised by campaign group Defend Our Juries, shortly after 1pm, and received a brief round of applause.
The individuals then wrote the message 'I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action' with black markers on pieces of cardboard, and silently held the signs aloft, surrounded by Metropolitan Police officers, who formed a cordon around the Gandhi statue, and members of the media.
The protesters were then led or carried away from the statues by officers into waiting police vans parked around the square.
The force said 46 people had been arrested. Police arrested 29 people at a similar protest in Parliament Square last weekend.
The crackdown against Palestine Action came after six people were arrested on suspicion of a terror offence after the group shared footage online earlier this month of RAF planes being spray-painted at a military base in Oxfordshire.
The group previously broke into a Thales defence factory in Glasgow in 2022, causing £1,130,783 in damages using pyrotechnics and smoke bombs.
Yvette Cooper, the Home Secretary, said Palestine Action had a "long history" of criminal damage, and since 2024 "its activity has increased in frequency and severity".
Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, previously told the Record he backed Cooper's tough stance against the group.
"There are so many phenomenal pro-Palestinian organisations who do not fall for acts of vandalism, or attacks on our defence infrastructure, or who fall into prejudice and hate, but who rightly speak out against violence and for peace - not just peace abroad, but peace and security here at home too," he said.
"Those people who use the name of Palestine to do such horrific actions should face the full force of the law. So I do support the actions of the Home Secretary.
"Those people do not speak for Palestine or for peace. They are spoilers, who are hijacking their cause for their own end."
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