Pro-Palestine protest given go-ahead by councillors despite safety concerns

Edinburgh Reporter

18-06-2025

A pro-Palestine protest in Edinburgh has been given the go-ahead by councillors after concerns were raised over safety.
The city's public safety department had objected to the Support Palestine rally at a licensing meeting on Monday, with a decision on next steps pushed back to Tuesday.
An outright ban was all but ruled out on Monday, when a Police Scotland officer said the demonstration was not likely to place an 'excessive burden' on the agency.
Conservative councillor and Licensing Sub-Committee convener Joanna Mowat said: 'We consider parades and marches from the point of view of public safety, we have very limited powers to even change routes, and to ban them.
'We exercised due scrutiny, given the concerns raised by public safety and the police, but we were grateful that the applicants arranged to attend so that we could speak with them.
'The threshold for making alterations to the route were not met. So we have made an order that the march will go ahead.
'We were pleased that the march organisers have committed to work with officers and the police through the EPOG process to ensure that this is a safe and well stewarded event.'
EPOG refers to an Event Planning Operations Group meeting, where council officers and event organisers meet to coordinate events.
Cllr Mowat continued to say that the event organisers had run over 80 marches in the capital, with only two that caused concerns.
And she said that this was due to factors not entirely within their control.
She added: 'They showed that they've made a commitment to work positively with the police and council officers and so committee, we were happy to make the order.'
At Tuesday's licensing meeting, the organisers of the rally verbally committed to having a management plan in place for any bicycles that join the procession.
Attendees on bicycles joining a previous event without the knowledge of the event organisers was an issue at a previous demonstration, according to Cllr Mowat.
At the meeting on Monday, a council public safety officer objected to the planned demonstration, saying that two previous demonstrations run by the organisers had led to safety concerns.
According to the officer, this was due to severe congestion at a city junction during one march, and another event where protesters entered the tram route.
And a police representative said emergency powers had to be used to clear the junction the public safety officer mentioned.
Local authorities very rarely ban marches outright. Instead, councils can add conditions that they must follow.
The grounds for banning a procession are narrow. For a council to decide to do so, a march must meet one of a handful of requirements.
One reason for a ban is placing 'excessive burden' on policing resources, while another is if the 'likely effect' of holding the procession has an impact on public safety, public order, the 'life of the community' or is likely to cause property damage.
The third is if the organiser of a demonstration had previously organised an event that caused disruption or which breached conditions or a banning order placed on it.
By Joseph Sullivan Local Democracy Reporter
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