Ministers ‘abusing' anti-terror laws against Palestine activists
Former Scottish first minister Humza Yousaf has said the Government is 'abusing' anti-terror laws against pro-Palestine activists as tens of thousands of protesters marched in London.
A protest organised by groups under the Palestine Coalition banner marched to Whitehall from Russell Square in central London on Saturday afternoon.
Organisers estimated that 350,000 people attended the protest, with those marching waving Palestinian flags and chanting 'free, free Palestine' and 'stop bombing Iran'.
Many protesters chanted 'shame on you' as they walked past dozens of counter-protesters, organised by pro-Israeli group Stop The Hate, near Waterloo Bridge.
The Metropolitan Police said a person was arrested after a bottle was thrown towards the counter-protesters.
They added that 'a group appeared on Waterloo Bridge trying to block traffic' following the protest, with officers intervening to clear the road.
The demonstrations come after reports on Friday that the Home Secretary will ban Palestine Action after the group vandalised two aircraft at RAF Brize Norton.
Yvette Cooper has decided to proscribe the group, making it a criminal offence to belong to or support Palestine Action, after footage posted online showed two people inside the RAF base, with one appearing to spray paint into an aircraft's jet engine.
Addressing crowds at the national march for Palestine in Whitehall, former SNP leader Mr Yousaf said: 'While we stand a stone's throw from Downing Street, let's make it clear to the Prime Minister: You try to intimidate us with your anti-terror laws by abusing them, but you'll never silence us as we speak out against the genocide that you're supporting.
'We're not the terrorists – the ones that are literally killing children, they are the terrorists.'
A pro-Palestine protester said it was 'absolutely horrendous' that the Government is preparing to ban Palestine Action.
Artist Hannah Woodhouse, 61, told the PA news agency: 'The Government, since yesterday, have said they're also going to start to try to proscribe peace activists who are trying to take action against the genocide – so Palestine Action are now being targeted by our Government, which is absolutely horrendous.'
Ms Woodhouse, who is from London, added: 'Counter-terrorism measures, it seems, are being used against non-violent peace protesters.
'The peace activists are trying to do the Government's job, which is to disarm Israel. The duty of any government right now is to disarm a genocidal state.'
Musician Paloma Faith told pro-Palestine campaigners that she would not 'stick to music and stay away from politics'.
Speaking to crowds at the march, the songwriter, 43, added: 'Those who facilitate these crimes against humanity need to be made accountable, not those of us who are compassionate and humane enough to stand against it.'
Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn told protesters that politicians were seeking to 'turn people who protest against the invasion of Iran or the occupation of Palestine into terrorists'.
Some protesters were carrying Iran flags, with others hoisting signs – distributed by the Islamic Human Rights Commission – that read 'choose the right side of history' alongside a photo of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Human rights group Liberty said banning Palestine Action 'would be a huge step change in how counter-terror laws are applied'.
Sam Grant, its external affairs director, said in a statement: 'Targeting a protest group with terrorism powers in this way is a shocking escalation of the Government's crackdown on protest and we urge the Home Secretary to rethink.
'It's clear the actions of Palestine Action don't meet the Government's own proportionality test to be proscribed as a terrorist group, but the consequences for the group's supporters if ministers go ahead would be heavy – with things like wearing their logo carrying prison sentences.
'This move needs to be viewed in light of the sustained crackdowns on protest we have seen from successive governments over recent years, and the worrying fact that there are more and more non-violent protesters spending years in prison.'
The Palestine Coalition is comprised of a number of different groups, including the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and Stop The War.
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These issues pervade not just our coming Holyrood elections but our wider society and all of the interactions we are supported by – the modern 'enslaved people' who support Western lifestyle; the colonial foundations of modern wealth; the reality of global south-to-north climate relations, and the witnessing of contemporary genocide in Palestine. As Pankaj Mishra, wrote in The Shoah After Gaza, published in the London Review of Books (in 2024): 'Every day is poisoned by the awareness that while we go about our lives, hundreds of ordinary people like ourselves are being murdered, or being forced to witness the murder of their children. 'Adding that, Biden's stubborn malice and cruelty to the Palestinians is just one of the gruesome riddles presented to us by Western politicians and journalists.' If we struggle to absorb these atrocities, it's hard not to buckle under the impression of helplessness, and turn away from the horror. That is the profound message of Palestine Action, and many others like them. As Naomi Klein writes of the film The Zone Of Interest's haunting message: 'It's not that these people don't know that an industrial-scale killing machine whirs just beyond their garden wall. They have simply learned to lead contented lives with ambient genocide. 'Glazer has repeatedly stressed that his film's subject is not the Holocaust, with its well-known horrors and historical particularities, but something more enduring and pervasive – the human capacity to live with holocausts and other atrocities, to make peace with them, draw benefit from them.' The situation on the ground is getting worse, if worse can be imagined. Israel's attack on Iran, and America's imminent 'support' (if that is the case) has given a cover of darkness and misdirection. Amnesty International yesterday stated that: 'With the world looking elsewhere, the militarisation of aid adds another layer to Israel's deliberate imposition of genocidal conditions against Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip. Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed and injured at or near aid distribution points since Israel's weaponised 'humanitarian' aid distribution system was imposed at the end of May. Families are being forced into an impossible choice: die of hunger or die trying to get food. Seeking food should never be a death trap. Israel must end its genocide and lift the blockade now.' Palestine Action has decreed that, 'We will break every link in the genocidal supply chain', but what's becoming clear is that our silence, our indifference, is part of that supply chain. They challenge the very idea that Israel is insatiable, unstoppable and omnipotent and we are powerless and our position hopeless. In that they are hugely important, both symbolically and actually. The moment demands we learn from their example. And what next? The behaviour of Israel and our unconditional support seems to have no end, no threshold. The 'war' is escalating and we, 'Britain', are being dragged further into it, despite widespread public revulsion for it. As the journalist Jonathan Cook points out: 'The claim that Israel is 'defending itself' in attacking Iran – promoted by France, Germany, Britain, the European Union, the G7 and the US – should be understood as a further assault on the foundational principles of international law. 'The assertion is premised on the idea that Israel's attack was 'pre-emptive' – potentially justified if Israel could show there was an imminent, credible and severe threat of an attack or invasion by Iran that could not be averted by other means. And yet, even assuming there is evidence to support Israel's claim it was in imminent danger – there isn't – the very fact that Iran was in the midst of talks with the US about its nuclear programme voided that justification. 'Rather, Israel's contention that Iran posed a threat at some point in the future that needed to be neutralised counts as a 'preventive' war – and is indisputably illegal under international law.' If the proscribing of Palestine Action is an inflection point, so too is the idea that we might support Israel on a new front against Iran. This is a dangerous moment in which we must mobilise a peace movement that joins with the anti-imperialist movement and those fighting the war against nature and humanity.
