Councillors wear Palestine Action t-shirts in Newry as PSNI issues warning ahead of protests
Independent councillors Alan Lawes and Cieran Perry attended a weekly Palestinian support protest yesterday in Newry, Co Down and displayed t-shirts and posters supporting Palestine Action.
Palestine Action is a UK-based protest collective
and last month, a vast majority of MPs in the UK parliament backed the Labour government's move to ban the group as a terrorist organisation.
The ban means that membership of, or support for, Palestine Action is a criminal offence punishable by up to 14 years in prison, under the Terrorism Act 2000.
The move to ban the organisation was announced after
two Voyager aircraft were damaged at RAF base in Oxfordshire on 20 June, an incident claimed by Palestine Action, which police said caused around £7 million (€8m) of damage
.
Councillor Alan Lawes of Meath County Council said his intention in showing support for Palestine Action last night was to 'expose the hypocrisy of Keir Starmer's Government in banning a non-violent direct action protest group while also supplying weapons to slaughter children in Gaza'.
While the UK Government last year
suspended around 30 arms export licences to Israel
, British Foreign Secretary David Lammy noted that this is not a 'blanket ban or an arms embargo'.
Councillor Cieran Perry pictured holding the megaphone in Newry last night
Cllr Cieran Perry
Cllr Cieran Perry
Meanwhile, Councillor Cieran Perry, Independent Group leader on Dublin City Council, said Britian is using 'draconian legislation to silence ordinary people calling out genocide'.
Lawes said his action in Newry was in 'solidarity with the peaceful protesters arrested in London at the weekend in a disgraceful attempt to muzzle voices opposing the Israeli genocide'.
Over 500 people were arrested in London last weekend, and their average age was 54 – some 112 of them were over 70 years old.
In Belfast,
a woman in her 70s was arrested last weekend for wearing a Palestine Action t-shirt.
Protests are planned in Belfast and across the North this weekend and the PSNI Assistant Chief Constable Anthony McNally warned anyone planning to protest 'to ensure they act within the law'.
He said the move to proscribe Palestine Action under the Terrorism Act 'has no impact on other groups' or individuals' right to protest about Gaza'.
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However, he warned that 'anyone showing support for Palestine Action, including with placards or messages on clothing, may be committing an offence'.
'I would urge everyone to consider the seriousness of a prosecution under the Terrorism Act and the very real long-term implications this could have on their future,' said McNally.
While McNally said the right to freedom of speech and freedom of assembly are 'fundamental human rights protected in law', he added that these rights are 'limited by the need to prevent and detect crime'.
He said that if the PSNI 'identifies potential criminal offences' it will 'take lawful and proportionate action'.
'We may arrest and detain anyone suspected of committing an offence,' said McNally.
Councillors Alan Lawes (left) and Cieran Perry
Cieran Perry
Cieran Perry
Perry told
The Journal
that the PSNI warning is 'really disappointing'.
'I thought the PSNI would have had more sense, given the sensitivities in the six counties,' said Perry.
'I would have thought they would be more sensible than to try and provoke people by arresting people for simply supporting a non-violent, direct action protest group.'
'The hypocrisy of the PSNI to begin to charge people with terrorism offenses when all over loyalist areas, there is a blatant disregard for that legislation.'
A Presbyterian minister, Reverend Bill Shaw, was cautioned by the PSNI last week in Belfast for wearing t-shirts in support of Palestine Action.
He
too accused the PSNI of double standards over an alleged failure to tackle support for proscribed paramilitary groups.
He told the Irish News: 'People within the loyalist community can display UVF flags, UDA flags.
'They can march with bands, with paramilitary insignia, all of which are prescribed to organisations, and nothing happens.'
Elsewhere, Perry said the arrests so far have been 'both ridiculous and dangerous' and pointed to the ages of those arrested.
'Just looking at the age profile of the people arrested, including ex-veterans and people involved in the Church, they are almost the definition of non-terrorists, by any account.'
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