this post was submitted on 06 Oct 2025
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London’s Metropolitan Police arrested another 492 people over the weekend after a protest Saturday in Trafalgar Square, as the Starmer government accelerated its crackdown on opposition to the Gaza genocide.

The entirely peaceful protest was held to oppose the proscription of Palestine Action. It was organised by Defend Our Juries and attended by over 1,000 people. Of the arrests, 488 were for holding up signs declaring, “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action”.

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[–] Djehngo@lemmy.world 2 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

I don't even know if they do, this is possibly/probably just the government repeatedly and gleefully shooting itself in the foot.

Palestine protests themselves aren't criminalised (despite the title), what is however is criminalised is support of the Palestine Action group.

This is because they are a proscribed as a terrorist organisation, after a couple of their members snuck onto a military base and spray painted aircraft.

This is stupid in almost every way you can look at it, it criminalises people who are innocent of everything but carrying a sign or wearing a t-shirt, it makes the government look both cruel and inept and it has (as far as I can tell) been a huge boon to the credibility of Palestine Action resulting in more people joining or at least supporting them. And finally it (makes the government appear to/reveals the government does) support a nation enacting a genocide.

As for why; the aircraft were refusing tankers https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A330_MRTT I assume this was done because of rumors that the RAF were refueling IDF planes bombing civilians but last I heard they use incompatible in flight fueling systems.

Various news articles suggest 7m of damage which seems a bit high for spray paint, my guess is that knowing that people with unknown intentions had unsupervised access to military aircraft they demanded the planes on be stripped and re built to check for other sabotage.

The UK terrorism laws are unfortunately defined very broadly and can apply in the case of serious damage to property, not just intent to cause death and injury https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/07/uk-palestine-action-ban-disturbing-misuse-uk-counter-terrorism-legislation

There was also some controversy in that PA were grouped in with organisations which meet the more common definition of terrorism https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/7/2/uk-lawmakers-vote-to-ban-palestine-action-as-terror-group