on June 30, 2024, 3:34 am
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/06/29/palestine-activists-arrested-before-pride-parade-protest/
Police arrested Palestine protesters before the Pride parade
More than 30 activists were arrested in a pre-emptive operation designed to prevent disruption
29 June 2024 • 11:09pm
Police arrested more than 30 pro-Palestinian activists in a pre-emptive operation designed to prevent disruption during Saturday’s Pride parade.
Scotland Yard said the group had been held on Saturday morning on suspicion of conspiracy to cause a public nuisance.
Saturday’s arrests - which are believed to have been intelligence led - come after Scotland Yard has come under fire for not doing more to stamp out anti-Semitic behaviour by pro-Palestinian activists since the October 7 Hamas attacks.
In a statement the Metropolitan Police said: “This morning officers arrested 33 individuals in Jubilee Gardens, Westminster on suspicion of conspiracy to cause a public nuisance. All are currently in custody.”
Jewish groups had boycotted the official parade in protest at fears of anti-Semitic behaviour.
Keshet UK and the West London Synagogue have said their members feared being harassed or attacked while marching from Hyde Park to Westminster on Saturday.
A coalition of pro-Palestinian groups was planning to target organisations along the route which it believed were “complicit in the ongoing genocide” in Gaza, The Telegraph can disclose.
In messages leaked from online chat groups, protesters vowed to take “spikier” action at Pride and did not rule out potentially assaulting emergency workers and blockading roads.
It is understood that around 50 activists planned to single out staff from Barclays, Axa, Hewlett Packard, McDonald’s and other companies they say support Israel’s war in Gaza.
The Jubilee Gardens arrests came after police arrested more than 25 Just Stop Oil Activists in a pre-emptive operation last week, suggesting a change in strategy by the Met to clamp down ahead of anticipated disturbances.
Around 50 pro-Paelstine activists held up posters accusing Israel of genocide and condemning “pinkwashing” – the claim that the Israeli state takes a progressive position on gay rights to improve its international reputation.
The march set off from Hyde Park on Saturday afternoon, with Mayor of London Sadiq Khan at the front of the parade alongside his wife, Saadiya Khan. The mayor was joined by Andrew Boff, a Conservative London Assembly member, and air quality campaigner Rosamund Adoo-Kissi-Debrah.
One female marcher who did not want to be identified shouted “Free Palestine” when asked why she had joined the parade.
Tahir Kesai, a 50-year-old working in property, said: “We decided to march because we think it’s important to be here. We’re too passionate about this cause to not participate.”
It came as several branches of Barclays around the country were picketed by pro-Palestine protestors, including in Bath, Birmingham, Hereford, Ipswich, Luton, Milton Keynes and Oxford.
In London’s Soho Square dozens of activists picketed a Barclays branch, though there were signs the protest was smaller than previous ones.One protester said it was “a much smaller turnout than usual”.
Activists outside an Oxford branch of the bank held two hand drawn placards which together read “Vigil for the 14,00 Palestinian children” “murdered by Israel with weapons funded by Barclays”.
Babies’ clothes were laid out on the pavement outside the branch in Cornmarket, symbolising the children killed in the Israeli offensive in Gaza since the Hamas attacks of October 7.
Ahmed Murad, Oxford Chair of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, said: “Many people came up to find out more & we ran out of Barclays information flyers so job well done. Barclays invests Ł2billion in arms companies supplying weapons to Israel. They invest your money in murder.”
Protestors in Dorchester staged a ‘die-in’ outside their local Barclays, while outside several branches activists held placards accusing the bank of financing the Israeli Defence Forces.
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