Palestine Solidarity Campaign director Ben Jamal attends pretrial hearing
Ben Jamal, director of the UK-based Palestine Solidarity campaign, attends pre-trial hearing at Westminster Magistrates Court, charged with public order offenses, following a major pro-Palestine rally in London last month, which he was an organizer of.
His supporters assert he was unfairly charged.
I'd like them to dismiss this as ridiculous charges, the whole thing, and just let him walk free.
Protester 01
We want the court to drop all charges against Ben Jamal, not but just Ben Jamal, but every single person who's been unjustly arrested by the British police over the last 16 months.
There has [sic] been so many arrests and they've been politically-motivated.
Protester 02
The demonstration in question took place on January 18. The Metropolitan Police had approved the proposed route from the BBC headquarters to Whitehall, but reversed course ahead of the march, saying it would disturb services at a synagogue.
It's a complete and utter fabrication.
There have been no threats to synagogues or to Jewish worshipers.
Every single demonstration has had hundreds and hundreds of Jewish protesters.
If there was even the slightest threat to Jews or to synagogue worshipers, those same Jewish protesters and 1000s of others would do all we could to protect the synagogue, to protect Jews, because fundamentally, these Palestine demonstrations are anti-racist, against all racism, including anti-Semitism.
Jewish Protestor
The pressure to clamp down on the Palestine Solidarity protest came from pro-Israel groups like the Board of Deputies of British Jews, pro-Israel MPs, and Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, who has supported Israel's use of force against Palestinians.
In addition to their outrage over the 77 arrested on January 18, the protesters in attendance say they are worried about their right to protest.
We saw the Public Order Act brought in by the Conservative government, which brought in loads of powers to continue to suppress and oppress the right to protest and make it more and more difficult for people to protest.
And, you know, lots of people called that out at the time, and that was a conservative policy, but it's something that's been upheld by the Labour government, and I think that's what's really terrifying. And lots of people are saying that we're taking a step back and moving into an incredibly dark time.
Zoe Garbett, The London Assembly
In the same month as those arrests, Britain saw Israeli Major General Oded Basyuk and his delegation visiting the UK with special diplomatic immunity.
A member of the Israeli military, Basyuk, was involved in Israel's genocidal war on Gaza and its offensive in southern Lebanon.
This is arguably a dangerous moment for British democracy, a fear shared by the protesters here who say they feel they live in a country that grants diplomatic immunity to war criminals who oversaw genocide and yet it persecutes those who organized peaceful protests aimed solely at stopping that very genocide.
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