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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial
ARTICLE VIEW:
UK police to get sweeping powers to curb protests as pro-Palestinian
arrests surge
By Kara Fox, Billy Stockwell, CNN
Updated:
11:21 AM EDT, Sun October 5, 2025
Source: CNN
British police are set to be granted greater powers to clamp down on ,
the UK Home Office announced Sunday, after hundreds of pro-Palestinian
activists were arrested in central London for supporting the banned
activist group Palestine Action.
Nearly 500 people were arrested Saturday in Trafalgar Square in central
London for demonstrating in support of the group, according to
London’s Metropolitan Police.
The Home Office announcement comes after police and lawmakers asked
organizers to call off Saturday’s “Lift the Ban” protest, which
came just days after the Manchester synagogue attack where two people
were killed on Yom Kippur, Judaism’s holiest day.
Protest organizers Defend Our Juries rejected those calls, saying
“canceling peaceful protests lets terror win.”
Jewish activists were among the 493 people arrested Saturday, including
Elizabeth Morley, a 79-year-old daughter of a Holocaust survivor who
was arrested for the third time, and a 79-year-old Jewish man with a
terminal illness, organizers said.
Like most of the other demonstrators arrested, the Jewish activists
carried signs that read: “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine
Action.”
The 83-year-old Reverend Sue Parfitt, an Anglican priest, was also
among those arrested for a third time Saturday. Video from the protest
showed the elderly and people with disabilities among those arrested,
including a blind man using a mobility cane and two people in
wheelchairs.
Citing Saturday’s mass arrests in its announcement, the Home Office
said the expanded police powers – which will be brought in “as soon
as possible” – would allow extra conditions to be put on what they
called “repeat protests.”
The powers will give senior police officers the authority to ban or
relocate protests based on their “cumulative impact.”
Since Palestine Action was in July, more than 2,000 people have been
arrested at similar demonstrations across the United Kingdom.
The group, which aims to disrupt the operations of weapons
manufacturers supplying the Israeli government, was proscribed after
two of its activists and damaged two military aircraft.
Defend Our Juries estimated Saturday that more than 1,000 people had
gathered to oppose the ban on the group, in line with previous “Lift
the Ban” demonstrations.
At a September protest in London’s Parliament Square, more than 890
activists were arrested. At a demonstration in August, 532 people were
arrested, with nearly half aged 60 or older, according to police
figures. And almost 100 of the people arrested were in their 70s, while
15 were in their 80s, police said.
Pro-Palestinian demonstrations led by various other groups have taken
place frequently in London since Hamas’ attack on Israel on October
7, 2023, and Israel’s subsequent war in Gaza.
The greater powers for police will be introduced via an addition to an
existing policing law, the , which will need to be debated and approved
in parliament before becoming law.
The Home Office said the new rules, if brought in, would give police
the authority to “instruct organisers to hold the event somewhere
else” if “a protest has taken place at the same site for weeks on
end, and caused repeated disorder.”
“Anyone who breaches the conditions will risk arrest and
prosecution,” it said.
The government’s proposal has been met with fierce criticism from
civil liberties advocates and a handful of opposition lawmakers, many
of whom have already slammed the terror designation of Palestine Action
as an assault on freedom of speech and warned that applying terrorism
laws to such a group sets a dangerous precedent for protest rights.
‘A ludicrous proposal’
Amnesty International UK’s Law and Human Rights Director Tom
Southerden slammed the announcement Sunday, calling it “ludicrous”
and the latest step the government has taken to restrict peaceful
protest.
“Is the government seriously suggesting that people protesting its
decisions should only be able to do that a limited number of times? If
it is, it is a ludicrous proposal and, if not, this announcement is
just a cynical attempt at looking tough,” he said, adding: “This
government will always find yet another way to restrict this basic
human right.”
The Metropolitan Police said Friday that arresting protesters
“supporting a terrorist organization” as required would use
resources that could otherwise be directed to protecting Jewish people
from violence.
Protest organizers agreed, urging the police to “choose to prioritize
protecting the community, rather than arresting those peacefully
holding signs in opposition to the absurd and draconian ban of a
domestic direct-action group.”
British Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said in a statement Sunday that
repeated protests “can leave sections of our country, particularly
religious communities, feeling unsafe, intimidated and scared to leave
their homes.”
“This has been particularly evident in relation to the considerable
fear within the , which has been expressed to me on many occasions in
these recent difficult days,” she added.
In a statement, British human rights organization Liberty said police
already have “huge powers to restrict protests” and that “handing
them more would undermine our rights further while failing to keep
people safe from violence like the horrific and heartbreaking
anti-Semitic attack in Manchester.”
“In times of fear people understandably want action – but
restricting protest could fuel tensions by removing legal and safe ways
for people to be heard. Being able to use protest to challenge
governments and stand up for what we believe in is central to our
democracy. It must be upheld,” Liberty said.
Defend Our Juries called the government’s Sunday move an
“extraordinary new affront to our democracy” and said that in
response they are planning days of “mass civil disobedience” in the
lead-up to the court hearing in November challenging the ban on
Palestine Action.
CNN’s Max Saltman contributed to this report.
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