The Metropolitan Police has known as for a deliberate protest in help of the banned Palestine Motion group to be delayed or cancelled after Thursday’s synagogue assault in Manchester.
In an announcement, the power stated it needed to deploy each obtainable officer to guard Jewish communities, however was as an alternative having to arrange for Saturday’s deliberate gathering in London’s Trafalgar Sq..
Palestine Motion was banned beneath anti-terrorism legal guidelines in July.
Politics newest: Mahmood says pro-Palestinian protests ‘dishonourable’ after Manchester assault
“The horrific terrorist attack that took place in Manchester yesterday will have caused significant fear and concern in communities across the UK, including here in London,” the Met stated.
“Yet at a time when we want to be deploying every available officer to ensure the safety of those communities, we are instead having to plan for a gathering of more than 1,000 people in Trafalgar Square on Saturday in support of a terrorist organisation.
“By selecting to encourage mass legislation breaking on this scale, Defend Our Juries [the protest organisers] are drawing sources away from the communities of London at a time when they’re wanted most.”
However Defend Our Juries, which has led demonstrations in opposition to the ban on Palestine Motion, stated it deliberate to go forward with the march.
A press release from the group on social media stated: “At this time, the Metropolitan Police wrote to us to ask that we postpone Saturday’s mass protest in Trafalgar Sq., citing ‘important strain on policing’.
“Our response in short: Don’t arrest us then.”
It comes after the house secretary criticised separate pro-Palestinian protests held final night time as “fundamentally un-British” and “dishonourable”.
An indication – held to protest the Israeli navy halting a flotilla carrying support to Gaza – was held in London’s Whitehall on Thursday night, hours after the assault in Crumpsall that killed two Jewish males.
The Metropolitan Police stated 40 individuals had been arrested in the middle of the protest, six of whom have been arrested for assaults on law enforcement officials.
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Mahmood ‘dissatisfied’ with pro-Palestine protests
“I think that behaviour is fundamentally un-British,” she stated. “I think it’s dishonourable.”
She stated the problems that had been driving the pro-Palestine protests have been “going on for some time” and “don’t look like they’re going to come to an end any day soon” – however that these behind the demonstrations might have taken a “step back”.
“They could have stepped back and just given a community that has suffered deep loss just a day or two to process what has happened and to carry on with the grieving process,” she stated.
“I think some humanity could have been shown.”
Any additional protests should “comply with the law and, where someone steps outside of the law of our land, they will be arrested”, the house secretary warned.
She added: “And to anybody who is thinking about going on a protest, what I would say is, imagine if that was you that has had a family member murdered on the holiest day in your faith. Imagine how you would feel and then just step back for a minute, give people a chance to grieve.
“We will get again to our protests later – simply because you could have a freedom doesn’t suggest you need to use it.”
However, Zack Polanski, the leader of the Green Party, accused the home secretary of being “deeply irresponsible” for her comments about pro-Palestine protests.
The Green Party leader said it was “worrying when governments are more and more attempting to crush down dissent” and using “what’s a brutal assault… to try to make some extent about protest”.
“We’d like statesmanship at this second. We’d like accountability,” he added.
The two men killed outside the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue in Thursday’s attack have been named by police as Adrian Daulby, 53, and Melvin Cravitz, 66.
The suspect has been named as Jihad al Shamie – a 35-year-old British citizen of Syrian descent.
He is understood to have been granted British citizenship in 2006 when he was around 16 years old, having entered the UK as a young child.
Three other people – two men in their 30s and a woman in her 60s – have been arrested on suspicion of the commission, preparation and instigation of acts of terrorism.
Asked if she was concerned about further attacks, Ms Mahmood said the government was on “excessive alert”.
She said there had been an increase in police resources not just in Manchester but across he country.
“We as a authorities wish to guarantee that individuals really feel protected going about their enterprise at present; so individuals will see an elevated police presence, significantly round synagogues and different locations of curiosity for the Jewish neighborhood,” she stated.
