Ministers should do “much more” to clarify why Palestine Motion is a proscribed terrorist group, Harriet Harman has mentioned.
Baroness Harman, who was a Labour MP from 1982 to 2024, mentioned the federal government had a “number of incredibly important duties” with regard to the conflict in Gaza – together with defending the Jewish neighborhood whereas additionally allowing free speech.
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She mentioned that in addition to guaranteeing the protection of Jewish venues, equivalent to colleges and synagogues, the federal government additionally wanted to “try and create an atmosphere where the Jewish people should not feel that they are under threat and be asking themselves whether this is the right country for them to live in and be bringing up their families”.
Baroness Harman went on: “They also have to support and uphold the right to free speech and the right of protest. And people have felt so horrified.
“All of us have concerning the devastating lack of life and struggling in Gaza. And so it is proper that persons are allowed to protest.”
A lot of protests in assist of Palestine Motion have been organised in current months following the group’s proscription beneath anti-terrorism legal guidelines in July, after members focused RAF Brize Norton and broken two army plane.
Picture:
Protests in opposition to the British authorities’s ban on Palestine Motion
Final week, there have been requires the demonstrations to be halted following the assault on Heaton Park Synagogue in Manchester, wherein two folks had been killed – however a quantity happened throughout the nation, together with in London.
The Labour peer mentioned the organisers of such protests had a duty to not enable folks to assist a “terrorist organisation” however that the federal government additionally wanted to do “much, more more” to clarify why Palestine Motion had been proscribed.
“At the moment, it just looks like the police are arresting octogenarian vicars who are worried about the awful situation in Gaza,” Baroness Harman mentioned.
“So they’ve got to actually be much clearer in why Palestine Action is a terrorist group and that they’re justified in prescribing them and making them illegal.
“But additionally the police have gotten to police these marches in stopping them being concerning the spouting of hatred and inciting violence, with folks speaking about globalising the intifada, which principally means killing all Jewish folks.
“And the police do actually have very wide-ranging powers, not just to arrest people, but to actually ban marches.”
