Yvette Cooper has defended the arrest of greater than 500 folks for holding indicators supporting Palestine Motion.
The house secretary mentioned protesters over the weekend might have been objecting to the group being proscribed as a terror group as a result of they “don’t know the full nature of this organisation”.
Ms Cooper mentioned that could possibly be as a result of reporting restrictions on courtroom hearings “while serious prosecutions are underway”.
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A complete of 532 folks have been arrested on suspicion of supporting a proscribed organisation opposite to Part 13 of the Terrorism Act 2000.
Round half of them (259) have been aged 60 and above – together with nearly 100 individuals who have been of their 70s.
The Met Police mentioned it was the most important variety of arrests it had made associated to a single operation in at the least the previous decade.
Picture:
A lady is dragged away by cops after attending the Palestine Motion protest in Parliament Sq.. Pic: PA
Ms Cooper added: “Proscription is not about protest around Palestine or Gaza, where we had tens of thousands of people protesting lawfully just this weekend about some of the horrendous events that we’ve seen in the Middle East.”
She mentioned members of Palestine Motion have carried out violent assaults inflicting accidents and involving weapons and smoke bombs “causing panic among innocent people” and main legal injury towards nationwide safety infrastructure.
The house secretary added there had been “clear security assessments and advice” earlier than Palestine Motion was proscribed as a terror organisation in July.
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Human rights group Amnesty Worldwide mentioned it was “deeply concerned” in regards to the arrests this weekend.
Its UK chief govt, Sacha Deshmukh, mentioned: “The protesters in Parliament Square were not inciting violence and it is entirely disproportionate to the point of absurdity to be treating them as terrorists.
“As an alternative of criminalising peaceable demonstrators, the federal government must be specializing in taking rapid and unequivocal motion to place a cease to Israel’s genocide and ending any threat of UK complicity in it.”
