A whole lot of protesters arrested in London for supporting banned pro-Palestinian group

British police stated they arrested 365 folks in central London on Saturday as supporters of a lately banned pro-Palestinian group deliberately flouted the legislation as a part of their effort to pressure the federal government to rethink the ban.

Parliament in early July handed a legislation banning Palestine Action and making it against the law to publicly help the group. That got here after activists broke right into a Royal Air Drive base and vandalized two tanker planes to protest towards Britain’s help for Israel’s offensive towards Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

Backers of the group, who’ve held a sequence of protests round the UK over the previous month, argue that the legislation illegally restricts freedom of expression.

Palestine Action Protest In London — An aged activist is arrested in Parliament Sq. in London, England, on Aug. 9, 2025, by cops throughout a protest to point out help for the Palestine Motion group, which is a banned group within the U.Okay. Protesters marched from Holborn to Parliament Sq. the place 365 folks have been arrested, every week after Palestine Motion’s co-founder Huda Ammori gained a bid to deliver a Excessive Court docket problem over the group’s banning.

Richard Baker /In Photos by way of Getty Pictures

Greater than 500 protesters stuffed the sq. outdoors the Homes of Parliament on Saturday, many daring police to arrest them by displaying indicators studying “I oppose genocide. I help Palestine Motion.” That was sufficient for police to step in.

However because the demonstration started to wind down, police and protest organizers sparred over the variety of arrests because the organizers sought to point out that the legislation was unworkable.

“The police have solely been in a position to arrest a fraction of these supposedly committing ‘terrorism’ offenses, and most of these have been given avenue bail and allowed to go residence,” Defend Our Juries, which organized the protest, stated in a press release. “It is a main embarrassment to (the federal government), additional undermining the credibility of this broadly ridiculed legislation, introduced in to punish these exposing the federal government’s personal crimes.”

London’s Metropolitan Police Service shortly hit again, saying this wasn’t true and that lots of those that gathered within the sq. have been onlookers, media or individuals who did not maintain placards supporting the group.

“We’re assured that anybody who got here to Parliament Sq. at present to carry a placard expressing help for Palestine Motion was both arrested or is within the strategy of being arrested,” the police pressure stated in a press release.

On Friday, police stated the demonstration was uncommon in that the protesters wished to be arrested in massive numbers in order to put a pressure on police and the broader felony justice system.

BRITAIN-POLITICS-PROTEST-ISRAEL-PALESTINIAN-CONFLICT — Protesters maintain placards at a “Raise The Ban” demonstration in help of the proscribed group Palestine Motion, calling for the lately imposed ban to be lifted, in Parliament Sq., central London, on August 9, 2025.

HENRY NICHOLLS/AFP by way of Getty Pictures

Why is Palestine Motion banned within the U.Okay.?

The federal government moved to ban Palestine Motion after the activists broke right into a British air pressure base in southern England on June 20 to protest British navy help for the Israel-Hamas warfare. The activists sprayed crimson paint into the engines of two tanker planes on the RAF Brize Norton base in Oxfordshire and prompted additional injury with crowbars.

Palestine Motion had beforehand focused Israeli protection contractors and different websites within the U.Okay. that they consider have hyperlinks with the Israeli navy.

Supporters of the group are difficult the ban in courtroom, saying the federal government has gone too far in declaring Palestine Motion a terrorist group.

Whereas Prime Minister Keir Starmer has angered Israel with plans to recognize a Palestinian state later this yr, many Palestinian supporters in Britain criticize the federal government for not doing sufficient to finish the warfare in Gaza.