London - Saba:
The UK’s coalition of pro-Palestine organizations has categorically rejected attempts by the Metropolitan Police to prevent a protest rally from taking place outside the BBC headquarters in London last Saturday, after the police backed down from an earlier agreement allowing the rally to take place.
In a letter sent to the organizers of the rally last night, the Metropolitan Police expressed concern that the rally would cause “serious disruption”, particularly due to the proposed route being close to a synagogue in the area.
The police said holding the demonstration on Saturday could exacerbate tensions and lead to unrest in the local community.
The police said they valued the right to demonstrate, but this right must be balanced with the rights of other affected communities.
They added that the increasing frequency of national pro-Palestine rallies had caused disruption to Jewish communities in London, particularly on Saturdays.
The coalition, which includes the Palestinian Forum in Britain, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Stop the War Coalition, Stop Nuclear Weapons Coalition, the Muslim Association of Britain, and Friends of Al-Aqsa, said the planned rally was to protest the pro-Israel bias in the BBC’s coverage of the events, a subject highlighted by journalist Owen Jones in a detailed report to which the BBC has yet to respond.
The route was agreed upon with the police about two months ago and announced on November 30, the coalition said, denouncing the police’s use of their powers to suppress the democratic right to protest.
The coalition noted that the closest synagogue to the proposed route is not on the actual route of the rally, and that the alleged concerns were not based on any previous incidents related to pro-Palestine rallies.
The coalition said these rallies witnessed wide participation from members of the Jewish community who expressed their solidarity with the Palestinian Cause.
In a comment, Adnan Humaidan, acting head of the Palestinian Forum in Britain, said that the coalition was tired of “police yielding to pressure from the Zionist lobby,” adding that any demonstration supporting Palestine must obtain “the approval of Israel’s supporters” before it can take place.
Humaidan said the police are basing their position on "false and baseless assumptions", stressing the need to respect the right of Palestinians to express their solidarity with their people in Gaza, who are suffering from "ethnic cleansing and collective punishment".
Finally, the coalition called on all supporters of the rights of the Palestinian people, and those who defend the democratic right to demonstrate, to join the rally scheduled for Saturday, January 18, which aims to expose the British government's ongoing complicity with the Zionist crimes in Gaza.
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