Met Police Back Down - Palestine March to Go Ahead As Planned

In a victory for the movement, the police have withdrawn all the major restrictions on tomorrow's march. The coalition that organise the national demonstrations for Palestine have released the following statement:

With less than 24 hours to go, the Metropolitan Police has dropped its attempt to frustrate our national march for Palestine. Tomorrow we will march to the Israeli Embassy as planned. Following a week of argument and attempts to bully and intimidate the demonstration organisers, the police have now agreed that protesters will assemble from 12noon, at Regent Street St James’s as we had originally intended. Previous conditions that were imposed in a wholly unjustified attempt to prevent us from doing so have now been rescinded.

This debacle has caused serious disruption to our organising efforts. The constant imposition of conditions on our marches are an unacceptable curtailment of our right to demonstrate peacefully and we will continue to challenge them. Nevertheless, this is a major victory in defence of the democratic right to protest. We are thankful to everyone in the movement who has stood firm in the face of these threats and to the MPs, members of the House of Lords, trade union leaders and many others who have made representations to the police. We call on people to turn out in huge numbers in solidarity with Palestine tomorrow.

We are marching to bring an end to Israel’s ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza and the continuing complicity of the British government in those crimes. We will not allow repressive tactics to distract us. We call on everyone to join us from 12noon, at Regent Street St James’s.

Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Palestinian Forum in Britain, Friends of Al-Aqsa, Stop the War Coalition, Muslim Association of Britain, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament