Britain’s home secretary invoked rarely used powers to ban a pro-Palestinian march that was seen by police and other critics as a demonstration supportive of Iran. But organizers vowed to go ahead with a protest.
The right of pro-Palestinian groups to protest in London and other British cities has been a sensitive issue since the outbreak of the war in Gaza, with Jewish groups accusing some demonstrators of stoking antisemitism.
But the annual Al Quds march, which was scheduled for Sunday, was particularly contentious this year against the backdrop of the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran. During previous marches, some protesters have waved the flag of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah group, which is banned in Britain. Al Quds is the Arabic name for Jerusalem.
Shabana Mahmood, Britain’s home secretary, said in a statement late Tuesday that she agreed to a police request to prohibit the march.
“I am satisfied doing so is necessary to prevent serious public disorder, due to the scale of the protest and multiple counter-protests, in the context of the ongoing conflict in the Middle East,” the statement said.
London’s Metropolitan Police described the Al Quds march as “uniquely contentious” because it was organized by the Islamic Human Rights Commission, an organization supportive of the Iranian regime.
The police said in a statement that the threshold for banning a protest march was high and that the department hadn’t used these powers since 2012.
British law allows the home secretary to ban a protest march from taking place on the basis that allowing it to go ahead would create a risk of “serious disorder” that cannot be managed by commonly used police powers to impose enforceable conditions, such as mandated routes and start and end times.
The Metropolitan Police has resisted calls by some campaign groups to apply for bans on several pro-Palestinian marches, saying the threshold had not been reached, and last triggered the power for a planned march through racially diverse areas of London by Tommy Robinson’s extreme right-wing English Defence League group in 2012.
But the force cited “the extreme tensions between different factions,” as well as “the volatile situation in the Middle East, with the Iranian regime attacking British allies and military bases overseas.”
Its statement said that a man had been stabbed on Saturday “by someone who had opposing views on the Iranian regime” and that allowing the march to go ahead would run the “risk of injury to members of the public, protesters, police officers and damage to property.”
The London Al Quds Day march was the target of a far-right terrorist attack in 2017, but a Metropolitan Police security operation that closed roads around the event prevented a man from ramming his vehicle into the crowd. He went on to attack Muslims leaving prayers at a mosque, killing one victim.
The event was first held in Iran in 1979 by the country’s former supreme leader, Ruhollah Khomeini, after the Iranian Revolution, but has since expanded to multiple countries.
The Islamic Human Rights Commission, which organizes the London event on an annual basis, has criticized the assassination of the Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, in the opening blows of the U.S.-Israeli war. It said that Ayatollah Khamenei was killed for “standing on the right side of history.”
In a statement, the organization described itself as an independent non-governmental organization, and said it “strongly condemns” the decision to ban the march on Sunday.
“If it was not clear already, the police have brazenly abandoned their sworn principle of policing without fear or favor,” the group said in a statement, adding: “We are seeking legal advice and this decision will not go unchallenged.”
The group also said it would be going ahead with the event, but in the form of a static protest.
The police said they did not have the power to prevent a “static assembly” — as opposed to a moving protest march — but that if one took place, strict conditions would be placed on it “given the concerns around serious disorder.”
Darren Jones, a senior government minister, told Sky News that the ban did not constitute a restriction of freedom of speech.
He added: “You can’t incite hatred or violence, or cause physical damage and those types of things, but you do have the right in our country to express your views, democratically and peacefully.”
Stephen Castle is a London correspondent of The Times, writing widely about Britain, its politics and the country’s relationship with Europe.
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