On Wednesday, May 3, protesters and activists from various Palestine solidarity groups in the UK accused the police of using excessive and violent force to suppress them. The protesters were demonstrating against an Israeli weapons manufacturer operating from the country. They also slammed the UK’s new ‘public order law’, which they claimed the police were misusing to impose unreasonable and severe restrictions on protests and demonstrations. The controversial and widely condemned law came into effect on Wednesday and has invited international concern over the right to protest in the country.
The Palestine Action solidarity group is in the middle of a week-long demonstration and sit-in campaign in front of a subsidiary of the Israeli arms company Elbit Systems, UAV tactical systems, in the city of Leicester. The campaign to eject the company from the city started on April 30, with hundreds of protesters and supporters joining the cause. Several people are taking part in the sit-in by building makeshift camps outside the company premises and are refusing to leave until it is shut down.
Meanwhile, the Leicester police has cracked down on the protests, especially after the coming into effect of the public order law. They have imposed several conditions on the protest, including reducing the size of the assembly area and restricting the area where makeshift camps and other structures can be built. The police have also confiscated some of the protesters’ equipment and personal belongings, such as tents, mats, sleeping bags, etc. Reports noted that the local Leicester community later came to the aid of the protesters and supplied them with replacement tents, sleeping bags, and food.
The rights groups Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) and the Network for Police Monitoring (NETPOL), in a joint statement, condemned the excessive police action as “outrageous.” CAAT’S media coordinator Emily Apple said that “the policing operation in Leicester against Palestine Action is outrageous. We not only have a right, but a duty to protest against immoral arms sales. People in Leicester are rightly angry about having a weapons factory on their doorstep and they should be allowed to express this anger without police harassment. However, the police are showing, once again, that they are there to protect the interests of arms dealers whilst stamping over our right to dissent.”
NETPOL’s campaign coordinator Kevin Bowe expressed the group’s concern over the police interpreting any protest as “serious disruption” after being given “sweeping powers” under the new law. The joint statement also warned that the new public order law will limit protests to the most “minor inconveniences.”
Two of the most worrisome aspects of the new law are: a six-month jail term and unlimited fine for any protester who chains or attaches themself to any public building or infrastructure, and giving the police the power to stop and search protesters.
The United Nations has also expressed concern over the law. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk called the legislation “worrying,” saying that it “appears to target in particular peaceful actions used by those protesting about human rights and environmental issues.”
