MORE than 500 people, including a Baptist minister and a Roman Catholic priest, were arrested at the weekend after displaying signs in support of Palestine Action.
The mass protest in Parliament Square, in Westminster, on Saturday expressed support for the direct-action protest group, set up in 2020. Palestine Action was proscribed under the Terrorism Act last month.
Fr John McGowan, of St Joseph’s, Chalfont St Peter, in Buckinghamshire, wrote on the Independent Catholic News website that he felt “calm, even serene” after being arrested.
“I am prepared for anything, even going to prison. As soon as I could I contacted a friend in the West Bank who is helping Palestinians; I felt I could now look him in the eye. I have no regrets about what I did. My conscience is clear.”
The Revd Dr Sally Mann, of Bonny Downs Baptist Church, East Ham, in east London, told The Independent: “I am aware there will be repercussions in my life if I am successfully convicted but I felt completely at peace with both my actions and my decision. It’s the right side of history.”
Another of those arrested on Saturday was Martin Clay, a licensed lay minister at St Thomas’s, Southborough — despite holding a poster that stated that he did not support Palestine Action.
Mr Clay was wearing a sleeveless T-shirt with the message “Support [Palestine flag] ACT NOW”, and carrying a poster that he had made and that said: “I didn’t support and I don’t support Palestine Action but I support the right to support them. I do support the freedom to demonstrate.”
He was bailed to appear at Plumstead Police Station this month.
Half of those arrested on Saturday were over 60, according to figures released by the Metropolitan Police.
An 83-year-old priest, the Revd Sue Parfitt, of Henbury, in Bristol, was arrested last month for expressing support for Palestine Action, in a similar protest in Parliament Square.
The Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, has defended the decision to outlaw support for Palestine Action, saying that it is “not a non-violent organisation”.
“There may be people who are objecting to proscription who don’t know the full nature of this organisation, because of court restrictions on reporting while serious prosecutions are under way,” she said.
Last week, several well-known figures, including the author Michael Rosen and the comedian Alexi Sayle, were among more than 300 British Jews who signed a letter calling on the Government to reverse the decision to proscribe Palestine Action.
“Opposing the brutality of genocide, apartheid, and ethnic cleansing taking place in Gaza and the West Bank, including taking direct action, is not antisemitic. Nor is it terrorism. We consider the proscription of Palestine Action as illegitimate and unethical,” the joint letter said.
Demonstrations in support of Palestine have continued alongside those specifically for Palestine Action. On Monday, a 78-year-old priest was frogmarched from outside the west door of Westminster Abbey after displaying a sign calling for public repentance over the situation in the Middle East, and saying that the part that Britain played in Palestine during the Mandate was responsible for genocide.
“I feel very strongly that this country lit the fuse of the genocide and walked away,” the Revd Stephen Collier said on Tuesday. He staged his demonstration as a form of repentance, which, besides having private forms, should also be “public, communal, and national,” he said.
Westminster Abbey, given its associations with both Church and State, was the appropriate place in which to take this stand, he said, although he “knew that they wouldn’t tolerate me there”.
“I knew it was a risky business, but it was something I needed to do,” he said. He stood in prayer for “two or three” minutes before being “frogmarched” out of the Abbey precinct, he said
An Abbey spokesperson said that “whilst the Abbey understands that people have sincerely held views, we are not a place for public protest and so [Mr Collier was] asked to leave”; and, having declined to do so, he was “escorted respectfully away from the Abbey”.
