LONDON, April 11 (Reuters) – Police said on Saturday they had arrested 523 people at a protest in London’s Trafalgar Square opposing Britain’s banning of the Palestine Action group.
London’s Metropolitan Police said in a post on X that people were arrested for showing support for a “proscribed organisation”.
The gathering was the first since London’s High Court ruled in February that a ban designating the pro-Palestinian group as a terrorist organisation was unlawful L8N3Z90PY. UK Interior Minister Shabana Mahmood has been granted approval to appeal the ruling.
Lawmakers banned Palestine Action — which accuses Britain’s government of complicity in what it says are Israeli war crimes in Gaza — under anti-terrorism legislation last July after some members broke into a Royal Air Force base L8N3SN0BX.
Israel has repeatedly denied any abuses in its war in Gaza.
During Saturday’s demonstration, placard-holding protesters, some wearing black and white Palestinian scarves and waving Palestinian flags, sat on the ground or on camping chairs.
(Reporting by Suban Abdulla, additional reporting by Preetika Parashuraman in Bengaluru; Editing by Alexander Smith and Alistair Bell)
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