Legal experts call for independent inquiry into policing of London Palestine protest
John McDonell and Jeremy Corbyn among protesters a pro-Palestine rally on18 January 2025
Areeb Ullah reports in Middle East Eye on 22 January 2025:
Human rights groups and dozens of legal experts are calling for an independent inquiry into the Metropolitan Police’s handling of a pro-Palestine protest on Saturday.
The call comes after the force, responsible for policing most of London, arrested one of the main organisers of a major rally against Israel’s conduct of the war on Gaza. Organisers denied the Met’s claim that protesters had forced their way through a police cordon to march towards the BBC after ending their protest in Whitehall.
Officials said 77 arrests were made during Saturday’s protest, which organisers estimated drew 100,000 people, the largest number of arrests during a pro-Palestine march since they began in October 2023.
Among those arrested was Chris Nineham, the vice-chair of the Stop the War Coalition, who served as the chief steward for the national protest for Palestine. Footage taken by Middle East Eye showed police officers in riot gear surrounding Nineham and bundling him into the back of a police van after a small group of protesters left Whitehall to lay flowers in Trafalgar Square to mark the deaths of Palestinian children.
Ben Jamal, director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, was also charged with public order offences.
Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell criticised the Met’s “heavy-handed” policing on the day and disputed the police force’s claims. The police later called both MPs in for questioning over their role in the protest.
Rights groups Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have raised concerns over police conduct. “There are now serious questions for the police to answer about their behaviour at Saturday’s protest and the lawful basis for the arrests of large numbers of peaceful demonstrators for alleged breach of those restrictions,” said Kerry Moscogiuri, campaigns director at Amnesty International UK.
Separately, more than 40 legal scholars signed a letter calling for UK Home Secretary Yvette Cooper and Mayor of London Sadiq Khan to call an independent inquiry into the Met’s policing.
Describing the Met’s approach to policing as “an abuse of police powers”, the legal experts said the arrest of Nineham and Jamal represented a “disproportionate, unwarranted and dangerous assault on the right to assembly”.
‘Protest lifeblood of democracy’
The letter’s signatories include Professor Jeff King from University College London, the former legal adviser to the House of Lords Select Committee on the Constitution, and academics from 15 universities.
Paul O’Connell, a law professor at the School of Oriental and African Studies and a Harvard Law School Fulbright scholar, was one of the letter’s signatories. ‘If people protesting the genocide in Gaza are not safe to do so, then it bodes ill for individual freedom and democratic life in Britain’ said legal expert Paul O’Connell. ‘This letter is signed by over 40 leading lawyers and academics. People who, in one capacity or another, have worked on issues related to human rights and the rule of law for decades.’ O’Connell said.