‘Like a kidnapping’: How UK police are hunting pro-Palestine activists
Police officers block a street at a protest against Britain’s plan to proscribe the Palestine Action group, in London, 23 June 2025
Katherine Hearst reports in Middle East Eye on 2 July 2025:
At 7am on 6 March, three men turned up at Lujane’s door. They said they were from the British Transport Police (BTP) and asked her to come for an interview regarding a video in which, several months before, she had been seen chanting pro-Palestine chants on the London Underground.
Lujane, a Welsh activist who had been organising for Palestine solidarity in Cardiff since October 2023, was accustomed to being closely monitored by the police. But the men standing at her front door were in plain clothes and did not have a warrant.
“It was quite scary, because they didn’t really look like police officers. I don’t remember them saying I was under arrest. They just said, ‘You need to come with us for an interview’,” Lujane told Middle East Eye.
“I completely panicked, because it’s three men who don’t really look like police officers. They’re casually dressed, and they’re saying they were British Transport Police. They didn’t really give me a chance. They ended up coming into the house after I asked them not to. And then they said, ‘You have to come with us’. And they stood at the door until I got dressed.”
Lujane is one of a growing number of pro-Palestine activists in the UK who have experienced harassment and intimidation by police since the launch of Israel’s war on Gaza in the wake of the Hamas-led attacks of 7 October 2023.
Activists have reported being followed, having their homes raided, and even receiving calls to personal mobiles from police officers, in what police watchdog Netpol describes as a “pattern of intimidation.” Netpol has said that raids targeting activists’ homes have become “the norm.” In one instance, two activists were subject to a violent police raid and faced criminal proceedings after questioning their local MP over their stance on Israel.