LONDON: Police arrested five “key spokespeople” for an organization campaigning against the UK government’s designation of Palestine Action as a “terrorist group” in “dawn raids” on Tuesday, the group said.
Defend Our Juries has organized several demonstrations against the government’s contentious July 5 Palestine Action ban, leading to hundreds of arrests with police charging scores of people under anti-terror laws.
The campaigners had been due to hold an online press conference later Tuesday ahead of another planned “Lift the Ban” protest in London this weekend, but postponed the briefing after what they called the “dystopian crackdown.”
“Counter-terrorism police arrested five of Defend Our Juries’ key spokespeople in dawn raids in London this morning over Lift the Ban protests,” it said in a statement.
“This is scandalous,” a spokesperson added, calling it “an unprecedented assault on free speech in our country.”
“This level of political repression is not what we expect in a democracy — it’s the kind of tactic typically associated with authoritarian regimes around the world,” the spokesperson said.
London’s Metropolitan Police did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Defend Our Juries vowed to press ahead with its latest planned demonstration on Saturday in Parliament Square, claiming that 1,000 people had pledged to hold signs saying “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.”
More than 700 people who have held up such signs at previous protests over the last two months have been arrested under anti-terror laws for showing support for a proscribed organization.
Police said Monday a further 47 people had been accused of showing support for a banned group, meaning 114 Palestine Action supporters have now been charged with the offense.
The arrests were made under the Terrorism Act 2000, which the government also used to proscribe Palestine Action.
Interior minister Yvette Cooper accuses it of orchestrating “aggressive and intimidatory attacks against businesses, institutions and the public.”
Its outlawing came after the group took responsibility for breaking into a Royal Air Force base in June and spraying two aircraft with red paint, causing an estimated £7 million ($10 million) in damage.
Palestine Action said its activists were protesting Britain’s support for Israel amid the war in Gaza.
Critics, including the United Nations and groups such as Amnesty International and Greenpeace, have condemned the group’s proscription as legal overreach and a threat to free speech.
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Critics of Palestine Action ban say ‘key’ figures arrested
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Critics of Palestine Action ban say ‘key’ figures arrested
- Defend Our Juries has organized several demonstrations against the government’s contentious July 5 Palestine Action ban, leading to hundreds of arrests
Spanish police evict hundreds of migrants from squat deemed a safety hazard
BARCELONA: Police in northeastern Spain began carrying out eviction orders Wednesday to clear an abandoned school building where hundreds of mostly undocumented migrants were living in a squat north of Barcelona.
Knowing that the eviction was coming, most of the occupants had left before police in riot gear from Catalonia’s regional police entered the school’s premises early in the morning under court orders.
The squat was located in Badalona, a working class city that borders Barcelona. Many sub-Saharan migrants, mostly from Senegal and Gambia, had moved into the empty school building since it was left abandoned in 2023.
The mayor of Badalona, Xavier García Albiol, announced the evictions in a post on X. “As I had promised, the eviction of the squat of 400 illegal squatters in the B9 school in Badalona begins,” he wrote.
Lawyer Marta Llonch, who represents the squatters, said that many of them lived from selling scrap metal collected from the streets, while a few others have residency and work permits but were forced to live there because they couldn’t afford housing.
“Many people are going to sleep on the street tonight,” Llonch told The Associated Press. “Just because you evict these people it doesn’t mean they disappear. If you don’t give them an alternative place to live they will now be on the street, which will be a problem for them and the city.”
García Albiol, of the conservative Popular Party, has built his political career as Badalona’s long-standing mayor with an anti-immigration stance.
The Badalona town hall had argued that the squat was a public safety hazard. In 2020, an old factory occupied by around a hundred migrants in Badalona caught fire and four people were killed in the blaze.
Like other southern European countries, Spain has for more than a decade seen a steady influx of migrants who risked their lives crossing the Mediterranean or Atlantic in small boats.
While many developed countries have taken a hard-line position against migration, Spain’s left-wing government has said that legal migration has helped its economy grow.
Knowing that the eviction was coming, most of the occupants had left before police in riot gear from Catalonia’s regional police entered the school’s premises early in the morning under court orders.
The squat was located in Badalona, a working class city that borders Barcelona. Many sub-Saharan migrants, mostly from Senegal and Gambia, had moved into the empty school building since it was left abandoned in 2023.
The mayor of Badalona, Xavier García Albiol, announced the evictions in a post on X. “As I had promised, the eviction of the squat of 400 illegal squatters in the B9 school in Badalona begins,” he wrote.
Lawyer Marta Llonch, who represents the squatters, said that many of them lived from selling scrap metal collected from the streets, while a few others have residency and work permits but were forced to live there because they couldn’t afford housing.
“Many people are going to sleep on the street tonight,” Llonch told The Associated Press. “Just because you evict these people it doesn’t mean they disappear. If you don’t give them an alternative place to live they will now be on the street, which will be a problem for them and the city.”
García Albiol, of the conservative Popular Party, has built his political career as Badalona’s long-standing mayor with an anti-immigration stance.
The Badalona town hall had argued that the squat was a public safety hazard. In 2020, an old factory occupied by around a hundred migrants in Badalona caught fire and four people were killed in the blaze.
Like other southern European countries, Spain has for more than a decade seen a steady influx of migrants who risked their lives crossing the Mediterranean or Atlantic in small boats.
While many developed countries have taken a hard-line position against migration, Spain’s left-wing government has said that legal migration has helped its economy grow.
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