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Massive London March Demands Israeli Arms Embargo After Police Drop Restrictions
"We demand our government completely stop arming Israel and push for a cease-fire now," said the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.
Sep 07, 2024
Thousands of people gathered at London's Picadilly Circus Saturday for the city's latest march against Israel's bombardment of Gaza and the United Kingdom's continued support for the Israel Defense Forces, following what organizers called "a major victory in defense of the democratic right to protest."
The Metropolitan Police on Friday dropped its restrictions on the march, which was the first pro-Palestinian protest since last October to proceed to the Israeli embassy in London.
The police had attempted to stop campaigners from gathering before 2:30 pm, conflicting with plans to begin the rally preceding the march at noon.
"They never provided any convincing explanation or evidence for this delay, and it has caused enormous, unnecessary difficulty to the organization of a large-scale demonstration," Ben Jamal, who leads the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, one of the groups organizing the march, toldMiddle East Eye on Friday.
"It has unfortunately been part of a pattern of obstruction, delay, and lack of communication on the part of the Met which we will press them to review and reflect on for future demonstrations," he added. "For tomorrow, we call on our supporters to turn out in their hundreds of thousands to show we will not be deterred from seeking an end to Israel's genocide and justice for Palestine!"
Jamal said the police "saw sense and abandoned their unjustified and impractical attempt to delay the start of the march by two hours on Saturday," allowing the march to begin at 1:30 pm.
During previous marches in which hundreds of thousands of people have demonstrated in solidarity with Palestinians since last October, police have blocked off the area surrounding the Israeli embassy in Kensington, threatening anyone who protested in the vicinity with arrest.
Marching to the embassy, demonstrators made a "renewed call to end the ongoing genocide in Gaza" and demanded an "immediate and full cessation of arms supplies to Israel."
Earlier this week, the U.K. government announced it was suspending approximately 30 of its 350 arms export licenses for Israel, saying that "there does exist a clear risk that they might be used to commit or facilitate a serious violation of international humanitarian law."
Human rights advocates, medical professionals working in Gaza, and legal experts have for months demanded that Israel's top international funders, including the U.S. and U.K., stop providing military aid as Israel has blocked humanitarian aid from reaching Gaza and waged attacks on civilian infrastructure, killing more than 40,000 people.
The country has also been accused of carrying out genocide in a case led by South Africa at the International Court of Justice; the court has ordered Israel to end its blockade on humanitarian aid and to prevent genocide in Gaza.
"We demand our government completely stop arming Israel and push for a cease-fire now," said the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.
As Londoners marched on Saturday, the Gaza Health Ministry announced that at least 61 Palestinians had been killed by Israeli forces in the last two days. Four people were killed in a strike on Halimah al-Saadiyah school in Jabaliya, where displaced Palestinians have been sheltering, and three were killed in a bombing at Amr Ibn al-As school in Gaza City.
Media outlets in Palestine reported that a baby named Yaqeen al-Astal had become the 37th child in Gaza to die of malnutrition since Israel began its near-total aid blockade.
International outrage also grew on Saturday regarding the killing of a Turkish American activist, Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, in the West Bank on Friday. Local media and eyewitnesses said Eygi had been deliberately shot in the head by Israeli forces at a protest over the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements.
The U.S. called on Israel to investigate the killing on Friday, but Eygi's family said in a statement that such a probe would not be "adequate."
"We call on President [Joe] Biden, Vice President [Kamala] Harris, and Secretary of State [Antony] Blinken to order an independent investigation into the unlawful killing of a U.S. citizen and to ensure full accountability for the guilty parties," said the family.
Stéphane Dujarric, spokesperson for the United Nations, called for "a full investigation of the circumstances" and said that "people should be held accountable. And again, civilians must be protected at all times."
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Solidarity Marches Held Across Globe to Demand Cease-Fire in Gaza
Organizers held rallies in the U.S., Europe, and Asia to mark Nakba Day and condemn Israel's bombing and starvation of Palestinian civilians.
May 19, 2024
As one United Nations official on Saturday said that "brand new words" are needed to adequately describe the devastation Israel has wrought across Gaza in its U.S.-backed military assault, tens of thousands of people across the globe marched in solidarity with Palestinians to demand an end to the "ongoing Nakba."
The marches were held to honor Nakba Day, which was marked on May 15—the 76th anniversary of the mass displacement of 700,000 Palestinians who were forced from their homes when Israel declared statehood in 1948. The protesters demanded a cease-fire in Gaza, where Israeli forces have killed at least 35,456 people since October, the majority of them women and children.
Protesters in London carried signs reading, "Solidarity is a verb," and "The Nakba never ended" as they marched through Whitehall, close to the home and office of Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
Palestinian photojournalist Motaz Azaiza, who covered the first months of Israel's bombardment and evacuated Gaza in January, joined the marchers and told the crowd that mass protests around the world have given Palestinians hope.
"I didn't believe that I would stay alive to stand here in London today in front of the people, who saw me there under the bombing," said Azaiza. "Occupation is using all the weapons against us, the bombs, the killing, the starvation, the apartheid in the West Bank, and now killing the people and forcing them to leave their lands... I did my best to show you, and I believe you will do more, we all together will do more to stop this genocide."
In Dublin, Ireland, where politicians have harshly criticized Israel and its supporters for the assault on Gaza and the near-total blockade on humanitarian aid that has pushed parts of the enclave into famine, more than 100 civil society groups supported a march organized by the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign.
Irish Palestinian Zak Hania, a researcher and translator who was trapped in Gaza until earlier this month when he was finally granted permission by Egyptian and Israeli authorities to leave, thanked the crowd for choosing "to stand with justice and to stand with an oppressed people."
"I am proud to be an Irish Palestinian," said Hania. "I am proud to see all of you. It is part of my healing... We inherited a dream from our parents. We are trying for all our lives to fulfill our dreams and our parents' dreams. My parents are dead, but I will work to fulfill their dreams. Their dream is to have a free Palestine."
Other protests included a rally outside the German embassy in Bangkok, a march of about 400 people in Washington, D.C., and a demonstration in Brooklyn where police violently arrested at least 34 people, according to The New York Times.
Nerdeen Kiswani, founder of pro-Palestinian group Within Our Lifetime, told the Times she witnessed "police indiscriminately grabbing people off the street and the sidewalk. They were grabbing people at random."
Independent journalists posted videos on social media of police officers punching and kicking protesters.
The latest show of global outrage toward the Israeli government and the Western leaders who have supported its assault on Gaza came as U.N. humanitarian aid officer Yasmina Guerda told U.N. News about her latest deployment to Rafah, where 900,000 people have now been forced to flee following Israel's incursion in the city.
"We would need to invent brand new words to adequately describe the situation that Palestinians in Gaza find themselves in today," said Guerda. "No matter where you look, no matter where you go, there's destruction, there's devastation, there's loss. There's a lack of everything. There's pain. There's just incredible suffering. People are living on top of the rubble and the waste that used to be their lives. They're hungry. Everything has become absolutely unaffordable. I heard the other day that some eggs were being sold for $3 each, which is unthinkable for someone who has no salary and has lost all access to their bank accounts."
"Access to clean water is a daily battle," she added. "Many people haven't been able to change clothes in seven months because they just had to flee with whatever they were wearing. They were given 10 minutes notice and they had to run away. Many have been displaced six, seven, eight times, or more."
The daily reality described by Guerda is continuing to unfold as the Israeli forces have prevented 3,000 aid trucks from entering Gaza in the past two weeks, according to the Government Media Office in the enclave. The closure of the Rafah and Karem Abu Salem crossings for the past 13 days, since Israel launched its new offensive in Rafah, has also prevented nearly 700 injured and sick people from leaving Gaza for treatment.
"This constitutes a clear danger in light of the collapse of the health system," said the office.
On Sunday, U.N. humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths warned that the blockade on aid is leading to "apocalyptic" consequences, with the famine that has taken hold in parts of northern Gaza close to spreading across the enclave.
"If fuel runs out, aid doesn't get to the people where they need it, that famine, which we have talked about for so long, and which is looming, will not be looming any more," said Griffiths. "It will be present."
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'Drop the Assange Case Now,' Advocates Tell Biden DOJ as Critical Hearing Begins
"The responsibility still lies with the U.S. Department of Justice," said a Reporters Without Borders campaigner. "At any point, they could drop the charges, they could close this case, they could let Julian Assange free."
Feb 20, 2024
Press freedom advocates on Tuesday issued last-ditch calls for the Biden administration to drop the case against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange as the journalist and publisher's legal team appeared before the United Kingdom's High Court to fight his extradition to the United States.
The hearings on Tuesday and Wednesday will determine whether Assange, who is 52 years old and in increasingly poor health, can appeal an earlier decision by the U.K. government to approve his extradition to the U.S., where he could be hit with a prison sentence of up to 175 years for publishing classified information—something that journalists do all the time.
Assange's disclosures revealed U.S. war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, including the killing of two Reuters journalists.
"It's a terrible thing that this hearing is necessary," Jameel Jaffer, executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, said in a statement Tuesday. "The U.S. Justice Department should never have charged Assange under the Espionage Act, because the indictment and prosecution of a publisher under this act poses a grave threat to press freedom."
"The indictment focuses almost entirely on the kinds of activities that national security journalists engage in routinely and as a necessary part of their work—cultivating sources, communicating with them confidentially, soliciting information from them, protecting their identities from disclosure, and publishing classified information," Jaffer added. "A successful prosecution of Assange on the basis of this indictment would criminalize a great deal of the investigative journalism that is absolutely crucial to our democracy."
Rebecca Vincent, director of campaigns at Reporters Without Borders, said during a rally during Tuesday's hearing that "we're not letting the U.S. government off the hook today no matter what happens here in London."
"The responsibility still lies with the U.S. Department of Justice," said Vincent. "At any point, they could drop the charges, they could close this case, they could let Julian Assange free."
RSF's Rebecca Vincent speaking outside Julian Assange court hearing this morning: "RSF is engaged because of Julian Assange's contribution to journalism...he exposed war crimes and human rights violations...If he is extradited, the chilling effect will be enormous" #FreeAssange pic.twitter.com/O87pQ4IHW3
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) February 20, 2024
Assange did not attend the first day of the critical hearings in person or by video link for health reasons. The publisher has been languishing in a high-security London prison for more than five years while fighting extradition to the U.S., which his supporters and wife say would be a death sentence.
"We have two big days ahead," Stella Assange, whom Julian married in prison in 2022, told supporters at a demonstration outside the London court on Tuesday. "We don't know what to expect, but you're here because the world is watching. They just cannot get away with this. Julian needs his freedom and we all need the truth."
Seth Stern, director of advocacy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, warned Tuesday that "as Assange inches closer to extradition, the danger to press freedom grows."
"An Espionage Act trial and conviction of Assange in an American court would be a disaster for journalists and for journalism," said Stern. "If the Biden administration cares as much about press freedom as it claims, it wouldn't wait for the U.K. to send this dangerous case to American courts. The Department of Justice should drop the Assange case now."
"The U.S. is actually engaged in an admission—an admission that they now criminalize journalism."
Assange, who has been fighting U.S. extradition attempts for more than a decade, was indicted under the Trump administration in 2019 on 17 counts of violating the Espionage Act, and the Biden Justice Department has decided to continue pursuing the case against the WikiLeaks founder despite dire warnings about the implications for press freedom.
Edward Fitzgerald, Assange's attorney, said during Tuesday's hearing that "is being prosecuted for engaging in ordinary journalistic practice of obtaining and publishing classified information, information that is both true and of obvious and important public interest."
Fitzgerald argued Tuesday that sending Assange across the Atlantic would violate the U.S.-U.K. Extradition Treaty, which prohibits extraditions for political offenses.
Should the U.K. High Court reject Assange's attempt to appeal, the publisher's legal team is expected to ask the European Court of Human Rights to halt the extradition, warning that his life is in danger. The U.S. has insisted it would not subject Assange to harsh treatment, but United Nations experts and human rights groups have said such assurances are not to be trusted.
Stella Assange told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation ahead of Tuesday's hearing that the WikiLeaks founder would not accept a plea deal with the U.S. Justice Department in exchange for a lighter sentence.
"The only thing that he would be pleading to is journalism," she said. "He is being accused of receiving information from a source, information that was in the public interest, that belonged in the public, and the U.S. is actually engaged in an admission—an admission that they now criminalize journalism."
"That is the case that has been brought against Julian," Stella Assange added. "Journalism has been re-classed as espionage. An unprecedented prosecution has been taken against a publisher for the very first time in the more than 100-year history of this Act and it is going to set a precedent. It already is setting a precedent that can then be used against the rest of the press anywhere in the world."
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