TOMORROW’S national March for Palestine will go ahead as planned after the Met Police dropped its “repressive tactics” to disrupt tens of thousands attending the peaceful protest in London.
The force had imposed restrictions that would have seriously disrupted the 18th national march calling for an end to Israel’s ongoing genocide.
But with less than 24 hours to go, it dropped its demands for the assembly point to be moved from Pall Mall and for the march to start nearly two hours later than had been advertised.
Today the coalition that organises the march hailed “a great victory for the movement — the police have withdrawn all the major restrictions on tomorrow’s march.
“With less than 24 hours to go, the Metropolitan Police has dropped its attempt to frustrate our national march for Palestine,” it said in a statement.
“Tomorrow we will march to the Israeli embassy as planned.
“Following a week of argument and attempts to bully and intimidate the demonstration organisers, the police have now agreed that protesters will assemble from noon, at Regent Street St James’s as we had originally intended.”
The coalition is made up of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Palestinian Forum in Britain, Friends of Al-Aqsa, Stop the War Coalition, Muslim Association of Britain and Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.
Its statement added: “Previous conditions that were imposed in a wholly unjustified attempt to prevent us from [marching as planned] have now been rescinded. This debacle has caused serious disruption to our organising efforts.
“The constant imposition of conditions on our marches are an unacceptable curtailment of our right to demonstrate peacefully and we will continue to challenge them.
“Nevertheless, this is a major victory in defence of the democratic right to protest.
“We are thankful to everyone in the movement who has stood firm in the face of these threats and to the MPs, members of the House of Lords, trade union leaders and many others who have made representations to the police.”
The coalition, union leaders, MPs and peers had called on the Met to abandon its plans to restrict the march and accused them of refusing to participate in negotiations in a “transparent and accountable” way with its organisers.
They signed an open letter on Monday raising concerns over the force making eleventh-hour impositions “without explanation or rationale” and its refusal to allow Pall Mall as an assembly point.
“We worry that these kind of delays, and late challenges and conditions to the plans of what are entirely peaceful demonstrations, are forming a pattern,” they said.
