PALESTINE campaigners have issued an official complaint against the Met Police chief after he made accusations of antisemitism against the peace marches.

The Palestine Coalition launched the formal complaint with the London Mayor’s office after accusing the Met commissioner Mark Rowley of making “false and defamatory” accusations in two recent comments to the media.

Speaking in the wake of the Golders Green knife attack on two Jewish men last Wednesday, the police chief accused the organisers of national demonstrations for Palestine of seeking for marches to go past synagogues.

The coalition has denied having ever requested a demonstration route go past a synagogue and pointed to recorded meetings with the police to prove it.

Despite Palestine organisations explaining that Jewish places of worship did not appear near the planned routes for their demonstrations, Sir Mark Rowley told The Times on May 1 that the marches “feel like antisemitism.”

The same day on ITV, the commissioner said: “They set out with an intent to march near synagogues etc and every single time that we put conditions on to prevent that.”

In response to the police chief’s comments, the coalition started a formal complaint process, sending a legal letter to the Mayor’s Office for Police and Crime.

In it, they said the Met chief “contravened the standards of professional behaviour of his office by not acting with honesty or integrity and has abused his powers and acted in a manner which undermines public confidence in the police.”

They also said he “acted in a racially discriminatory way in inferring that protests against fundamental violations of international law by Israel and by Britain are antisemitic.”

The coalition brings together several groups including the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), Palestinian Forum of Britain, Stop the War Coalition, Friends of Al-Aqsa, Muslim Association of Britain and the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

They have demanded a retraction by the Commissioner and a full apology.

Their complaint follows an open letter written at the start of the week, which read: “The truth is that at no point have we ever requested to ‘walk by’ a synagogue on any of our marches.

“It is completely unacceptable for a senior public official to make these false claims and accusations, which can only raise the level of tension in the current situation.” 

The Met was contacted for comment.