PROTESTERS will rally at Westminster magistrates’ court tomorrow to demand charges are dropped against Palestine march leaders Ben Jamal and Chris Nineham following their attendance at the January 18 anti-genocide demonstration in central London.

The Metropolitan Police have been accused of a major clampdown on the right to protest, having told CND general secretary Sophie Bolt and Stop the War Coalition chairman Alex Kenny that they too will be charged over the peaceful protest.

Last week’s decision means that all four march organisers who liaised with the force ahead of the January 18 demonstration have been charged, the Morning Star understands.

Tomorrow’s 9am protest follows the first mass arrests for expressing support for Palestine Action since a ban under the Terrorism Act came into effect on Saturday.

Today the leader of Britain’s biggest education union, the NEU’s Daniel Kebede threw his weight behind calls on the Met to abandon its clampdown on free speech.

Stop the War deputy leader Mr Nineham told this paper: “What we are seeing is a concerted and systematic assault on the Palestine movement.

“It is being carried presumably to create division and demoralise and intimidate people from protesting, but I don’t think it will work.

“We have negotiated in good faith: we’ve organised peaceful protests and there’s been a very low level of arrests ... it appears we are being punished for actually trying to negotiate with police.

“That seems rather counterproductive from their point of view. They are resorting to oppression. It’s a response to the fact that they’ve lost the argument in British society and beyond.”

On Saturday, Scotland Yard said that 29 people had been arrested on suspicion of terror offences after protesters gathered outside Parliament to show support for the now proscribed group Palestine Action.

Dozens of protesters had stood quietly beneath the statue of Mahatma Gandhi on Saturday lunchtime, holding placards reading “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action” as police encircled them.

Onlookers chanted “free Palestine” as the Rev Sue Parfitt, aged 83, who had been sitting in a chair with placards at her feet, was taken away by officers. 

Today Mr Kebede told the BBC: “We saw the 83-year-old woman who was carted off by police, and I do think that police could do policing protest differently.

“This week I was contacted by a very senior former executive member [Alex Kenny], who was charged with attending a Palestine demonstration that laid flowers.

“We’ve seen a real clampdown on protest with the conspiracy to commit public nuisance arrests increasing 10-fold — with only 3 per cent leading to a prosecution.

“So I really do think that we should do things differently, because I’m very concerned about the clampdown on free speech and free expression.”

Nearly six months after the demonstration, Mr Kenny revealed on Wednesday that he will contest the charges against him which are understood to be public order offences.

Ms Bolt was contacted for comment.

Tomorrow’s protest in support of Mr Nineham and Mr Jamal, the director of Palestine Solidarity Campaign, was due to mark the first day of their trials for public order offences, but on Friday they were told their case was being postponed and that they have to appear before Westminster magistrates tomorrow to be given a new trial date.

A spokeswoman for the Stop the War Coalition said: “It is outrageous that Chris and Ben, their families and friends, will be left with this threat of criminal charges hanging over them, possibly for many more months.

“The charges should never have been brought and are a political attack designed to suppress solidarity with the Palestinian people. Join us outside Westminster magistrates’ court on Monday at 9am.”

Palestine Action lost a late-night Court of Appeal challenge on Friday for a temporary stay on its designation as a terror group.

Membership of, or support for, the activist group became a criminal offence — punishable by up to 14 years in prison — just two hours later.

Following the court’s decision, Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori said that the group is seeking “an urgent appeal to try to prevent a dystopian nightmare of the government’s making which would see thousands of people across Britain wake up tomorrow to find they had been criminalised overnight for supporting a domestic protest group which sprays red paint on war planes and disrupts Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer to disrupt the flow of arms to Israel’s genocidal war machine.”

Palestine Action, which has targeted Israeli weapon parts manufacturer Elbit Systems, “will not stop fighting to defend fundamental rights to free speech and protest in our country and to stand up for the rights of the Palestinian people,” she added.

“The Home Secretary [Yvette Cooper] is rushing through the implementation of the proscription … despite the fact that our legal challenge is ongoing and that she has been completely unclear about how it will be enforced, leaving the public in the dark about their rights to free speech and expression after midnight [on Friday] when this proscription comes into effect.”

She hit out at the decision that left Palestine Action with only hours to disband its entire five-year-old organisation “despite the fact that we have not had the opportunity to defend our fundamental rights in court and challenge this unlawful, authoritarian and utterly absurd proscription.”