We will ‘break your climate of fear’, peace activists warn police and politicians

PEACE campaigners vowed to “break the climate of fear” fed by intensified police repression in a weekend rally to defend protest rights.
Hundreds gathered in Bethnal Green’s Atrium to discuss the Metropolitan Police’s mass detentions of marchers, including the violent arrest of chief steward Chris Nineham, at a Palestine solidarity demonstration on January 18, and the subsequent decision to charge Mr Nineham, Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) director Ben Jamal and others with public order offences.
Mr Jamal said the policing that day was “an escalation of repression by the state against our movement.
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The claims of the police and anti-Palestine lobby that the weekend’s march was somehow a threat to a synagogue are painfully transparent, and there is evidence that the police were itching for a confrontation, explains LINDA PENTZ GUNTER