Stop the Met stopping the march for Gaza starting at the BBC

JVL Introduction

The next national march takes place on 18th January and was scheduled to start at the BBC in Portland Place London.  Under pressure the Metropolitan Police have insisted that the assembly point and the route are changed.  This is explained below in the original statement from the six organising groups.  This post also includes the appeal from Palestine Solidarity Campaign for support to counter this, a video where Ben Jamal, the Chief officer for the Palestine Solidarity Campaign is in conversation with Owen Jones on this issue and a statement from the Jewish Bloc.

Here are 4 things you can do:

Raise the Issue in your Unions, Trades Councils, Party Branches, etc.

Email your MP demanding the ban is overturned. Contact the BBC for commet and to pressure them to report on the ban.

Circulate the Palestine coalition statement on police barring 18 Jan march at the BBC far and wide. This has been produced by the movement and has (so far) been signed by 150 MPs. Trade Union and Movement leaders and prominent individuals.

Do everything possible to build the demonstration; on social media use the hashtag #WeWillMarch

Watch out for further posts on this issue.

LL

DEFEND THE RIGHT TO PROTEST

We need your support to push back against the Metropolitan Police’s outrageous attempts to ban us from protesting outside the BBC.

Here are the facts:

• A coalition of six organisations representing hundreds of thousands of supporters has been organising regular demonstrations against Israel’s genocide in Gaza and Britain’s complicity for the past 15 months.
• These peaceful protests, which have represented the biggest and most sustained protest movement since the suffragettes, have been attended by hundreds of thousands of people from all walks of life – including a regular bloc of thousands of Jewish supporters outraged at the scenes of daily massacres that we have been subjected to for over a year.
• We organised our next national demonstration for January 18th to start outside the BBC headquarters, in protest at the pro-Israel bias of their coverage. Recent investigative journalism and open letters from BBC staff have revealed how accurate reporting on Israel’s genocide is routinely censored and misleading pro-Israel coverage is produced in its place.
• We originally proposed this route for November 30^th but were asked not to use that day because of the disruption to the business community on the busiest shopping day of the year. We agreed to alter our November route on the basis that we could use this route instead on January 18^th. This was agreed to by the Police and, with their agreement, was publicly announced on November 30^th at our last march.
• The police are now, with less than two weeks to go until the protest, backtracking on our agreement and are banning us from protesting outside the BBC.
• The Met are arguing that our protests have resulted in ‘cumulative disruption’ for ‘Jewish residents, visitors and communities’. We totally reject the accusation that our demonstrations are a threat to the Jewish community, or to anyone else.
• The specific argument is that this route is a disruption to the Central Synagogue which is located 500 metres North of the BBC. The synagogue is not on the route of the march.
• We have only assembled on 2 occasions on Portland Place by the BBC since we began the marches in October 2023. Once on October 14^th 2023 and once on February 3^rd Police have accepted that there is no evidence of any physical threat or incident of harassment to a synagogue arising from any of the marches.
• On recent marches we have hundreds, sometimes thousands, of Jewish people marching, many in an organised Jewish bloc. Representatives of this bloc have written to the Police seeking to meet with them to express their concerns that the Police are only listening to Pro-Israel Jewish voices. They have not yet had a response to this request.
• The powers that the police are using to try and ram through this outrageous attack on our right to protest were pushed through by the outgoing Conservative government, despite opposition from all major civil liberty groups.

Ben Jamal from Palestine Solidarity Campaign in conversation with Owen Jones

Jewish Bloc Statement on Police Obstruction of the National Demonstration for Palestine

The police decision to block the previously agreed route of the National Demonstration for Palestine on 18 January is a shameful violation of the right to protest. The BBC’s headquarters is a legitimate location for protest, to allow participants to express their outrage at the Corporation’s distorted and dishonest coverage of the Israeli genocide of Gaza.

The issue of a supposed danger to Jews attending synagogue is entirely spurious. Our demonstrations present no threat to Jewish Londoners. The invented issue has been advanced by supporters of Israel whose real objective is to have the solidarity marches banned completely. The aim is not to protect Jews but to protect Israel.

The reality is that Jews march in their thousands at every National Demonstration for Palestine. Our strong vibrant presence is always warmly embraced by fellow marchers.

These demonstrations present no threat to the safety of Jewish communities. The police have not identified a single instance of harm directed towards worshippers at any synagogue. This decision has been taken not to protect Jews but to indulge transparent pro-Israel advocacy.

Undeterred, we will take to the streets on 18 January, as we have done for so many months. We will march, raise our voices, and take action to end the UK’s support for the Israeli genocide of the Palestinian people.

Jewish Bloc for Palestine Friday 10 January 2025

(And here is more background if you want to read more; this was issued by the six organisations that sponsor the marches earlier this week.)

Palestine coalition rejects police attempts to block BBC protest – Palestine Solidarity Campaign

Today we have been informed by the Metropolitan Police that they intend to go back on a previous agreement and impose conditions to prevent us marching from BBC HQ at Portland Place on Saturday 18 January. We have already announced our intention to assemble outside the BBC to protest against the pro-Israel bias of its coverage – something recently highlighted in a detailed report by journalist Owen Jones to which the Corporation has so far not responded. We utterly condemn this attempt to use repressive powers to prevent our planned protest at the BBC.

The route for the march was confirmed with the police nearly two months ago and as agreed with them, was publicly announced on 30 November. This route, beginning at the BBC, has only been used twice in the last 15 months of demonstrations and not since February 2024. With just over a week to go, the Metropolitan Police has now reneged on our agreement and stated its intention to prevent our protest from going ahead as planned.

The BBC is a major institution – it is a publicly-funded state broadcaster and is rightly accountable to the public. It is unacceptable for the police to misuse public order powers to shield the BBC from democratic scrutiny.

The excuse offered by the police is that our march could cause disruption to a nearby synagogue. It follows representations from pro-Israel groups and activists who have been publicly calling for action to be taken to curtail our right to protest against Israel’s ongoing genocide. This includes the Chief Rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis who has openly celebrated the horrific and criminal actions of the Israeli military in Gaza, describing them as the ‘most outstanding possible thing that a decent responsible country can do.’

In fact, the closest synagogue to the BBC is not even on the route of the march. Moreover, as the Met Police have acknowledged, there has not been a single incident of any threat to a synagogue attached to any of the marches. Any suggestion that our marches are somehow hostile to Jewish people ignores the fact that every march has been joined by thousands of Jewish people – many in an organised Jewish bloc – and addressed by Jewish speakers on the demonstration platforms. Representatives of the Jewish bloc have written to the police seeking a meeting to express their concerns that the police are choosing to listen solely to pro-Israel Jewish voices, but they have not had any response.

We firmly reject any attempt to suppress our right to campaign for an end to Israel’s genocidal violence and decades long violations of the rights of the Palestinian people. In the past few weeks, Israel has intensified its indiscriminate attacks including against hospitals and civilians sheltering in so-called ‘humanitarian safe zones.’ It is this and the ongoing complicity of the British government in these crimes that continues to bring people onto the streets in huge numbers. Our marches represent a diverse cross section of the public including the Palestinian community, many of whom are relatives of those killed by Israel.

We remain in dialogue with the Metropolitan Police but call on them to immediately abandon their intention to prevent our protest at the BBC.  We call on all those who are rightly outraged by Israel’s ongoing genocide and those who uphold the democratic right to protest to join us when we march in London on Saturday 18 January.

Palestine Solidarity Campaign
Palestinian Forum in Britain
Friends of Al-Aqsa
Stop the War Coalition
Muslim Association of Britain
Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament