I Support Palestine Action

Yesterday, along with several thousand others, from diverse backgrounds and with different beliefs, I attended the London Rally in support of the so called "terrorist" group Palestine Action.

I attended the rally to show my opposition to the Government's proscription (banning) of Palestine Action and my support for the legal and political efforts to overturn the ban.

United Nations officials, academics, and human rights experts the world over have condemned Labour Minister, Yvette Cooper, for banning the organisation claiming her decision to be unlawful.

A court cases is already scheduled for November to challenge the banning order and the Government has submitted an application to the court to have that challenge dismissed.

My bet is that all this legal toing and froing will eventually

end up at the European Court of Human Rights where, I am certain as I can be, that Cooper and the Labour Government will lose.

Make no mistake the proscription of Palestine Action will turn out to be one of the biggest breaches of human rights this country has seen in many years and it underlines just how intolerant and dictatorial the Labour Government is becoming.

Having witnessed at first hand the massive police presence at Parliament Square with hundreds of officers and vehicles drafted into London from across the country, I wonder how much the policing of the two pro-Palestine Action Rallies will cost? I don't think it would be an exaggeration to say tens of £millions.

The total number of arrests made relating to yesterday is reported as being 857 and the previous rally on 9 August 539. This brings the grand total of 1389.

The mass arrest of peaceful protesters on the scale of yesterday and August 9th, has not been seen in London for 64 years when, in Septemeber 1961, a demonstration in Trafalgar Square led by the anti-war group, the Committee of 100, led to the arrest 1,314 protestors.

But the number of yesterday's arrests and those on 9 August belies the fact that at least twice, if not three times, as many protestors including myself were not arrested for holding I Support Palestine Action banners.

The truth is that despite their news time bravado and their massive deployment of resources the Police simply didn't have the means to arrest everyone breaking the law. And this will continue until, as I predict, Yvette Cooper's unlawful action is struck down by the courts.

I also think that the escape of thousands of law breakers may well be related to concerns within the police service at all levels.

I am sure many police officers probably believe that they are becoming pawns in a political game to silence the growing number of people who oppose the appalling genocide in Gaza and that they may well be dragging their feet when it comes to making arrests.

But policing aside, the common aim of those I spoke to yesterday was that they came to the rally to try to play a role in the ending of the killing of tens of thousands of innocent men, women and children in Gaza, and to highlight the Labour Government's role in the sale of some of the weapons used in this bloody slaughter.

It was also view of many of those I spoke to that the proscription of Palestine Action was meant to intimidate and scare those opposed to the Isreali Government's bloody genocide and those governments who support it, such as our own.

In my book the real terrorists are not Palestine Action and this who break the law to support it, but the state of Isreal, its armed forces, and those who supply them.

That's why I support Palestine Action and all other groups and individuals who use non violent direct action to oppose the genocide in Gazza and those who enable it.