IHRC condemns the accelerating police crackdown on pro-Palestine activists and the attendant assault on fundamental civil rights.

In the latest incident, two campaigners associated with the organisation Palestine Pulse have been targeted for questioning by police following the Nakba march in London on 16 May.

Campaigners across the pro-Palestine spectrum have reported rising intimidation with police clamping down on chants and slogans that have hitherto been considered lawful.

These include “1,2,3,4 Zionism no more, 5,6,7,8 smash the Zionist settler state” and “Death, Death to the IDF” which have become a mainstay of pro-Palestine protests.

Police are also deliberately misinterpreting Arabic slogans like “Muqawama”, meaning “resistance”, as expressions of anti-Semitism.

Ordinary people should be alarmed at the extent to which basic rights such as freedom of assembly an expression are being trampled on and systematically eroded by a government that seems more concerned with protecting the interests of a foreign state than its own citizens.

IHRC chair Massoud Shadjareh said: “It would appear that police have ceased to be enforcers of the law and have instead become an instrument for the Zionist state to attack those who call out its genocidal actions. How many times does the CPS have to say that chanting against a state for committing genocide does not constitute a criminal offence?”

[ENDS]

For more information or comment please contact the Press Office on (+44) 208 904 0222  or (+44) 7958 522196 or email media@ihrc.org

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IHRC is an NGO in Special Consultative Status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations.
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