Mass Defiance of Palestine Action Banning Indicative of Growing Public Rejection of Draconian Counter-Terror Laws

London - CAGE International Senior Director and former Guantanamo prisoner, Moazzam Begg, was amongst 532 people arrested on Saturday at a mass civil disobedience demonstration at Parliament Square.

It was the largest number of arrests made in a single day by the Met Police in the last decade. The protest, organised by Defend Our Juries, was held against the banning of Palestine Action.

In an exorbitant waste of public resources, the state employed droves of police officers to arrest peaceful protestors carrying signs that read, “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action”. Amongst the hundreds arrested were several senior citizens and disabled individuals. 

“Disobedience to oppression is deeply ingrained in Islam. It is part of our faith to reject injustice, not just in our hearts or in words, but in action too,” Begg said before his arrest. “To target people who are trying to stop a genocide is reprehensible.”

For 22 years CAGE International has campaigned against the abuse of anti-terrors laws as a threat to fundamental freedoms. The targeting of Muslims has largely been ignored by the mainstream media and human rights NGOs despite the clear racist intent underpinning the law and policies. The mass arrests is a clear illustration that our concerns were justified and brings into focus the absurd, disproportionate and oppressive nature of UK terrorism laws. It can never be an act of terrorism to take a stand against illegal wars abroad and the current livestreamed genocide. 

The attack on civil liberties has been carried out by successive UK governments and now the injustice and cruelty that results is clear for all to see – whilst thousands are murdered by an apartheid regime with the active collusion of its western allies, any opposition is criminalised and the rule of law shredded.
  
As well as exposing the hypocrisy of the international rules-based order, the support for genocide has eliminated any pretence that western governments are better than the worst authoritarian dictatorships. The pictures of starving children in Gaza and disabled protestors being dragged in the shadow of the mother of all parliaments speaks for itself.

CAGE International’s Anas Mustapha said:

“We salute Moazzam Begg and Defend Our Juries for leading the moral conscience of the nation at a time when silence in the face of the Gaza genocide is complicity.”

“The protestors’ courage reaffirms that civil disobedience has become a necessary tactic to counter the erosion of civil liberties in the UK, and to prevent support of war crimes and genocide.”

“Today’s mass defiance of proscription laws is indicative of the growing public rejection of counter-terror legislation that is designed to criminalise conscience and muzzle dissent. These actions expose the urgent need to abolish the UK’s counter-terror infrastructure.”

ENDS