Security state convicts Ben Jamal and Chris Nineham in effort to halt accountability for genocide

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• Ben Jamal, Director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, and Chris Nineham, Vice-Chair of the Stop the War Coalition, were convicted today at Westminster Magistrates' Court
• They were charged with breaching police-imposed conditions on a pro-Palestine march in central London in January 2025
• Jamal received an additional conviction for inciting others to breach conditions following a speech at the end of the march
• The original march route had been agreed with police months in advance; restrictions were altered at the last minute following lobbying from pro-Israel groups, the Chief Rabbi, and several MPs
• Protesters who left Whitehall to lay flowers at Trafalgar Square in memory of Palestinian children were met with officers in riot gear

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CAGE expresses its full solidarity with Ben Jamal and Chris Nineham following their unjust conviction today. 

The gradual erosion of protest rights in Britain has been underway since the earliest years of the War on Terror. The security state has systematically limited the space for any and all accountability mechanisms - through successive expansions of public order and counter-terrorism powers, the criminalisation of speech, the targeting of activists, lawyers and community figures. Basic rights have not been lost overnight; they have been worn away steadily, deliberately, and with intent. What we are witnessing is the endpoint of a trajectory that was set long ago, arriving now at the doorstep of the country's largest Palestine solidarity organisations.

The steady, well-organised, police-coordinated model of protest has reached the same criminalisation end point as the more disruptive direct actions that have been effective in halting the machinery of genocide. The leadership of the movement has been convicted. The space has been closed. The question this forces upon everyone who refuses to accept genocide as normal is what comes next - and it demands a creative and determined approach. 

The movement cannot be contained by a verdict, and those who continue to speak and act will find that the determination of the Palestinian people, and those who stand with them, far outlasts the patience of those who would silence it.