Palestine Solidarity Campaign director Ben Jamal charged after London protest

Ben Jamal, the director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) in the UK, has been charged with public order offenses following a large pro-Palestine rally in London on Saturday, where 77 people were arrested. The Metropolitan Police accused protesters of breaking through police lines at Trafalgar Square in central London on Saturday, but organizers of the protest strongly deny this.

Organizers estimate that over 50,000 people attended the rally. Jamal is due to appear in court on February 21st, and the PSC was one of the advocacy groups that organized the march. Police stated that Jamal, 61, is charged with public order offenses, including inciting others to disobey regulations. They also said they saw “coordinated action” to breach regulations designed to “stop protesters gathering near synagogues in Portland Place, not far from the BBC headquarters.”

Police added that despite the PSC agreeing to a static protest and repeated updates from police to protesters before and on the day of the march, breaches still occurred. Video footage from the Whitehall gathering shows Jamal calling on a delegation of speakers and organizers to approach the police lines and seek permission to lay flowers outside the BBC headquarters in memory of children killed in Gaza. He also stated that if police stopped the delegation, they would lay the flowers at the feet of the police.

Video footage shows police later allowing the delegation, including Jamal, to pass through the police lines towards Trafalgar Square. However, when the delegation reached Trafalgar Square, police blocked them from proceeding further. There, police arrested Chris Nineham, vice-chair of the Stop the War Coalition, who was the overall steward for the protest. Video footage taken by Middle East Eye shows riot police surrounding Nineham and forcibly placing him in the back of a police van. The Stop the War Coalition described the incident as a "blatant attack on the Palestine movement" and an "unacceptable violation of civil liberties." Nineham has also been charged.

Atik Malik, who acted as a legal observer at the protest, told Middle East Eye that Nineham was arrested while still in discussion with the police. “There was no need to arrest him in front of everyone,” he said. “It was unprofessional, unnecessary and unjustified.” Following his charging on Monday, Jamal said: “It is clear that the political intention was to create a scene of mass disorder in order to justify the Home Secretary’s case for banning all future marches.” He added, “Despite this attempt, no scene of mass disorder occurred. This is a credit to the extraordinary and determined discipline of those who came to protest, even in the face of such provocation.”

On Sunday, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign accused the police of promoting a “misleading narrative about events in Whitehall and Trafalgar Square,” and insisted: “At no point was there an organised breach of police regulations.” Former shadow chancellor John McDonnell also contradicted police claims that protesters “forced their way” through police lines, asserting that the police allowed them to reach Trafalgar Square before dispersing them. McDonnell wrote on X: “I spoke at the demo & was part of the speaker group aiming to lay flowers at the BBC for the Palestinian children killed. We didn’t force our way through, we were allowed through by the police, we laid flowers when stopped at Trafalgar Sq & dispersed.”

Former Labour leader and now independent MP Jeremy Corbyn was also part of the delegation. He stated on X that the march was “conducted with the assistance of the police.” “We did not force our way through.” Last November, police approved a march route proposed by the organizing coalition from the BBC headquarters to Whitehall. However, under political pressure, police changed the route, stating in early January that it was too close to two synagogues. Pro-Israel groups, Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, MPs, and peers reportedly urged Police Commissioner Mark Rowley to order the protest to be rerouted.

Last week, police took the unusual step of announcing an alternative route for the march, starting from Russell Square, but police later backed down, agreeing to a "static protest" in Whitehall. The day after the rally, on Sunday, Police Commissioner Mark Rowley spoke at an event held by the Board of Deputies of British Jews, saying that “the powers to impose restrictions on demonstrations are very limited – we are applying more restrictions on demonstrations than ever before, in terms of time, limitations, routes.” He also added that police were taking a “more rigorous, tougher approach” to organizers of demonstrations and were “taking into account the punitive disruption to communities, particularly the business community in central London and the Jewish community.”

Earlier this week, nearly a thousand British Jews, including prominent figures in law and culture as well as Holocaust survivors, signed an open letter urging police to lift the ban. The letter condemned “a concerted effort to portray the march as a threat to those attending synagogues,” adding: “As Jews, we are appalled at this blatant attempt to interfere with hard-won political freedoms by fabricating a threat to Jewish freedom of worship.” Ben Jamal told Middle East Eye last week: “There is no evidence that any of our marches have posed a threat to synagogues... there have been no incidents of anyone going to a synagogue, protesting outside a synagogue, threatening a synagogue, stopping people getting into a synagogue.”