Twelve arrests at al-Quds Day rally and counterprotest in London | UK news
12 people were arrested as hundreds of people attended a pro-Palestinian Quds Day demonstration on one side of the Thames River, while hundreds gathered on the opposite bank to support Israeli and American attacks on Iran.
At least 1,000 police officers were deployed to keep the two rival protests separate. Lambeth Bridge, the closest river crossing to each rally, remained closed on Sunday afternoon.
Metropolitan police deputy commissioner Ade Adelekan said: “We made 12 arrests, including supporting a proscribed organisation, fighting, and threatening or abusive behaviour. We are also investigating chants made by a speaker at the Jerusalem protest.”
Interior Minister Shabana Mahmood accepted the police request to ban the march of Jerusalem protesters for the first time since 2012. He said: “I expect the law to be fully enforced against anyone who spreads hatred and separatism instead of exercising their right to peaceful protest.”
Police warned Jerusalem demonstrators on the Albert Quay that they would arrest anyone holding banners, flags or chanting slogans that “crossed the line into a hate crime or support for a banned organisation.”
Some held banners of Iran’s new religious leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, or of his father and predecessor, Ali Khamenei, who was killed on the first day of the war.
There was also a heavy police presence on the River Thames at Millbank at a counter-protest jointly organized by Stop Hate and the Iran Lion Guard group.
Some protesters carried both the Israeli flag and the flag of the Iranian state before the 1979 Islamic revolution to show their support for Reza Pahlavi, the son of Iran’s former pro-Western ruler.
Georgie Stagg, 70, a retired arts administrator from Lewisham who was wearing a Palestinian keffiyeh, passed the pro-Israel demonstration on her way to the Jerusalem rally. A police officer quickly pulled him away and said: “I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to go that way because of what you’re wearing.”
Stagg said: “We’ve been marching on Quds Day for 40 years and I’ve never encountered any problems. Last year there was friction, but that was because pro-Israel people and a lot of the far-right who were causing trouble were in Parliament Square.”
Stagg added: “You can’t criticize the Iranian government for being anti-democratic when there’s a government here arresting people carrying banners. We’re told you can’t say ‘river to sea’ and you can’t say global intifada; that just means insurrection.”
Rival demonstrations have revealed sharp divisions among Iranians in Britain. One of the pro-Israel protesters carried a banner that read: “If you stop terrorism, go away.”
Raham Moshami (52) fled Iran in 2010 after being tortured in prison. He showed the scars on his forehead as proof. “We are here to support our people because the Iranian government is holding my people hostage,” he said.
He added: “Netanyahu and Trump are trying to help us. We have to eliminate a cancer because the Iranian government is like a cancer. Pahlavi is a good man, very educated.”
Moshami also dismissed the Jerusalem demonstrators as being on the payroll of the Iranian government, without providing any evidence for the claim.
On the other side of the River Thames, Fereydun Bahrami, 71, had traveled by bus from Glasgow with 50 Iranians to attend the Jerusalem protest, named after the Arabic name for Jerusalem and organized by the Islamic Human Rights Commission.
“We are here to celebrate Jerusalem Day and also to protest the war,” he said. Bahrami, who left Iran to study engineering in Glasgow and later worked in a metal factory, was carrying a banner reading “Stop using UK bases to bomb Iran”.
Pointing across the river, he said: “They are being brainwashed to support Israel instead of their families who are under bombardment.”
“I am very sorry for this war. In the beginning, America killed 168 girls in a school. Iran has not attacked anyone for the last 47 years.”
Bahrami disputed government ministers’ claim that the demonstration was a hate march. “This is a march of love, how can it be a march of hate?” he said. “We love people. We love Jews. We are Muslims, we are obliged by religion to love everyone. There is no hatred here in this crowd.”
Salma, 60, who works for a shipping company in London, said she supports Iran’s retaliation against targets in the Gulf. He said: “It’s right to fight and oppose Americans; Trump had no right to come in and overthrow an 86-year-old leader.”
He added: “You can’t let one side bomb schools and then worry about ships waiting in the Strait of Hormuz. Who cares if oil prices go up? Because after all, it was created by the US.”
Adelekan said fewer people attended the march than expected due to restrictions. “Our police plan worked, both groups were kept separate from each other and we found that neither side attempted to violate the conditions by walking. Both groups dispersed as planned from 15:00,” he said.
“Restrictions and conditions meant that many people chose not to participate in the protest or counter-protest and chose to stay away.”
