One month into the genocide in Gaza, London’s Metropolitan Police Service issued a public appeal urging pro-Palestine organisations to postpone any protests. The police commissioner had defied calls from the government to ban the protests, stating that there was no intelligence to suggest that the protests would pose any threat or violate any law. Yet, this did not prevent the police from calling upon people not to participate in the protest. Soon after, Declassified UK revealed that senior officers in the London police including the commissioner, had long been accepting invitations and gifts from an Israeli think tank closely tied to its government, intelligence and military establishment. In January this year, the British government invited Oded Basyuk, the Israeli general who heads the Israel Defence Forces’ Operations Directorate, to attend official meetings with the United Kingdom’s defence ministry, foreign office and cabinet office.

In September last year, the German interior ministry stated that individuals who used the pro-Palestinian slogan, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” can be denied German citizenship. In a significant development for migrants, Germany had passed a new citizenship law a few months earlier, fast-tracking the naturalisation process and allowing applications for dual citizenship. The condition concerning the Palestinian slogan emerged in the context of this law, ostensibly targeting pan-Arab solidarity with Gaza, given that Germany hosts a large number of immigrants and refugees from Syria, Turkey and Palestine.

In fact, in August, a German court even convicted a woman for chanting the slogan and fined her €600, with the judge ruling that the statement was not protected by free speech because it denied Israel’s right to exist. Another trial that was scheduled to start that month was postponed last minute. “Police are using quite severe offence charges to justify brutal violence against protestors,” the activist facing trial said. “In the past few months, dozens of people have been beaten to a state of unconsciousness during police crackdowns and had to be hospitalised with severe injuries; some have had their homes raided just for saying ‘From the river to the sea.’”

This article was written by Sara Tanveer for the Polis Project. You can read the full article here. 

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