London’s Metropolitan Police mentioned that bodily violence by far-right thugs and soccer hooligans on town’s streets Saturday was extra harmful than the far-larger pro-Palestinian demonstration that was largely peaceable.
An estimated 300,000 folks took to London’s streets on Saturday — as protesters did throughout different main European cities resembling Paris and Brussels — to name for a cease-fire in Israel’s bombing marketing campaign on Gaza. The London march was between Hyde Park and the U.S. Embassy.
The London police condemned “excessive violence from right-wing protesters” who it mentioned got down to confront Saturday’s pro-Palestinian march. 9 officers have been injured and 126 folks have been arrested, the “overwhelming majority” of whom have been counter-protesters, the police mentioned.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak blamed the violence on far-right “thugs” and “Hamas sympathizers” who had gtried to infiltrate the march.
Following the rally, Matt Twist, an assistant commissioner with the London Metropolitan Police, mentioned that the Palestine Solidarity Marketing campaign (PSC) occasion “didn’t see the form of bodily violence carried out by the proper wing” on Saturday, which had appeared to conflict with the PSC and cease the rally.
“This group have been largely soccer hooligans from throughout the U.Okay. and spent a lot of the day attacking or threatening officers who have been in search of to stop them having the ability to confront the primary march,” Twist mentioned in an announcement late Saturday. In searchers of the group members, the police discovered “a knife, a baton and knuckleduster … in addition to class A medicine,” he mentioned.
Forward of the weekend, U.Okay. Dwelling Secretary Suella Braverman had described pro-Palestinian occasions as “hate marches.”
Twist mentioned some breakaway teams from the pro-Palestinian rally behaved in an “intimidating method” with arrests made after officers have been struck within the face with fireworks, however there was no comparable degree of violence to the soccer hooligans.
“There have been additionally quite a few critical offenses recognized in relation to hate crime and potential help for proscribed organizations through the protest that we’re actively investigating,” mentioned Twist.
Violent and intimidating protests have been “deplorable,” Sunak mentioned. “That’s true for [far-right English Defence League] thugs attacking law enforcement officials and trespassing on the Cenotaph, and it’s true for these singing antisemitic chants and brandishing pro-Hamas indicators and clothes on at present’s protest,” he mentioned.