LONDON (AP) — London police said Sunday that 532 people were arrested the previous day when supporters of a pro-Palestinian group recently outlawed as a terrorist organization intentionally broke the law to test the government's ability to enforce the ban.
The Metropolitan Police Service released the updated figures as protesters demanding the immediate release of the remaining Israeli hostages in Gaza held their own march through central London on Sunday afternoon.
The vast majority of those detained on Saturday were arrested for displaying placards declaring their support for the group known as Palestine Action. Police updated their earlier totals and said 522 people were arrested for supporting a proscribed organization in violation of anti-terror laws. Another 10 people were arrested on a variety of charges, including assaulting and obstructing police officers.
Backers of Palestine Action staged the protest to underscore their belief that the government is illegally restricting freedom of expression by banning a direct action organization that has challenged its policies.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, who oversees law enforcement in Britain, rejected that characterization, saying Palestine Action was banned after committing serious attacks involving violence, significant injuries and extensive criminal damage.
"The right to protest is one we protect fiercely but this is very different from displaying support for this one specific and narrow, proscribed organization," Cooper said in a statement. "Many people may not yet know the reality of this organization, but the assessments are very clear, this is not a nonviolent organization," she added.
Police released updated information on the Palestine Action protest after the front pages of Sunday newspapers featured photos of elderly protesters being carted off by officers.
One of those was La Pethick, an 89-year-old retired psychotherapist, who told the Times of London that she had the support of her five grandchildren. "We are having our right to peaceful protest being taken away," she said.
Almost half of those arrested were over the age of 60, according to figures released by the Met.
Police said the process of deciding whether to file charges against those arrested is likely to take weeks as officers from the Met's Counter Terrorism Command put together case files and seek approval from prosecutors, and in some cases the attorney general.
Daring police to arrest them
More than 500 protesters filled the square outside the Houses of Parliament on Saturday, many daring police to arrest them by displaying signs reading "I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action." That was enough for police to step in.
But as the demonstration began to wind down, police and protest organizers sparred over the number of arrests as the organizers sought to show that the law was unworkable.
"The police have only been able to arrest a fraction of those supposedly committing 'terrorism' offenses, and most of those have been given street bail and allowed to go home," Defend Our Juries, which organized the protest, said in a statement. "This is a major embarrassment to (the government), further undermining the credibility of this widely ridiculed law, brought in to punish those exposing the government's own crimes."
London's Metropolitan Police Service quickly hit back, saying this wasn't true and that many of those who gathered in the square were onlookers, media or people who didn't hold placards supporting the group.
"We are confident that anyone who came to Parliament Square today to hold a placard expressing support for Palestine Action was either arrested or is in the process of being arrested," the police force said in a statement.
On Friday, police said the demonstration was unusual in that the protesters wanted to be arrested in large numbers so as to place a strain on police and the broader criminal justice system.
Why the group is being banned
The government moved to ban Palestine Action after the activists broke into a British air force base in southern England on June 20 to protest British military support for the Israel-Hamas war. The activists sprayed red paint into the engines of two tanker planes at the RAF Brize Norton base in Oxfordshire and caused further damage with crowbars.
Palestine Action had previously targeted Israeli defense contractors and other sites in the United Kingdom that they believe have links with the Israeli military.
Supporters of the group are challenging the ban in court, saying the government has gone too far in declaring Palestine Action a terrorist organization.
"Once the meaning of 'terrorism' is separated from campaigns of violence against a civilian population, and extended to include those causing economic damage or embarrassment to the rich, the powerful and the criminal, then the right to freedom of expression has no meaning and democracy is dead," Defend Our Juries said on its website.