🔗 Share this article

News Source

Britain's Home Secretary voiced dismay that Palestinian-supporting protests went ahead on Thursday evening after the terrorist incident that took the lives of two men near a Jewish place of worship in Manchester.

The top security official additionally urged protesters to "reconsider" from intentions to stage marches in the next few days.

"In my view that proceeding in this fashion does feel contrary to British values, it seems inappropriate," she remarked regarding protests scheduled for this weekend.

Demonstrators in downtown London demonstrating against the Israeli navy intercepting a aid convoy carrying humanitarian assistance to Gaza clashed with police officers near Downing Street on Thursday evening.

Numerous people displaying flags of Palestine and signs could be observed on Whitehall into the night.

London's police force reported that fourty individuals had been arrested. Six of those detained were detained over assaults on police officers.

"It is important to establish separation between events unfolding in the Middle East and situations developing at home," the minister remarked on a breakfast show on Friday.

"I would say to people who are considering to join a demonstration is to pause and reflect for a minute, and imagine if you had suffered the loss of a loved one to a terrorist incident in this nation," she continued.

There were "robust" powers to protect the right to protest, she noted, but they could be superseded on the advice of the police.

"I can follow guidance from the law enforcement, if they were to tell me there was an inability to handle and to control the demonstrations, then there are authorities that are accessible," she elaborated.

Jewish community leaders voice apprehensions

The UK's Chief Rabbi stated that many people of the Jewish community wondered why protests in solidarity of Palestinian advocacy groups had been permitted to occur.

The group was outlawed as a terrorist organisation in the summer. At multiple protests after that, numerous individuals have been arrested for expressing solidarity for the group, which has won permission to challenge the restriction.

"A portion of them contain explicit antisemitism, direct support for the militant group. Not all participants, however there is so much of this, which clearly poses risky to many within our community," the religious leader stated.

"You cannot separate the speech on our streets, the actions of individuals in this manner, and what inevitably results, which was the recent terrorist attack."

Additionally, he urged the government "once more", to "assert authority on these demonstrations, they are harmful."