Two major British police forces have announced they will arrest protesters chanting "globalise the intifada" at future demonstrations. The Metropolitan Police and Greater Manchester Police chiefs stated the decision reflects a "recalibration to be more assertive" following the Bondi Beach terror attack in Australia, where 15 people were killed at a Hanukkah celebration.
Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley and Greater Manchester Police Chief Constable Sir Stephen Watson issued a joint statement on Wednesday declaring: «We know communities are concerned about placards and chants such as 'globalise the intifada' and those using it at future protest or in a targeted way should expect the Met and GMP to take action. Violent acts have taken place, the context has changed – words have meaning and consequence. We will act decisively and make arrests.»
Bondi Beach Attack Prompts Policy Shift
The police chiefs cited the Bondi Beach mass shooting as changing the enforcement context. Naveed Akram, 24, has been charged with 15 counts of murder and committing a terrorist attack after he and his father Sajid Akram, 50, allegedly opened fire on a crowd of more than 1,000 people celebrating Hanukkah in the Archer Park area of Bondi Beach on Sunday. Sajid Akram was shot dead by police at the scene.
The first funerals for victims, including London-born Rabbi Eli Schlanger, took place on Wednesday.
Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis told the Press Association after the attack: «We have seen on a weekly basis people out in the streets of cities in our country crying slogans which incite hatred – 'from the river to the sea', 'globalise the intifada'. What does 'globalise the intifada' mean? Well, on Yom Kippur at the Heaton Park Synagogue in Manchester, we discovered what it means. On Bondi Beach, Australians discovered what is meant by those words. The time has come for us to make it absolutely clear that such speech is unlawful. It's not going to be accepted. It's gone on for far too long. So much of hate speech has the potential to become translated into hate action.»
Sharply Divided Responses
Jewish organizations welcomed the police announcement. The Community Security Trust called it «a necessary and important first step to turning back this tide of violent incitement» and a «more robust response to violent language on protests.» The group expressed hope that police forces across the country and the Crown Prosecution Service would follow suit.
The Campaign Against Antisemitism stated police chiefs «may finally be waking up» and «have finally realised that words and chants have consequences» after «two years of repeatedly excusing genocidal rhetoric and failing to grasp how their inaction was fuelling extremism in this country.»
Ben Jamal of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign sharply condemned the move: «The statement by the Met and GMP marks another low in the political repression of protest for Palestinian rights.» He added: «The police have not consulted with the Palestine coalition who organise the major protests in London, nor representative groups of the Palestinian community in Britain, before making this far-reaching statement on our rights. The Arabic word intifada means shaking off or uprising against injustice. It came to prominence during the first intifada which was overwhelmingly marked by peaceful protest that was brutally repressed by the Israeli state. The implication that slogans used to support the liberation of the Palestinian people are only open to interpretation by groups who have maintained complicit support for Israel's oppression of the Palestinian people and denial of their rights is deeply problematic.»
Legal Context and Enforcement
The police chiefs explained their shift in approach stemmed from previous legal limitations. In their joint statement, they said: «We have consistently been advised by the CPS that many of the phrases causing fear in Jewish communities don't meet prosecution thresholds. Now, in the escalating threat context, we will recalibrate to be more assertive.»
Chief Crown prosecutor Lionel Idan, hate crime lead for the Crown Prosecution Service, stated: «We are already working closely with police and communities to identify, charge and prosecute antisemitic hate crimes and we will always look at ways we can do more. We carefully consider each antisemitic hate crime case referred to us for charging decision or early advice to see whether it can be taken to court. Some offences can be context specific and where the evidence is not sufficient we will work with police to identify what more can be done to meet the threshold for charging.»
Britain's human rights regulator, the Equality and Human Rights Commission, announced it will monitor closely how police forces enforce the decision.
Note: This article was created with Artificial Intelligence (AI).
