Met Police just BLOCKED a pro-Palestine protest from marching outside the BBC

The following article is a statement from the ‘Palestine Coalition’ of organisations

Today (Wednesday 8 January) the Palestine Coalition have been informed by the Met Police that they intend to go back on a previous agreement and impose conditions to prevent us marching from BBC HQ at Portland Place on Saturday 18 January.

Palestine march cannot march from the BBC, says Met Police

We have already announced our intention to assemble outside the BBC to protest against the pro-Israel bias of its coverage – something recently highlighted in a detailed report by journalist Owen Jones to which the Corporation has so far not responded. We utterly condemn this attempt to use repressive powers to prevent our planned protest at the BBC.

The route for the march was confirmed with the police nearly two months ago and, as agreed with them, was publicly announced on 30 November. This route, beginning at the BBC, has only been used twice in the last 15 months of demonstrations and not since February 2024. With just over a week to go, the Metropolitan Police has now reneged on our agreement and stated its intention to prevent our protest from going ahead as planned.

The BBC is a major institution – it is a publicly-funded state broadcaster and is rightly accountable to the public. It is unacceptable for the police to misuse public order powers to shield the BBC from democratic scrutiny.

Excuses, excuses

The excuse offered by the police is that our march could cause disruption to a nearby synagogue. It follows representations from pro-Israel groups and activists who have been publicly calling for action to be taken to curtail our right to protest against Israel’s ongoing genocide. This includes the Chief Rabbi, Ephraim Mirvis who has openly celebrated the horrific and criminal actions of the Israeli military in Gaza, describing them as the “most outstanding possible thing that a decent responsible country can do”.

In fact, the closest synagogue to the BBC is not even on the route of the march. Moreover, as the Met Police have acknowledged, there has not been a single incident of any threat to a synagogue attached to any of the marches. Any suggestion that our marches are somehow hostile to Jewish people ignores the fact that every march has been joined by thousands of Jewish people – many in an organised Jewish bloc – and addressed by Jewish speakers on the demonstration platforms. Representatives of the Jewish bloc have written to the police seeking a meeting to express their concerns that the police are choosing to listen solely to pro-Israel Jewish voices, but they have not had any response.

Rejecting suppression

We firmly reject any attempt to suppress our right to campaign for an end to Israel’s genocidal violence and decades long violations of the rights of the Palestinian people. In the past few weeks, Israel has intensified its indiscriminate attacks including against hospitals and civilians sheltering in so-called ‘humanitarian safe zones.’ It is this and the ongoing complicity of the British government in these crimes that continues to bring people onto the streets in huge numbers. Our marches represent a diverse cross section of the public including the Palestinian community, many of whom are relatives of those killed by Israel.

We remain in dialogue with the Metropolitan Police but call on them to immediately abandon their intention to prevent our protest at the BBC. We call on all those who are rightly outraged by Israel’s ongoing genocide and those who uphold the democratic right to protest to join us when we march in London on Saturday 18 January.

The National March for Palestine coalition is: