Mass Arrests at Peaceful London Protest Over Palestine Action Ban

Various Sources

On August 9, 2025, London’s Metropolitan Police arrested 474 people during a protest in Parliament Square organized by Defend Our Juries, in response to the UK government's recent ban on the activist group Palestine Action.

466 of these arrests were simply for showing support for Palestine Action, which was proscribed in July under the Terrorism Act 2000, making support for the group a criminal offense punishable by up to 14 years in prison.

In a shockingly anti-democratic action, even by the low standards of the UK, at 1:00 PM, protesters simultaneously revealed signs reading: “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.” and then sat silently while police began systematically arresting those holding placards. This was their "crime".

The Met described it as the largest mass arrest in a single day in the past decade.

A spokesperson for Defend Our Juries said earlier: “The fact that unprecedented numbers came out today risking arrest and possible imprisonment shows how repulsed and ashamed people are about our government’s ongoing complicity in a livestreamed genocide, and the lengths people are prepared to go to defend this country’s ancient liberties.”

Chief executive of Amnesty International, Sacha Deshmukh, said people outraged by the "ongoing genocide" in Gaza were "entitled under international human rights law to express their horror".

"The protesters in Parliament Square were not inciting violence and it is entirely disproportionate to the point of absurdity to be treating them as terrorists," he said.

Before Saturday's protest, over 200 individuals had been arrested nationwide for similar reasons since the home secretary imposed the ban last month.

In the past week, backing from civil society groups for Palestine Action and those advocating for the reversal of the ban increased in anticipation of the protest. Over 300 Jewish Britons, including film director Mike Leigh, children's author Michael Rosen, and Geoffrey Bindman, a former legal advisor to Prime Minister Keir Starmer, labeled the ban as "illegitimate" in a letter addressed to Downing Street.

"The government should stop deflecting attention from genocide by linking nonviolent protest to terrorism," read the letter.

The ban imposed by the government, announced by Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, is facing a legal challenge that the U.K. High Court is set to hear in November. The court has approved a full judicial review for Huda Ammori, co-founder of Palestine Action.

Supporters of the group have stated that, based on their legal counsel, if the ban is lifted, individuals detained by the police could file lawsuits for wrongful arrest.

Last month, United Nations human rights chief Volker Türk cautioned that the U.K.'s designation of the group "is at odds with the U.K.'s obligations under international human rights law" and noted that "according to international standards, terrorist acts should be confined to criminal acts intended to cause death or serious injury or to the taking of hostages"—not merely property damage.

These mass arrests come as support in the UK for both Israel's genocide in Gaza and the Keir Starmer government are tanking spectacularly.