The first sign there might be trouble at Monday’s pro-Palestine gathering in central London was when some protesters handed out “bust cards”.
These were small cardboard printouts giving detailed advice on what to do if arrested. The gist was: reply “no comment” to all questions, never accept a police caution, and ask for a solicitor.
As the day wore on there would be a slew of arrests. Protesters in “legal observer” bibs were soon throwing around bust cards like confetti.
The protest was called for noon at Trafalgar Square after it emerged the UK government planned to use antiterrorism laws to proscribe Palestine Action.
Members of the group last week broke into Brize Norton RAF base in Oxfordshire and damaged warplanes with paint. The government alleged Palestine Action was responsible for more than 300 acts of vandalism in recent years. Its supporters said it was merely a protest.
Monday’s demonstration was originally called for Parliament Square in Westminster. Late on Sunday evening, however, London’s Metropolitan Police used anti-protest laws to ban it from near parliament and to restrict it, wherever it met, to between noon and 3pm.
Hundreds of protesters – plus vanloads of police – met at the southern end of Trafalgar Square before 12pm. The vans blocked the route to Whitehall. Protesters, meanwhile, used speakers to blare songs including the Irish republican ballad Come Out Ye Black and Tans.
One faction, led by masked protesters, peeled off to the northeastern corner of Trafalgar Square to block the bottom of Charing Cross Road, paralysing a busy West End traffic route. The rest of the crowd followed.
The atmosphere quickly grew febrile. The first scuffles broke out at 12.30pm. A couple of protesters shoved a media cameraman, sparking an altercation. Police dragged away four protesters, prompting a scrum to gather around them with chants of “shame on you”.
Two protesters in particular were prominent among those getting into officers’ faces: a masked white man aged in his 20s with pink braids in his hair, and a heavy-set black woman with short dreadlocks and mirror shades. She seemed to be challenging officers to fight.
Other protesters stayed on the margins holding protest signs or chanting slogans. The Irish Times spoke to a woman who gave her name as Hayat. She said her family originally came from Al-Khalisa, a former Palestinian village on land near the Lebanese border. The Israeli city of Kiryat Shmona now stands there.
Hayat held a blown-up picture of a Palestinian child’s refugee identification card. When asked who the child was, she said that it was her, aged four or five: “Inshallah, we will return. But this time the whole world will come with us. When I see these protests, I feel I no longer have to shout alone.”
The Irish Times witnessed at least eight arrests as the scuffles continued. The man with pink braids and the black woman in mirror shades were among them.
One protesters in his 60s was body-slammed to the ground by an officer as he tried to break through a police line at Duncannon Street. “I’m actually a bit shaken by that,” he said, as he was hauled to his feet.
As 3pm passed, police moved through the crowd threatening to arrest anyone who remained at the protest. The bulk of the crowd dispersed.
One man with a Scottish accent who was sitting on a wall was incredulous as officers surrounded him: “I was only watching. I’m only down here on my holidays, man.”
As the protest petered out, news filtered through that home secretary Yvette Cooper had confirmed a vote would be held next week to ban Palestine Action by June 30th.
