In an in depth briefing forward of the demonstration resulting from happen in Parliament Sq. at 12:50pm this Saturday, organisers have shared authorized contacts and urged folks to “take care of one another” as they doubtlessly anticipate police involvement.
Native healthcare officers declare Israel has killed greater than 60,000 Palestinians since October 2023, with a rising variety of folks world wide are calling for an finish to the battle. However some activists within the UK argue that they’re being silenced.
However who’re Defend Our Juries?
Defend Our Juries: What’s it?
Defend Our Juries was initially based by a former authorities lawyer named Tim Crosland to focus on the “constitutional disaster happening in our courts.”
The group believes that the impartial rights of juries within the UK are being threatened, significantly in circumstances heard by judges relating to environmental activists and people arrested for taking direct motion to cease racial injustice or finish the battle in Gaza.
As juries initially discovered many of those activists “not responsible”, the group claims that lobbyists and justices try to wield energy over juries and courts that “violate probably the most fundamental rules of pure justice and the appropriate to a good trial.”
An instance of the kind of factor they’re involved about is when a decide discovered two Insulate Britain activists in contempt of court docket and jailed them for seven weeks for mentioning the local weather disaster of their closing statements. It got here after the decide banned the defendants from telling the jury they have been protesting concerning the local weather disaster and gas poverty.
Though Defend Our Juries isn’t tied to some other organisation, Crosland was one among dozens of people that have been reportedly arrested days after Palestine Motion was proscribed as a terrorist group, when police descended on a gaggle of peaceable protestors holding up indicators calling for an finish to genocide in solidarity with Palestine Motion.
Talking earlier than his arrest, Crosland stated: “In idea, we are actually terrorist supporters and may go to jail for 14 years, which is type of loopy. I believe what we’re right here to do is simply expose the craziness of that.”
Considered one of their newest campaigns has centred on calls to “elevate the ban” which was imposed on Palestine Motion in July 2025 after they have been proscribed a terrorist organisation – a transfer that many rights teams have criticised.
“Following intensive lobbying by representatives of the Israeli authorities and the arms trade akin to Lord Walney, dishonestly offered to the general public as ‘impartial advisers’, Palestine Motion have been branded as a ‘terrorist organisation’, for attempting to cease crimes in opposition to humanity and for exposing the British authorities’s complicity in genocide,” Defend Our Juries stated.
They’re now demonstrating in an try to lift consciousness and name for the ban to be lifted.
“It’s important that our marketing campaign succeeds – not only for Palestine Motion however for democracy,” they stated.
“As soon as the which means of ‘terrorism’ is separated from campaigns of violence in opposition to a civilian inhabitants, and prolonged to incorporate these inflicting financial harm or embarrassment to the wealthy, the highly effective and the felony, then the appropriate to freedom of expression has no which means and democracy is lifeless. If we let this go, the unions, and local weather and racial justice actions will likely be subsequent.”
What to anticipate from the Defend Our Juries demonstration
There are literally two demonstrations happening tomorrow in central London: Elevate The Ban (LTB) and the Nationwide March for Palestine.
Defend Our Juries has revealed that greater than 500 folks have agreed to participate in tomorrow’s LTB demonstration, the place they are going to peacefully sit with their placards for round an hour from 1pm.
On the sound of Huge Ben, these participating are planning to write down “I OPPOSE GENOCIDE, I SUPPORT PALESTINE ACTION” on their indicators.
In response to the group’s briefing, “there’s a substantial threat of arrest”, however at this level it’s laborious to inform what is going to occur subsequent. The Met Police have confirmed to The Normal that arrests are seemingly for people who present assist for Palestine Motion.
The police have detained earlier teams displaying such indicators, but it surely appears like organisers suspect the sheer quantity of protestors participating this time might make this troublesome.
Organisers are telling attendees: “Anticipate to be arrested.”
The briefing provides: “500 is greater than double the entire variety of folks arrested beneath the Terrorism Act in 2024.
“It might be virtually and politically troublesome for the state to reply to an motion on this scale. Even assuming it had the bodily capability to arrest so many individuals on the identical day, the political fallout from such an operation can be incalculable, inflicting irreparable harm to the fame of the federal government and the police. Our evaluation is that an motion on this scale could possibly be sufficient for the ban to be lifted.”
Their efforts come because the group additionally makes an attempt to demand that the UK authorities elevate a ban that’s been imposed on Palestine Motion after it was proscribed as a terrorist organisation final month.
In response to the group’s briefing, they believe that it wouldn’t be “virtually or politically attainable for the police to arrest 500 folks for holding cardboard indicators in opposition to the genocide,” and it’d “be sufficient to make sure the ban is lifted.”
A Met Police spokesperson confirmed to The Normal that those that present assist for Palestine Motion “can count on to be arrested.”
“We’re conscious that the organisers of Saturday’s deliberate protest are encouraging a whole bunch of individuals end up with the intention of inserting a pressure on the police and the broader felony justice system,” the spokesperson stated.
“The Met may be very skilled in coping with giant scale protests, together with the place the protest exercise crosses into criminality requiring arrests. Whereas we won’t go into the precise particulars of our plan, the general public could be assured that we’ll have the sources and processes in place to reply to any eventuality.
They continued: “Our officers will proceed to use the regulation in relation to Palestine Motion as we have now finished since its proscription. Anybody exhibiting assist for the group can count on to be arrested.”
