UK police arrest over 400 people for backing pro-Palestine protest

Police in London arrested 466 people Saturday for supporting Palestine Action at the latest and largest protest backing the group since the government banned it last month under anti-terror laws.

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The Metropolitan Police said it had made the arrests, thought to be one of the highest number ever at a single protest in the UK capital, for “supporting a proscribed organization”.

It also arrested eight people for other offences including five for alleged assaults on officers, though none were seriously injured, it added.

The government outlawed Palestine Action in early July, days after it took responsibility for a break-in at an air force base in southern England that caused an estimated £7 million ($9.3 million) of damage to two aircraft.

The group said its activists were responding to Britain’s indirect military support for Israel amid the war in Gaza.

Britain’s interior ministry reiterated ahead of Saturday’s protests that Palestine Action was also suspected of other “serious attacks” that involved “violence, significant injuries and extensive criminal damage”.

But critics, including the United Nations and groups such as Amnesty International and Greenpeace, have condemned the move as legal overreach and a threat to free speech.