Scotland Yard arrested a Jewish protester after he held up a placard mocking a leader of Hezbollah. The Brit, who asked to remain anonymous out of fears for his safety, was detained and charged in September last year after displaying an image of Hassan Nasrallah with a pager and the words “beep, beep, beep”.
The placard was a satirical take on an attack aimed at Hezbollah terrorists by Israel in which exploding pagers and walkie-talkies killed 42 people. Nasrallah survived the attack, but was killed a week later in an airstrike. According to the Telegraph, the Jewish man held the placard for fewer than three minutes at a counter-demonstration in Swiss Cottage, North London, on September 20.
During a police interview, the man was asked if he thought the image would offend activists on a pro-Palestinian march. This was despite Hezbollah being a terror group proscribed by Britain.
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp claimed what happened was another example of “two-tier policing”. He told the Telegraph, which first reported the arrest: “In recent times, the police have failed to act when confronted with protesters calling for jihad and intifada in London.
“Yet this man was apparently arrested because he might have offended supporters of a banned terrorist organisation. This is two-tier policing in action.
“The law is rightly clear that supporting banned terrorist groups, inciting violence, inciting racial hatred or harassing people is illegal. Beyond that, free speech applies to everyone.
“The police sometimes turn a blind eye when applying the law might be difficult, yet over-police at other times. The law should be applied equally to all, robustly and without fear or favour. That is not what happened here.”
Lord Walney, a former extremism tsar, told the same publication: “We all understand the police have a difficult job preventing protests escalating into disorder, but the idea that officers intervened on the side of supporters of a proscribed terrorist organisation is grotesque.”
He called for the incident to be investigated and the Met should issue a full apology if the Jewish man’s claims are upheld.
The Metropolitan Police said the officer had clearly misspoke when she described those in the protest as pro-Hezbollah instead of pro-Palestinian.
A spokesman for the force added that the man was charged following a careful consideration of the evidence and that the Met would attempt to learn lessons from the episode.
The spokesman said: “We will reflect on the CPS (Crown Prosecution Service) decision not to proceed with the case, applying any learning to future investigations.”
Scotland Yard’s spokesman said the force takes support for proscribed organisations very seriously and since October 2023 it has made 28 arrests under the Terrorism Act for offences at protests, including wearing clothing or displaying symbols that indicated support for such groups, including Hezbollah.
He added: “This is in addition to the hundreds of arrests made for other offences.”
