In an in depth briefing forward of the demonstration as a consequence of happen in Parliament Sq. at 12:50pm this Saturday, organisers have shared authorized contacts and urged individuals to “take care of one another” as they probably anticipate police involvement.
Native healthcare officers declare Israel has killed greater than 60,000 Palestinians since October 2023, with a rising variety of individuals 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 going down in our courts.”
The group believes that the impartial rights of juries within the UK are being threatened, significantly in circumstances heard by judges concerning 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 essentially the most primary rules of pure justice and the precise to a good trial.”
An instance of the kind of factor they’re involved about is when a choose 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 choose banned the defendants from telling the jury they had been protesting concerning the local weather disaster and gas poverty.
Though Defend Our Juries isn’t tied to some other organisation, Crosland was one in all dozens of people that had 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 mentioned: “In principle, we are actually terrorist supporters and might go to jail for 14 years, which is form 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 “carry the ban” which was imposed on Palestine Motion in July 2025 after they had 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 comparable to Lord Walney, dishonestly offered to the general public as ‘impartial advisers’, Palestine Motion have been branded as a ‘terrorist organisation’, for making an attempt to cease crimes in opposition to humanity and for exposing the British authorities’s complicity in genocide,” Defend Our Juries mentioned.
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 mentioned.
“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 injury or embarrassment to the wealthy, the highly effective and the felony, then the precise to freedom of expression has no which means and democracy is useless. 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 going down tomorrow in central London: Carry The Ban (LTB) and the Nationwide March for Palestine.
Defend Our Juries has revealed that greater than 500 individuals have agreed to participate in tomorrow’s LTB demonstration, the place they may peacefully sit with their placards for round an hour from 1pm.
On the sound of Massive Ben, these participating are planning to write down “I OPPOSE GENOCIDE, I SUPPORT PALESTINE ACTION” on their indicators.
Based on the group’s briefing, “there’s a substantial threat of arrest”, however at this level it’s onerous to inform what’s going to occur subsequent. The Met Police have confirmed to The Normal that arrests are possible for people who present assist for Palestine Motion.
The police have detained earlier teams displaying such indicators, but it surely appears to be like like organisers suspect the sheer quantity of protestors participating this time might make this tough.
Organisers are telling attendees: “Count on to be arrested.”
The briefing provides: “500 is greater than double the entire variety of individuals arrested underneath the Terrorism Act in 2024.
“It could be virtually and politically tough 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 could be incalculable, inflicting irreparable injury to the repute of the federal government and the police. Our evaluation is that an motion on this scale may very well be sufficient for the ban to be lifted.”
Their efforts come because the group additionally makes an attempt to demand that the UK authorities carry a ban that’s been imposed on Palestine Action after it was proscribed as a terrorist organisation final month.
Based on the group’s briefing, they believe that it wouldn’t be “virtually or politically doable for the police to arrest 500 individuals for holding cardboard indicators in opposition to the genocide,” and it would “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 mentioned.
“The Met could be very skilled in coping with massive scale protests, together with the place the protest exercise crosses into criminality requiring arrests. Whereas we is not going to go into the particular particulars of our plan, the general public might be assured that we are going to have the assets and processes in place to reply to any eventuality.
They continued: “Our officers will proceed to use the legislation in relation to Palestine Motion as we’ve executed since its proscription. Anybody exhibiting assist for the group can count on to be arrested.”
