London’s Metropolitan Police has come under heavy criticism for reportedly threatening to arrest activists from the Campaign Against Antisemitism if they refused to turn off electronic billboards featuring images of children believed to have been taken hostage by Hamas terrorists in Israel.
This week, the Campaign Against Antisemitism group has been driving a convoy of vans with electronic billboards displaying kidnapped children throughout London in order to raise awareness about the barbaric acts of the Palestinian Hamas terror organisation during the October 7th terror attacks in Israel.
On Thursday, the campaign group shared footage on social media purporting to show the Metropolitan Police Force ordering the group to switch off their billboards or face “breach of peace” charges after they were confronted by pro-Palestine protesters. The group claimed that they were also ordered by police to leave central London.
Campaign Against Antisemitism chief executive Gideon Falter said: “How on earth could police stop people in central London, in our capital, from showing the pictures of children kidnapped by a terrorist organised banned by our government?”
Falter described the incident as “one of the most disturbing” experiences he has had since working for the charity for nearly a decade. The CAA said that it is considering legal actions against the London police force for its “abysmal failure to uphold our rights and protect British Jews.”
In response to the footage posted on social media, the Met said in a statement: “We have watched the video and we understand why this has caused concern. The officers were in the area because of a vigil that was happening nearby organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.
“We have reviewed the body-worn video of the officers involved to establish the full sequence of events. This exchange happened at around the same time as the vigil came to an end and the priority of officers was the safety of everyone involved and those nearby.
“We will be making contact with the Campaign Against Antisemitism to discuss the matter further and update them on the work taking place across the Met to tackle hate crime.”
However, the campaign group said that the police’s response “does not hold water”, saying that the streets were “empty” when their vans were shut down for a second time, adding that Falter was “was physically restrained from speaking to the drivers.”
“We have seen all too well the fruits of the ‘work taking place across the Met to tackle hate crime’: demonstrations on our streets and incitement on social media surging, versus the rapid shutting down of our billboards,” the charity said.
“If you want to protect Jews, instead of telling us to go home and hide the faces of children kidnapped by a proscribed terrorist organisation whose founding charter calls for our annihilation, try letting us exercise our right to call for their safe return and arrest the protesters breaching the peace and intimidating our people. That’s how you ‘tackle hate crime’.”
The incident has spurred widespread condemnation of the police force. Baroness Claire Fox of the House of Lords said: “So shocking. [The] way cops throw around ‘breach of the peace’ threats [and] ‘for your own safety’ sums up my fears of expansion of policing powers/speech laws that can be used against any demonstrations and used to censor [and] in this case, outrageously silence those fighting antisemitism.”
Political commentator Emma Webb added: “The police have no teeth, so they only have an appetite [for] soft targets. Instead of clearing out those celebrating a massacre of Jews, they tell a Jewish org to turn off its billboard showing the children kidnapped by Hamas terrorists. [Met Police,] what is wrong with you?”