La Pethick, an 89-year old retired psychotherapist, one of 466 people arrested yesterday, is removed by 4 policemen.
For holding cardboard signs saying “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action.”
She and her fellow activists triggered the police into arresting over 120 more than the previous largest number of arrests in a single protest, thought to be the poll tax riots in 1990.
The photo is by Toby Shepheard for the Sunday Times.
#gaza #democracy
https://archive.ph/2025.08.09-205507/https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/palestine-action-protests-march-5jgf7q6q8
@urlyman@mastodon.social @AnnaAnthro@mastodon.social Forgive my ignorance, but since when is peaceful protest illegal? In Canada, we have very strongly upheld constitutional rights to freedoms of speech & association, which protect our right to peaceful protest. I thought the UK had similar laws. What am I missing?
@urlyman@mastodon.social imagine being immortalized as the person who carried someone that age off to jail.
…Before the protest, a spokesperson for the Metropolitan police said: “We are aware that the organisers of Saturday’s planned protest are encouraging hundreds of people to turn out with the intention of placing a strain on the police and the wider criminal justice system.”’
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/09/defiance-grows-uk-ban-palestine-protest-group-action
Which is exactly what is needed when idiot MPs pass bad law sculpted by a reactionary Home Secretary propping up indefensible foreign policy from a Labour government full of shit
@urlyman@mastodon.social bloody hell, Engerland is a dangerous place. Full of little old ladies ( that is NOT a pejorative) trying to save the world. Ty!
@urlyman@mastodon.social
The police are allowed to prioritise the crimes that they choose to devote effort to solving. Every crime that was not investigated by the Met Police over the weekend because they decided to arrest non-violent protesters was a policy decision by their leadership. Newspapers need to start listing every crime that was not investigated because the police decided to prioritise pointless activity.
…When a government takes 19 months to participate in dropping food aid that actually kills people when it lands on them instead of doing anything substantive to undermine a psychopathic government it still sends military supplies to, I think we know who the terrorists are.
And it ain’t people holding signs or throwing paint
@urlyman@mastodon.social Good trouble
Jonathan Schofield
