“On Thursday, alongside others, including Stephen Kapos, an 87 year old Holocaust survivor, I received a letter from the Metropolitan Police summoning me to attend ‘a formal interview’ in relation to the Palestine Solidarity Campaign protest of Jan 18th. It remains to be seen if this will result in charges,” Abdalla wrote on social media. “I’ve expressed my feelings on the experience of that day on previous posts available online. The right to protest is under attack in this country and it requires us all to defend it. While there is an alarming rise in attempts to censor voices that stand up for Palestine, even as it faces open calls for ethnic cleansing, it will not work. The days of silencing after intimidation are gone. The stakes are too high, and as we can see today with No Other Land winning at the Oscars, momentum is on the side of justice, and shared humanity.”
PSC called the letters an “apparently co-ordinated attack against the Palestine solidarity movement” and argued against the “increasingly draconian restrictions on demonstrations.” “What is claimed by the police as justification for this massive overreach of their powers is a complete misrepresentation of what took place, not just on the day but beforehand,” the org wrote in part in its statement. “We will not be cowed by these attacks on our rights. We demand that the Metropolitan Police halt any prosecutions or proceedings against those involved in this entirely peaceful protest. We further insist that the Metropolitan Police respects the right to protest and that it ceases to take instruction from those who are determined to back Israel’s genocidal actions, to maintain British state support for them, and to drive our movement off the streets.”
In his post, Abdalla wrote, “I will not be making further comment on the Jan 18th protest for legal reasons, for now, but in every other way, I will continue to put my energies towards the better world that we so clearly need, and which requires all of us to work together to turn into a reality. Let us be the change we want to see in the world, and make it happen.”
