The Home Office has granted the Metropolitan Police permission to ban a controversial pro-Iranian march that was due to take place in central London on Saturday.
Shabana Mahmood said the drastic action – which marks the first time a protest march has been banned since 2012 – was necessary to prevent "serious public disorder" at the annual event, which the Met described as “uniquely contentious” this year.
The organisers of the annual Al Quds Day march, the Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC), claim the event is actually pro-Palestine, but the rally has previously drawn controversy for displays of support for anti-Israel groups, with demands to ban the event intensifying post-October 7.
Mahmood said a stationary demonstration could take place instead under strict conditions.
She said in statement: "I am satisfied doing so is necessary to prevent serious public disorder, due to the scale of the protest and multiple counter-protests, in the context of the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.
"Should a stationary demonstration proceed, the police will be able to apply strict conditions. I expect to see the full force of the law applied to anyone spreading hatred and division instead of exercising their right to peaceful protest."
Assistant Commissioner Ade Adelekan, public order lead for the Met, said the ban applied to the “Al Quds march and any associated counter-protest marches" and would be in place for one month from 4pm today.
He said: "The Al Quds march is uniquely contentious having originated in Iran and in London is organised by the Islamic Human Rights Commission, an organisation supportive of the Iranian regime.”
Noting that the power to ban a march had not been used since 2012, he said the Met had "safely policed hundreds of protests from across the political spectrum including 32 major pro-Palestinian protests and many more both pro and anti the Iranian regime".
But, he continued: “In our assessment this march raises unique risks and challenges.”
Adelekan added: “We must consider the likely high numbers of protestors and counter-protestors coming together and the extreme tensions between different factions. We have taken into consideration the likely impact on protests of the volatile situation in the Middle East, with the Iranian regime attacking British allies and military bases overseas."
Previous Al Quds marches had "resulted in arrests for supporting terrorist organisations and antisemitic hate crimes", the assistant commissioner said.
"However, the decision to ban it this year is purely based on a risk assessment of this specific protest and counter-protests – we do not police taste or decency or prefer one political view over another, but we will do everything we can to reduce violence and disorder," he added.
Representatives of the IHRC have described Iran's assassinated supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as a martyr and a “rare role model” after he was killed in US-Israeli strikes on February 28.
Some attendees in previous years have called for Israel to be “wiped off the map” while carrying the flags of Iranian-backed terror group Hezbollah.
The demonstration is held every year during Ramadan and is named for the Arabic name for Jerusalem.
Sarah Sackman, the Labour MP for Finchley and Golders Green, is among the politicians who this year urged the government to prevent the march from taking place.
Yesterday Sackman, a trained barrister and courts minister, became the first minister to call for the ban, saying yesterday that the rally had “no place in British society”.
She also described some protesters participating in the march – which was started by the first Iranian ayatollah, Ruhollah Khomeini, in 1979 – “calling for hate”.
The minister, who is Jewish, told Times Radio: “I’m clear that hate on marches like the Al Quds march has no place in British society. The authorities and the police should take the enforcement action needed against these marches.”
She later told LBC that the marchers “shouldn’t be on the streets of London calling for hate and hostility against this country. That’s thoroughly anti-British.”
Sackman’s intervention followed a letter from 90 cross-party MPs and peers urging the home secretary to halt the march. If the rally proceeded, they said, it would send an “unmistakably troubling message”. Jewish groups also called for it to be prohibited.
Former Met chief superintendent Dal Babu, who sits on the London Policing Board, which scrutinises the force, said it was a "very, very serious decision [to stop the march] but it would have been based on police intelligence".
He told the BBC: "There are restrictions placed on marches and demonstrations, but an outright ban is extremely unusual… I think we need to trust the police, trust their judgement."
Chief secretary to the prime minister Darren Jones said the government is "very careful about these types of interventions because... so long as you're legal and peaceful you can protest on anything you like in this country."
"We have freedom of speech and that's something that we all care about," he told BBC Breakfast.
The IHRC describes Al Quds Day as an "international demonstration... in support of Palestinians and all the oppressed around the world".
Speaking on behalf of the group, Faisal Bodi told Radio 4’s The World Tonight programme ahead of the announcement: "If it's true then it's a sad day for freedom of expression, freedom of assembly and the right of people to legitimately protest about issues they feel strongly about."
He added: “This demonstration has taken place for the last 40 years peacefully.”
Asked if he would hold up a picture of the late ayatollah, Bodi said: "Happily.”
"I'd rather hold a picture of the ayatollah than Keir Starmer or Donald Trump… He was a man of principle, a man of integrity, a man who stood for justice."
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