Last Friday (12 July), Waseem Yousaf, a well-known and beloved Palestine activist in Tower Hamlets, was punched, put in a headlock, thrown to the ground, and then arrested by the police.
This was a clear act of politically-motivated police brutality. Yousaf was conducting charity work for Gaza outside the East London Mosque in Whitechapel. And as he did so, he was wearing Palestine solidarity signs and had two large Palestine flags on his car.
Following this brutal and unprovoked assault, images and footage of Yousaf’s repression went viral, sparking outrage locally.
Police brutality against well known local Palestine solidarity activist. Whitechapel, Tower Hamlets, east London. Share widely. pic.twitter.com/10VhtnAnKe
— Jorge Martin ☭ (@marxistJorge) July 12, 2024
Early that evening, RCP comrades joined Yousaf’s sister and a dozen others outside Bethnal Green police station. Upon arriving and seeing a copy of The Communist, two of the protesters immediately bought a copy before even being asked. One identified as a communist, singing the praises of Fiona Lali.
Initially, Yousaf’s sister was told by the police that her brother had been moved to a different police station. This was a lie – told to disorientate and disperse the crowd that was beginning to gather.
As the crowd began to grow, with around 20 people chanting outside the station, the police began to circle in riot vans, shooting daggers out of their eyes at the assembled protesters.
Each time the van passed, the chanting crowd rallied in defiance, with shouts of “hey hey, ho ho, police brutality has got to go”, alongside calls for justice and for Yousaf to be released.
By 10pm, an hour before the solidarity rally was set to start, the crowd had already grown to hundreds of people. At this point, the police barred the station doors shut. Their tactics quickly changed from intimidation to calls for calm, peace, and due process.
Big crowd outside Bethnal Green police station to protest police brutality against well-known local Palestine activist earlier on outside East London Mosque in Whitechapel https://t.co/gLqQqZczBD pic.twitter.com/YEzRXIn171
— Jorge Martin ☭ (@marxistJorge) July 12, 2024
Tower Hamlets Mayor Lutfur Rahman was brought in to try to defuse the situation. He argued that “one bad apple should not tarnish the whole organisation”, and that police in the borough had always “supported the community”.
Rahman then appealed to demonstrators, having handed over their letter of protest, to go home and allow matters to follow due course. But nobody heeded his advice.
“RELEASE HIM NOW! RELEASE HIM NOW!”
Mayor @LutfurRahmanTH speaking outside Bethnal Green Police Station tonight addressing residents protesting against the police assault and arrest of a local pro-Palestine campaigner in Tower Hamlets. pic.twitter.com/EIuChNLTt1
— 5Pillars (@5Pillarsuk) July 12, 2024
Yousaf was released on bail – but without charge – in the early hours of the morning, and was greeted by the crowd outside. In response to this scandalous repression, he and his family will be carrying out legal action against the Met Police.
A further demonstration to protest against state attacks on the Palestine solidarity movement has been called for Tuesday 16 July at 6pm, outside Bethnal Green police station.
At nearly 5am the Palestinian activist brutalised by police in Whitechapel was released outside Bethnal Green police station. https://t.co/gLqQqZc1M5 pic.twitter.com/1ONm15Ubxd
— Jorge Martin ☭ (@marxistJorge) July 13, 2024
Palestine protestors arrested at King’s Speech demo
Aisha Carlosse
On 17 July, King Charles, a gilded symbol of the rising inequality in Britain, opened Keir Starmer’s Parliament with his speech announcing the new government’s legislative agenda.
Continuing their recent actions, Youth Demand were planning to peacefully demonstrate as Britain’s head of state processed through Westminster, by waving Palestinian flags – a protest against the government’s continued endorsement of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.
Protestors were assembled in Victoria Embankment at 9:30am, ready to make their way to the rally together. I came along to show solidarity, and to put forward a revolutionary perspective.
But this assembly was short-lived. As activists gave opening speeches, before any action had even begun, police officers began to encircle us.
One person who tried to leave as the police advanced was stopped and told to rejoin the group. And as almost one hundred cops assembled outside the newly-formed kettle, groups of officers began to close in, making arrests one-by-one for almost two hours.
Each individual was swarmed by three or four officers, with many being forcefully carried off. One Muslim woman who requested that she not be handled by men was told that this request was ‘not practical’, and was pulled away shouting.
Due to a shortage of caged vans, nonviolent protesters were placed in handcuffs and brought to various police stations across London.
Here, we were invasively searched; stripped of ‘dangerous’ items such as earrings and shoelaces; and held in solitary cells for hours on end, as officers ‘investigated’ the bogus charges being made against us.
I was released on bail at around 7pm. But many fellow protestors were held until well past midnight, before being unceremoniously dumped onto the streets, sometimes hours away from home.
Our supposed offence? “Conspiracy to commit a public nuisance.”
These traumatising events stand as salient proof of the real purpose of the police. Far from protecting and serving working people, the police are an arm of the capitalist state; a tool of the ruling class to maintain their privileges and positions.
Whilst ordinary people across London are starving, our newly-elected ‘Labour’ government has decided to spend its time and resources repressing workers and students who dare to speak out against this rotten regime.
We stand in solidarity with all those arrested, and defend the right to protest. The real criminals are in Parliament, Buckingham Palace, and the City, not on the streets.
University bosses and police collaborate to spy on student Palestine solidarity movement
Charlie Edwards, UEA RCP
A recent report by the Metro newspaper has revealed that many universities across the UK have been spying on pro-Palestine students, at the behest of the police. And UEA (University of East Anglia) in Norwich is no exception.
The article notes that police have specifically advised UEA management to monitor the university’s Marxist society, which is run by RCP comrades. And indeed, on multiple occasions, the police have been called out to monitor our Palestine-related events. This harassment has also been conducted by campus security.
At a number of universities, meanwhile, the police have helped to repress and clear student encampments in recent months.
The authorities are all acting in the imperialist interests of the British establishment – silencing and disrupting the activities of those showing solidarity and support for the Palestinian masses.
Alongside this intimidation, university bosses are attacking the lowest paid workers at UEA, threatening jobs and slashing wages. At the top, meanwhile, they are maintaining the salaries of the executives, who ‘earn’ upwards of £100,000, and of the vice-chancellor, who takes home a staggering £290,000 per year.
It is clear that the UEA bosses are loyal lapdogs to the British ruling class: walking in step with our genocidal government, all while protecting their profits and positions.
Queen Mary bosses spend close to £1 million policing the Palestine encampment
Bogdan Farcas, Queen Mary RCP
On Friday 12 July, the Palestine encampment at Queen Mary University of London (QMUL) was finally evicted after 61 days of struggle. Bailiffs arrived at 5:30 in the morning to kick out the camping students.
These bailiffs added to the long list of expenses incurred by the Queen Mary bosses, which according to one source includes:
- £160k spent on lawyers to drag their own students to court and attain a possession order against the camp;
- £600k spent on bolstered security throughout the duration of the encampment, to police the perimeter of the entire campus and intimidate the students.
This reveals how rotten vice chancellor Colin Bailey and his band of bureaucrats are.
QMUL’s facilities are falling apart; staff wages and conditions are continually deteriorating; and students are struggling to find affordable accommodation – and this is what the bosses choose to spend our money on!
What makes this even more disgraceful is that during the encampment, the management decided to pull its funding of the on-site Westfield Nursery, forcing it to close down. They claimed that this was due to a £120k deficit which they deemed ‘unaffordable’.
You heard that right! They have almost £800k to spend on bullying and intimidating their own students, but not £120k to spend on a nursery that a large number of local parents – including QMUL staff members – rely upon for childcare.
These fat-cats are only here to line their pockets, and they won’t hesitate to attack us when we dare to stand up to them.
They clearly can’t run QMUL in the interests of staff, students, and the wider community. We need to put the university’s finances under the democratic control of staff and students, so that we can fund nurseries and education, not lawsuits and evictions!
