Gaza Genocide Emergency Committee (GGEC) wishes to register its deep concern over Police Scotland’s handling of the protest outside Thales weapons factory, Glasgow, on Wednesday 15 May 2024.
We have seen multiple reports and witness claims of unnecessary police intimidation and heavy-handed treatment of people engaged in peaceful protest.
This includes the disturbing harassment of journalists and photographers carrying out their legitimate work.
🗣️'Let's have a selfie, big man. Are you still not going to take a direction from a constable in uniform?'
— The National (@ScotNational) May 15, 2024
NEW: A journalist at The National was threatened with arrest by a police officer while attempting to cover a major protest outside a Glasgow arms factory
Full video 👇 pic.twitter.com/0ldFLmORit
Green MSP Maggie Chapman has already written to Police Scotland to express her own party’s concerns over police conduct on the day.
Other journalists present carried witness accounts of the overall intimidation, one describing police action as “brutal and idiotic behaviour”.
With the International Court of Justice citing a “plausible“ case of genocide in Gaza, and International Criminal Court arrest warrants out for leading Israeli figures Netanyahu and Gallant, there are now mounting global calls and strong political support for the stopping of all arms to Israel.
Thus, protesters at these weapons factories, and those covering such actions, must have an assurance of rightful assembly and the freedom to make these urgent calls without fear of provocative police action and threat of arrest.
Worryingly, police deployment on this day suggests a significant departure from policing approaches at recent peaceful protests outside other arms factories.
We are concerned that the police operation at Thales signals a new and more confrontational strategy by Police Scotland.
We ask that the First Minister, Justice and Home Affairs Secretary, and Police Scotland undertake a critical review of the policing operation at Thales and consider the serious implications of any such change of strategy.
The scenes of police brutality being carried out against pro-Palestine demonstrators on US campuses, and similar beating of protesters on the streets of European cities, is a reminder of the value that must be placed on our general right to free expression, our particular obligation at this crucial moment to oppose Israel’s criminal actions, and our responsibility to close down the corporate arms firms serving to enable that genocide.
We urge that the policing of any such event remains mindful of these key international legalities, the need for emergency responses, and the right to free, peaceful protest.