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Two pro-Palestine leaders convicted on 1 April of breaching police conditions on a Gaza protest in London have said they plan to appeal.
Palestine Solidarity Campaigner director Benjamin Jamal and Stop the War Coalition vice-chair Christopher Nineham were found guilty at Westminster Magistrates Court of breaching protest conditions on the pro-Gaza protest in central London of 18 January 2025, where the two organisers were arrested.
Both defendants were charged with failing to comply with police orders imposed under section 14 of the Public Order Act 1986, and in Jamal’s case, two charges of inciting others to defy those conditions.
A Stop the War Coalition spokesperson has told Byline Times they will be appealing the verdict to the Crown Court “as soon as we can.”
“If granted, this will mean that the case will have to be reheard, with a different Judge, and sitting with at least two magistrates,” they said.
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The arrests came after the police imposed conditions requiring a static assembly in Whitehall, and not to enter an area around the BBC’s headquarters at Portland Place, a move which sparked significant anger from pro-Gaza campaigners who wanted to challenge the BBC’s coverage of Israel’s war.
The BBC exclusion zone was imposed on 9 January, with further conditions applied on 15 and 17 January demanding a fixed procession route avoiding BBC HQ, and later a static assembly at Whitehall.
The judgment found that at around 2 pm, Jamal announced from a stage in Whitehall that anti-war coalition leaders would walk as a delegation towards the BBC, carrying flowers. He and Chris Nineham moved up Whitehall with a banner, followed by the crowds. At the first cordon, the crowd chanted ‘let us march’ before police withdrew, citing alleged safety risks.
Both defendants then entered Trafalgar Square, outside the permitted area. They asked the police for permission to continue towards the BBC. Police say the request was refused, but protesters claimed they were invited through.
Shortly after the demonstration, Zack Polanski AM, now Green Party leader, told Byline Times he believed the police “lied” by claiming marchers actively broke through police lines.
The Judge said the conditions imposed were lawful, and that the Commander acted under the correct legal powers and applied the right legal test, claiming there was a risk of serious disruption given “evidence about business disruption, crowd size, serious disruption to worshipers at nearby Synagogues and PSC’s own estimate of 100,000 participants.”
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The Judge argued both defendants clearly knew the protest conditions, given their organising roles and involvement in planning the demonstration, and that police withdrawals at cordons were “tactical” decisions rather than reflecting any amendment to the protest conditions.
But Yasmine Ahmed, UK Director of Human Rights Watch, said the ruling would send “shockwaves through civil society.”
“I believe the targeting of Ben and Chris, two prominent civil society leaders, is political and intended to intimidate and silence dissenting voices of the UK’s ongoing support for an Israeli government responsible for a catalogue of international crimes.
“The government has now crossed the Rubicon, and today’s verdict lays bare the sheer scale of powers it now possesses to silence dissent through its alarmingly repressive anti-protest laws. This verdict is a black mark on British democracy and should shame a Prime Minister who built his career defending Human Rights.”
The Judge ruled that Jamal’s speech at the protest, urging attendees to march forward with him, constituted “incitement” to breach protest conditions.
Both defendants were convicted. The Judge said that protest rights, while fundamental, are not absolute and do not permit breaching “lawfully imposed” conditions.
The pair were given a conditional discharge of 12 months for Chris Nineham and 18 months for Jamal. They were also each made to pay the prosecution £7,500 in costs within 12 months.
It comes amid growing concerns about the right to protest being eroded in the UK.
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Further Clampdown Coming
Labour’s Crime and Policing Bill, currently going through Parliament, is set to create new restrictions on protest rights.
New criminal offences relating to protests include new restrictions on concealing one’s identity at protests. It will become an offence to wear or use items that conceal a person’s identity at a protest in a designated area. A police inspector will be able to designate an area ‘mask-free’ for up to 24 hours if they reasonably believe a protest may involve the commission of offences, and a superintendent can extend that for a further 24 hours.
Defences will be available for health reasons, religious observance, or work purposes – but not for fear of being monitored by authoritarian states, for example, dissidents protesting outside embassies. The penalty for wearing a mask without a legal reason under one of these new orders will be up to one month’s imprisonment or a fine.
It will also become an offence to possess fireworks, flares, smoke devices or similar pyrotechnic articles while taking part in a protest. A defence of reasonable excuse exists, including possession for work. The penalty will be a fine.
The bill also creates a new offence of climbing on specified war memorials and other designated memorials, punishable by up to three months’ imprisonment or a fine.
And it will become an offence to protest outside or in the vicinity of the private dwelling of a wide range of public office-holders (including MPs, councillors, mayors, police and crime commissioners, members of the Lords, Senedd members, and election candidates) for the purpose of “persuading” (lobbying) them in connection with their public role. Official residences like Downing Street, Chequers and Chevening are excluded. The penalty is up to six months’ imprisonment or a fine.
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Following the February High Court ruling, striking out the Government’s ban on Palestine Action – designated by Home Secretary Yvette Cooper as a terror group – a workaround appears to be on its way.
Under the new crime bill, the Secretary of State will have the power to designate groups as “Extreme Criminal Protest Groups” (ECPGs) if the group’s purpose and practice is the deliberate commission of riot, violent disorder, criminal damage, or interference with key national infrastructure, with the intention of influencing public policy or the functioning of democracy. Ministers recently added ‘life sciences’ (animal testing sites) to the list of key national infrastructure.
Once designated, it will become an offence (up to three years’ imprisonment) to be a member, promote, fundraise for, organise, or provide material support to such a group.
Other changes in the bill include an expansion of police powers relating to protests. Amendments to the Public Order Act 1986 will give police a new ground for imposing conditions on processions, assemblies and one-person protests where a protest is in the vicinity of a place of worship and may “intimidate people” to the extent they’re deterred from accessing or carrying out religious activities there.
And when deciding whether a procession or assembly may cause “serious disruption to the life of the community” (the threshold for imposing conditions), senior police officers will – when the bill passes – take into account the cumulative disruption caused by multiple protests and assemblies in the same area, even if they are organised by different people and held at different times. This is likely to cover future anti-war protests.
Finally, there will be broader powers for police officers to impose conditions on protests. Changes to the Public Order Act as part of the crime bill will mean conditions on protests can be imposed not only by the most senior officer at the scene but also by any officer authorised by a chief officer of police. This effectively widens the pool of officers who can restrict a protest in real time.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said last week: “The right to protest is a cornerstone of our democracy which must always be protected, but that does not include the right to intimidate or infringe on the fundamental freedoms of others.
“That’s why we are giving the police stronger powers to prevent intimidating protests outside places of worship to ensure that people can pray in peace.”
New Suffragettes?
In early March, Fossil Free London campaigners protested outside the National Gallery dressed as suffragettes.
Marking International Women’s Day on 8th March, they drew attention to the tightening of anti-protest laws over the past few years. The group held placards drawing comparisons between the jail terms received by climate protesters and those handed to militant suffragettes in the early twentieth century.
Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland, Just Stop Oil activists, were sentenced to a combined 44 months in prison for throwing soup in the National Gallery, damaging the frame of Van Gogh’s Sunflowers painting. Their action aimed to mirror a famous National Gallery protest by militant suffragette Mary Richardson, who was arrested for slashing Velázquez’s Rokeby Venus in 1914. Richardson was sentenced to a “considerably shorter” six months in prison, the climate group noted.
A wide range of climate, human rights and anti-war groups argue the right to protest has been systematically reduced in recent years, with a wave of “draconian” legislation.
The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act, 2022, severely expanded police powers, including the ability to restrict protests for being too noisy, a “vague” measure according to Fossil Free London, that is at the discretion of officers. It also shifted the burden of proof onto protesters themselves, making it an offence to breach a police condition, even if a demonstrator could not reasonably have known about it.
This was followed by the Public Order Act in 2023, which introduced sweeping new criminal offences including “locking on”, obstructing major transport works and stop and search powers that require no reasonable grounds for suspicion.
Several Just Stop Oil protesters received multi-year custodial sentences in 2024, believed to be the longest ever handed out in the UK for non-violent protest, for efforts to block the M25 motorway.
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Statement from Palestine Coalition on Convictions
A coalition of groups, including Palestine Solidarity Campaign and Stop the War Coalition, said: “Today’s guilty verdicts in the case of Palestine Solidarity Campaign director Ben Jamal and Stop the War vice-chair Chris Nineham are extraordinary and shocking, and a huge setback for civil liberties.
“The pair have made clear that they will be appealing these verdicts, and they have the full support of the Palestine Coalition in that.”
They have raised “significant concerns” about the conduct of the six-day hearing, which will be noted during appeal.
“A key part of the defence was that the conditions imposed on the protest on 18 January 2025, which prevented a march to the BBC, were unlawful. The defence submitted a detailed legal argument outlining this case.” They say this argument was unfairly dismissed by the Judge.
“The substantive issues at the heart of the case were clear. From the stage that day, Ben Jamal explained that a delegation of leaders of the coalition, plus MPs, trade union leaders and members of the Jewish bloc, would walk peacefully in a symbolic protest towards the BBC to lay flowers to mark the Corporation’s failures to report the truth of genocide in Gaza.”
They argue that Ben Jamal made clear that, if stopped by the police, the flowers would be laid at the police line: “Instead, police officers invited the delegation to pass through.” This was successfully disputed by police in court.
“Claims of disorder on the day were simply false. The only moment of violence was when Chris Nineham was brutally pulled to the ground and hauled away by police officers,” the coalition said in the statement.
They claim “enormous political pressure” was placed on the police by pro-Israel groups to prevent a protest at the BBC.
The pro-Palestine coalition believes the convictions, alongside anti-protest legislation, mark a “seismic threat to democratic freedoms.”
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