By IRNA,
London : A public petition has been launched in Britain to free dozens of Muslim protesters who have been jailed after taking part in last year’s demonstrations against Israel’s latest slaughter of over 1,400 Palestinians in Gaza.
The online petition, which is to be presented to Home Secretary Alan Johnson, also calls for all charges to be dropped against those waiting trail or yet to be sentenced and for an independent investigation into numerous complaints about police behaviour at the protests.
Johnson is also being urged to allow the right to protest for all and to end the victimisation and intimidation of Britain’s two million Muslim community.
“This police operation amounts to the persecution of protestors. It is made more alarming by the fact that almost all of those charged are from Muslim backgrounds,” says the petition, organised by Stop the War Coalition (STWC), Palestine Solidarity Campaign and British Muslim Initiative.
Some 22 protesters, mostly teenagers and juveniles, have already received prison terms of up to two-and-a-half years for public order offences.
Another 39 Muslims who have pleaded guilty are awaiting sentencing, while trials are expected to be held at the end of the month for 17, who unlike the majority have refused to change their not guilty pleas.
STWC convenor Lindsey German told IRNA last week that the ongoing trials and jail sentencing being imposed on Muslim demonstrators was “politically motivated.”
“Muslims are being victimised for protesting,” German said, pointing out that Muslims made up about 40 per cent of demonstrators protesting against Israel’s atrocities and yet virtually all those being prosecuted were Muslims.
The Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC) produced a report earlier this year on the policing of the demonstrations, which included very disturbing eyewitness accounts of unprofessional police conduct and in some cases amounting to police brutality.
Claims were that “law enforcement officials used tactics of intimidation and indiscriminate, disproportionate force”; they “failed to communicate effectively with demonstrators” and employed “heavy handedness” and “abusive language”.