By IRNA,
London : A public petition is being delivered to the British government Tuesday to free dozens of Muslim youths who have been jailed after taking part in last year’s protests against Israel’s slaughter of over 1,400 Palestinians in Gaza.
A solidarity rally is also being organised while the petition, launched by the families of those arrested, lawyers and campaigners, is presented to Home Secretary Alan Johnson.
Johnson is also being urged to be drop charges against those yet to be sentenced or waiting trial, to set up independent inquiry into numerous complaints about police behaviour at the protests, to allow the right to protest and end to the victimisation of Muslims.
At least 22 protesters, mostly Muslim youths, have already received prison terms of up to two-and-a-half years for public order offences during last January’s demonstrations. Over 50 more are awaiting sentence or trial.
“This police operation amounts to the persecution of protestors,” says the petition, organised by Stop the War Coalition (STWC), Palestine Solidarity Campaign and British Muslim Initiative.
“It is made more alarming by the fact that almost all of those charged are from Muslim backgrounds,” it says, describing the jail sentences as “disproportionate” – the same word used by the British government to describe the Israeli massacres.
STWC convenor Lindsey German told IRNA earlier this month 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”.