‘Intolerable’: UK police crack down on hate after Bondi massacre

2 months ago 29

London: British police have hardened their stance against antisemitism amid claims that some people in the United Kingdom had welcomed the murders of Jewish Australians in the Bondi Beach terror attack.

Greater Manchester Police Chief Constable Stephen Watson said he knew of reports that some people in his home city had celebrated the killings. He condemned the “sickening” response and vowed to toughen measures against hate speech.

Emergency services at the scene of the attack on the Heaton Park synagogue in Manchester in October.

But an apparent video of one event, said to show Muslim men in Manchester applauding the Bondi attack this week, featured rebadged old footage from June, unrelated to the Australian atrocity.

The video, which spread quickly on social media with the false claim that it showed pro-Palestine activists in the past few days, highlighted the challenge for police in separating genuine threats from misinformation.

The Greater Manchester Police confirmed to this masthead that the video showed an older protest unrelated to Bondi, while fact-checking units at Reuters and Agence France-Presse both found the video showed an event in Manchester on June 8.

Manchester, which has Britain’s largest Jewish population outside London, has been on heightened alert since a terrorism attack on the Heaton Park synagogue on October 2.

The aftermath of the October 2 attack on the Heaton Park synagogue in Manchester on October 2.

The assailant in Manchester, Jihad Al-Shamie, was born in Syria and was given refuge in the UK. He killed one man with a knife and wounded several others before being shot dead at the scene. Another man was killed by a police bullet while attempting to hold the door of the synagogue closed to protect people inside.

Watson, the most senior police officer for the Manchester region, revealed the concerns about the response to the Bondi attack but did not name specific cases.

“I know that I had reports that there were people in Manchester celebrating the Bondi attack in ways which [are] just sickeningly distasteful,” he said at the Policy Xchange think tank on Wednesday.

“It seems to me that we need to get to the heart of that, we need to get behind that, because there is stuff which is lawful but it is intolerable. And what is intolerable can, over time, become unlawful.”

Manchester Chief Constable Stephen Watson after the October 2 attack with Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham (left) and Secretary of State for the Home Department Shabana Mahmood.

British police chiefs are stepping up patrols and taking a more assertive line against hate speech because of the escalating threats, and have named Bondi as a new factor in justifying the arrest of protesters.

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Mark Rowley, who is responsible for most of greater London, issued a joint statement with the Manchester chief constable to single out chants like “globalise the intifada” as grounds for arrest.

“Violent acts have taken place, the context has changed – words have meaning and consequence. We will act decisively and make arrests,” the two police chiefs said.

Crown prosecutors have found in the past that “globalise the intifada” is not hate speech even though the uprisings among Palestinians, particularly the second intifada from 2000 onwards, included suicide bombings against Israeli civilians.

Rowley and Watson said the situation had changed and that many of the phrases used by protesters generated fear in Jewish communities.

“Now, in the escalating threat context, we will recalibrate to be more assertive,” they said.

The International Centre of Justice for Palestinians condemned the police statement and argued that “intifada” meant uprising.

“Which pro-Palestinian slogan will be next to face criminalisation?” the centre said.

Police arrest a pro-Palestine protester in London on October 4.

“This sets a dangerous precedent for the erosion of freedom of expression in the UK. This marks another troubling low in the suppression of protest in support of Palestinian rights.”

The Metropolitan Police detained two people on Thursday for racially aggravated public order offences after they allegedly called for an intifada at a protest in central London.

The concerns about the British response to the Bondi terrorism made headlines in the UK, with The Times reporting the claims on Friday. But Manchester police found that the video on social media was old footage.

“We aren’t aware of any celebration events in GM in response to this attack,” a police spokesperson told this masthead, using the acronym for Greater Manchester.

A fact-check by Reuters found that the video that purported to show a pro-Palestinian group celebrating the Bondi mass shooting was previously posted on June 8, when activists said it showed a demonstration in Manchester the previous day.

In the Agence France-Presse fact-check, the news agency said a similar false claim had been made about a demonstration in Pakistan that purportedly welcomed the Bondi attack.

“The videos predate the shooting and depict a pro-Palestinian demonstration in Manchester in June and a fireworks display in Karachi organised after Hamas’s attack on Israel,” it said.

Watson argued that firmer action was justified against hate speech because of the way Jewish communities were being targeted.

“I think it’s [a] very important point to reflect upon – that Jewish children are the only children in our country who, day to day, go to school behind large fences, guarded by people with [high-vis] jackets, and where there are routine police patrols in and around those areas,” he said.

“Our Jewish communities put up with a way of life in our country, today, that nobody else has to put up with.

“I do think there is something very significant in that, something very significant in the realisation of it.

“And we all, I think, need to question ourselves, afresh, as the dynamic continues to change, as to whether what we are doing continues to be adequate.”

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