ORGANISERS of the Palestine solidarity demonstrations have condemned the government’s plans to expand repressive police powers to restrict protest rights.

The Home Office announced on Thursday that police would be given greater powers under the Crime and Police Bill to stop protests near places of worship to prevent “intimidation.”

Climbing on war memorials is also set to become a criminal offence.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said: “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.”

But the Palestine Coalition of organisations behind the demonstrations said that existing police powers have already been used in a repressive manner to curtail marches in recent months.

It said in a statement: “This [plan] should concern all those who believe in our fundamental rights to freedom of expression and freedom of assembly.

“It is utterly perverse to conflate far-right violence directed against a place of worship — which, during the summer riots, included setting fire to a mosque — with the large, peaceful, and diverse demonstrations, involving many Jewish people along with others, that we have organised to call for a ceasefire and an end to Britain’s complicity in Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

“Given the already extraordinary use of draconian police powers to circumscribe the right to protest with no democratic scrutiny, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the government’s real aim is to suppress the movement in solidarity with Palestine.”

The government is “seeking to silence those standing up for international law, rather than ending its complicity in Israel’s war crimes,” the statement continued. “We will not be silenced.”

“We will continue to campaign and continue to march until a permanent ceasefire is secured, until Israeli apartheid is dismantled, and until Palestine is free.”

Palestine Solidarity Campaign director Ben Jamal said: “Members of religious congregations have the right to freely worship. All citizens should have the right to protest.

“Both rights should be protected. This cannot mean handing any one group a political veto over whether others can effectively exercise their rights.”

Referencing the prohibition of a demonsration at Broadcasting House in January, he said: “Pro-Israel synagogue leaders should not be empowered to exclude demonstrations in support of Palestinian rights, to which they are politically opposed, from large swathes of a city on a Saturday.”