As members of a support group for those arrested following demonstrations last year, we read the article ‘Met allows Islamic protesters to throw shoes’ (Sunday, 11 April) with some confusion.

Rather than “bow[ing] to Islamic sensitivities”, the Metropolitan police have done precisely the opposite: targeting for arrest almost exclusively Muslim protesters from amongst the very diverse group who protested outside the Israeli Embassy last year. There have been hundreds of reports of police violence on this demonstration, with numerous ongoing claims being issued against the Metropolitan police in the courts.

Seventy-nine people were charged following the demonstration – more than following any other political demonstration in London since the infamous Poll Tax riots – and almost all of them were young, Muslim, and of demonstrably exemplary character. They were arrested in violent dawn raids on their homes where, in many cases, their entire families were handcuffed.

Many have since been sentenced to long terms in prison which bear no relationship whatsoever with the offences committed and the context in which they took place. For example, a 19-year-old was sentenced to a year in prison simply for throwing a bottle in the direction of the Israeli embassy.

Taking into account this basic information, it is difficult to see Sunday’s article as anything other than a wilful attempt to mislead.

The article claims that “Muslims are entitled to throw shoes in ritual protest.” This is untrue. The court accepted that throwing shoes – for anyone – is a symbolic protest (it is difficult to see what the purpose of it would otherwise be). There is no special dispensation for Muslims.

It is further claimed that this “concession” has “been taken up enthusiastically by Muslim demonstrators, who pelted Downing Street with shoes in protest at the Israeli bombing of Gaza last year.” This is wilfully misleading. The demonstration which passed Downing Street was extraordinarily diverse, not simply a group of “Muslim demonstrators”.

The fact that most of those charged with offences are Muslim is precisely what concerns us as a campaign group. We believe that young people from Muslim communities were deliberately targeted, perhaps to deter other Muslims from attending political demonstrations in future. Needless to say, if this is true it is not only illegal under British law but under international law, most obviously the UN Declaration of Human Rights.

Those sections of the article which suggest that special conditions have been created for Muslims should be amended as they are false and constitute a clear breach of the first clause of the Press Complaints Commission Editor’s Code of Practice.

Signed,

Musab Younis
Sukant Chandan
Elizabeth Cocker
Joanna Berridge
Yasmin Ali

(The Gaza Demonstrators Support Campaign)