Police make arrests as pro-Iran demonstrators maintain placards declaring ‘growth growth Tel Aviv’ as hundreds collect for London Al-Quds ‘hate rally’ with 1,000 riot officers on alert

Thousands of pro-Iran demonstrators gathered for an Al-Quds ‘hate rally’ in London, with 1,000 riot police being placed on alert. 

Demonstrators congregated on the South Bank of the Thames for prayers and brandished placards declaring ‘boom boom Tel Aviv’.

Chants of ‘from the river to the sea’ and ‘Israel is a terror state’ could be heard as people held pictures of the assassinated Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and his successor, Mojtada Khamenei. 

Three people have been arrested so far, the Met Police said. One for showing support for a proscribed organisation, one for dangerous driving and a third for threatening and abusive behaviour. 

Bobby Vylan – one half of the punk rap duo Bob Vylan – repeated his controversial Glastonbury chant of ‘death to the IDF’ following a ranting speech at the rally.

Bob Vylan’s performance in June last year sparked widespread backlash and led to the Vylan having his US visa revoked and gigs cancelled.

Around a hundred counter-protesters were seen on the opposite side of the Thames ahead of a demonstration organised by Stop The Hate.

They waved Israeli flags while another read ‘Hamas is terrorist’. Police vans are parked up on nearby Lambeth Bridge, with a police boat seen patrolling the water.  

The march has been reduced to a two-hour static protest after the Home Secretary this week banned the planned Al-Quds Day march.

The rally, organised by the Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC), was due to head through the streets of London but was curtailed by Shabana Mahmood due to the risk of serious disorder.   

The Met Police is using the Thames as a buffer to separate pro-Iran demonstrators from a counter-protest who have been told to gather on the north side of the river.

Both groups were told they must leave the area at 3pm. At 3.40pm the Met Police said both groups were dispersing.

The force also said it was ‘aware of chanting made by a speaker at the Al Quds protest’ and said it ‘will be investigating’. 

A spokesperson added: ‘We recognise the concern footage and chanting like this causes, particularly with London’s Jewish communities.’

‘When this language had been used previously we sought advice from the CPS who determined that there would be insufficient evidence to take a case forward.’

Pro-Iran demonstrators held signs which read ‘Home Secretary, de-prescribe Palestine Action’. 

Other pro-regime signs are on display, and one banner which says the ‘Epstein regime’ murdered 168 school children in Iran. 

Leaflets circulating at the rally show a picture of Ali Khamenei and the words ‘No2Nato No2War’.

Bob Vylan told the crowd the West was being run by ‘cold-hearted monsters’.

He also accused the government of ‘gaslighting’ protesters and branded the police ‘pigs’.

‘These pigs you see here today are here on the orders given to them by the coward Met Commissioner Mark Rowley,’ he said. 

‘He has refused to meet with organisers of pro-Palestine marches and rallies, but never misses an opportunity to cosy up next to the Board of Deputies.

‘The Zionist influence here in the UK is palpable.

‘We can feel it. We can see it. We can see it when we look at these pigs that are itching to put their heavy hands on any and every one of us that might challenge the wretched system that they uphold, a system corrupted from the top down, not the bottom up.

‘They call us hate marchers, but we come from a place of love, love for the people of Palestine and one another. We must strive to remain human in a world run by monsters.’

He added: ‘Here we are today as a community in an attempt to remain human and let this government know that despite all of their scare tactics, for every doctor they harrass with repeated arrests; for every musician they attempt to ban from playing shows; for every pensioner with a placard they bundle into a police van; for every political prisoner they hope starves to death; we are here unbreakable and human standing always with the people of Gaza. 

‘And I would like to conclude with Death, Death, Death, to the IDF.’

Hussain Shafiei, of the Workers Party, told the crowd ‘[Keir] Starmer is a tool of the deep state’ and that Britain was ‘helping this genocide’. 

‘Shabana Mahmood tried to shut this protest down because they are all so scared that the people have turned against Zionism,’ he said.

‘We have a saying in Iran: what you eat you have to be able to swallow.

‘America and Israel, you are not going to be able to swallow Iran, because you are the Epstein class that attacks little girls. You double-tapped 170 children.

‘We have to stand by the righteous thing to do. You can’t ask your soldiers to pay the ultimate price and not be prepared to do so yourself.

‘Your leaders are hiding in rat holes, but they are going to be found by missiles.

‘Benjamin Netanyahu is gone – the murderer of Gaza and Lebanon and Palestine – you’re not going to win.’

Moments before being arrested, a young man holding the ‘Boom boom Tel Aviv sign’ had said he supported the bombing of Israel.

He refused to provide his name but defended holding the sign.

He said: ‘I support the bombing of Israel…’

When asked why, he said: ‘Because of genocide and paedophiles.’

Asked what his sign meant, he replied: ‘Bombing the s**t out of Tel Aviv.’

He stuck his tongue out at photographers as he was led away and did not seem visible upset or shaken by the arrest.

Mohammad, 29, originally from Iraq, brandished a picture of Mojtaba Khamenei and told the Daily Mail: ‘He didn’t come into Europe or America, they went to him and killed his father.

‘I support the Iranian regime because of what happened to us in Iraq. America and Britain obliterated my country, and the same thing is happening in Iran.’

Another protester waving a flag said: ‘I support my country Iran. I came here to study 40 years ago and stayed on. I’m very sad about this war. America has killed schoolgirls.

‘War is not good for anyone, it damages civilisation and takes us back.’

Among the protesters was Rabbi Elhanan Beck who was wearing a ‘Free Palestine’ badge. He said Jewish people had enjoyed a ‘golden life’ on Muslim land.

‘For centuries we lived together in peace,’ he said. ‘Now Israel wants to destroy Palestine.

‘I want peace, to live together, and we will only see peace when the state of Israel comes to an end.’

Police warned before the rally that they would arrest anyone chanting intifada slogans, showing support for Palestine Action, or holding placards inciting hate.

More than 1,000 riot police were on standby at the protest centre, while uniformed officers protected mosques and synagogues in the capital and kept guard at the Israeli and Iranian embassies.

Yosef, who lives in Glasgow but is originally from Iran, said: ‘What we are seeing in the Middle East is America collapsing and trying desperately to hold on to capitalism. I’m against that system. This country should be more like Libya.

‘I feel sad and angry and afraid for the future of humanity. It could end up as a third world war, a nuclear war, which isn’t good for anyone.’

The Met believes more than 12,000 pro-Iranian protesters will take part, with thousands among the counter-protesters, raising the likelihood of violent clashes despite the river acting as a buffer. 

Al-Quds Day began in Iran in 1979 after the Ayatollah’s revolution. It spread to the UK, and has been held in London for 40 years. 

The IHRC said on Wednesday that it ‘strongly condemned’ the decision to ban its march and would continue with a static protest.

Ms Mahmood had said the move was necessary ‘to prevent serious public disorder, due to the scale of the protest and multiple counter-protests, in the context of the ongoing conflict in the Middle East’.

The Home Secretary added: ‘Should a stationary demonstration proceed, the police will be able to apply strict conditions.

‘I expect to see the full force of the law applied to anyone spreading hatred and division instead of exercising their right to peaceful protest.’

On Saturday, it emerged the group had received £458,500 in taxpayer-funded donations since 2020, as it is recognised by HMRC for Gift Aid. This allowed it to claim 25p for every £1 received in donations.

Donations came despite IHRC being under a Charity Commission investigation, and an anti-terrorist Prevent report in 2023 describing it as an ‘Islamist group ideologically aligned with Iran’.

Previous Al-Quds Day rallies have been marred by arrests and the burning of Israeli flags.

Last Saturday, a pro-Iranian protester was stabbed during a rally in West Finchley, North London. On its website, IHRC condemned the ban on the march.

It said: ‘The police have brazenly abandoned their sworn principle of policing without fear or favour and have capitulated to the pressure of the Zionist lobby.’

 

Met assistant commissioner Ade Adelekan said: ‘We did not take the decision to ban the march lightly. This is a unique set of circumstances and it was our assessment that the risk of public disorder was so severe, we did not have any other choice.’

It is the first time in 14 years that Scotland Yard has banned a protest march. 

A fundraiser for the group leading the Al-Quds Day rally was filmed shouting ‘death to the IDF’ and ‘Khamenei makes us proud’ at a protest last weekend.

Raza Kazim attended a pro-Iran demonstration outside the US embassy last Saturday after the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was killed in an Israeli drone strike.

Footage shows him leading crowds with a chant of ‘say it clear, say it loud, Khamenei makes us proud’. In another video, he is seen yelling ‘death to the IDF [Israel Defence Forces]’ – a slogan described as hate speech last year by Sir Keir Starmer.

Mr Kazim – who leads a course training maths teachers at Middlesex University – is a trustee of the IHRC trust, the charitable arm that funds the IHRC. 

The IHRC was described in the independent review of the Prevent strategy as an ‘Islamist group ideologically aligned with the Iranian regime, that has a history of extremist links and terrorist sympathies’.

It claims it is a separate entity to the IHRC trust, although they share the same business address and phone number.

In a statement reported, Mr Kazim praised Khamenei – whose regime has killed thousands of protesters – for ‘his principled opposition to systems of racial and political oppression’.

He said the IDF chant was a ‘creative and forceful expression calling for the dismantling of a genocidal military institution responsible for terrorising, killing, raping and torturing Palestinians, while enforcing a system of apartheid that denies their basic humanity’.

Lord Walney, the Government’s former extremism adviser, called his comments ‘deeply disturbing’.

Mr Kazim has organised previous Al-Quds Day marches. The event – named after the Arabic word for Jerusalem – was created by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini after Iran’s 1979 revolution to express opposition to Israel.

Other IHRC figures have gone on the record to praise the Iranian regime.

They include its co-founder and chair Massoud Shadjareh, who was previously filmed recalling a meeting he had with Khamenei.