Manchester police assault peaceful pro-Palestine protesters

  • Post last modified:June 17, 2024
  • Reading time:9 mins read


At yet another pro-Palestine demonstration, cops have been out enacting violence against peaceful protesters. This time, the Greater Manchester Police (GMP) force was the culprit.

As usual, the police appeared to be lying through their teeth to get out of it.

Manchester protests for Palestine

On Saturday, protesters in Manchester held a march in solidarity with Gaza, in central Manchester:

However, what started out as a peaceful demonstration, soon turned violent. Naturally, it was GMP that charged into the crowd and carried out the brutality, as protesters showed on X:

Predictably, the GMP statement closed ranks in the usual way. Notably, the Manchester Evening News reported that four officers “suffered ‘non-serious’ injuries”. Perhaps a few officers strained a vein in their temples, because protesters highlighted that it was the actually the police that injured people on the demo.

In some staggering levels of spin, GMP said that:

Whilst public order policing is complex and challenging, we will not tolerate violence or threatening behaviour and will take action to protect ourselves and the public when necessary.

However, as one X poster pointed out, this is evidently simply the behaviour of a police force ‘protecting’ itself:

It almost sounds straight from the deluded Zionist apologist’s playbook of the same old sycophantic mantra about Israel’s “right to defend itself”.

Manchester cops: endangering elderly people and children

People on X underscored that elderly people and children made up some of the peaceful demonstration. Of course, this didn’t stop the police from throwing some protesters to the floor and endangering them:

Moreover, pro-Palestine campaigners have held eight months of non-violent protest in Manchester. By contrast, this wasn’t GMP’s first assault on their democratic rights to peaceful assembly:

In particular, Netpol referred to GMP officers previously assaulting two legal observers with batons. As it reported at the time:

One of the legal observers held up his hands as the police became more violent and informed officers that he was not a participant in any of the protests, but fell to the ground after he was struck painfully in the back, he believes by a police baton. He then described how three officers stood over him with their batons drawn before he was picked up – and thrown violently back onto the floor. He has bruising to his legs. This excessive use of force was captured on video, which also verifies the legal observer’s description of events.

The other legal observer, who was behind the police line some distance from this incident, told us how she was confronted by an inspector with an extended baton. She said she was pushed backward and struck twice before two other officers, one an ‘evidence gatherer’ (normally responsible for filming protests), came aggressively towards her with their batons drawn. This too has been verified by video footage. As a result of the police violence, she has a suspected perforated ear drum and received bruises to her face.

From Peterloo to Palestine

Of course, it barely needs pointing out after months of oppressive policing of Palestine solidarity protests, but this is the cops operating exactly as intended. That is, as a violent tool of the oppressive state. Many on X were quick to state this:

And as astutely highlighted by others, there’s a long history of police forces violently repressing the working class. In fact, in the very spot the pro-Palestine protesters marched, a paramilitary force protecting the interests of the Tory elite, enacted just such violence against pro-democracy and anti-poverty protesters. Only, that was the Peterloo Massacre in 1819:

Abolish the police

Independent socialist candidate standing for Cardiff West John Urquhart said the quiet part we’re all thinking out loud:

It’s a reminder, if we still needed it, that the police exist to shield the interests of the state, and its capitalist elite. Since the political establishment is drenched in complicity of Israel’s genocide, it’s not surprising that its enforcers continue to turn on those showing solidarity with Palestine.

Feature image via Manchester Palestine Action – Twitter





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