Police have arrested protesters on suspicion of supporting the banned group Palestine Action outside the Labour party conference in Liverpool.
About 100 people gathered silently on Sunday to hold signs reading “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action”, according to protest organisation Defend Our Juries, who said there were dozens of arrests.
Palestine Action was banned as a terror organisation in July after it claimed responsibility for an action in which two planes were damaged at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire the previous month.
A Merseyside police spokesperson said: “We can confirm that officers are in attendance at a Defend Our Juries protest near to The Wheel of Liverpool this afternoon, Sunday 28 September.
“Some of the people in attendance have displayed material in support of Palestine Action.
“Officers are in the process of making arrests on suspicion of wearing/carrying an article supporting a proscribed organisation.”
A spokesperson for Defend Our Juries said: “We’ve come to remind everyone that the Labour party is in breach of its duty to act to prevent genocide under international law.
“Instead it made the cowardly decision to ban the direct action group that was trying to prevent genocide.
“Labour members and trades unions are overwhelmingly against their party’s complicity in genocide and the ban on Palestine Action.
“Yet party officials have shut down all the debates that members wanted to have on these issues during their conference.
“Labour also reneged on Jack Straw’s promise that the Terrorism Act he introduced would never be used against a domestic protest group.”
Earlier this week the Guardian reported that more than 1,600 people have been arrested and 138 of them charged for allegedly expressing support for Palestine Action since the ban came into force on 5 July.
The proscription makes membership of the group, or inviting support for it, a criminal offence under the Terrorism Act, carrying a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison.
It is the first time a direct action protest group has been classified as a terrorist organisation.
One of the protesters, Keith Hackett, 71, said: “I’m risking arrest today under terrorism legislation because as a former Labour councillor in Liverpool I am deeply ashamed of how Labour are acting.
“If they want to start turning the party around and win back the support they have lost they need to stop their complicity in this genocide and end the ban on Palestine Action.”
Tayo Aluko, 63, an actor, writer and singer from Liverpool, said: “This government, like all authoritarian regimes in modern times, wants to plant fear in the citizens so that it can continue to let their friends and paymasters get away with genocide.
“I feel I have no choice but to stand up and be counted.”
Kerry Moscogiuri, Amnesty International UK’s director of communications and campaigns, said: “These arrests should not be happening.
“It’s clearly both ridiculous and seriously disproportionate for police to be targeting and arresting people for sitting down, quietly holding a sign.
“There are serious human rights concerns around not only the proscription of Palestine Action, but also the chilling consequences this decision has had.”