A worldwide struggle for social justice
Image by alisdare1
On Sunday 5 May, activists campaigning for a Gaza ceasefire, including several students as well as Camden Friends of Palestine, demonstrated outside London’s police headquarters at New Scotland Yard. This followed the arrest of four protesters the previous day.
The four, who had been at a protest outside University College London, were arrested. as the Canary put it, for "carrying a painting with a peace dove on it," adding that "apparently blue sky is now antisemitic."
www.thecanary.co/trending/2024/05/07/ucl-arrests-student-…
They had been holding a large artwork of a dove of peace grasping a key (symbolising the famous key of return and the hoped for return of Palestinian refugees to their former homes) flying through a breach in the West Bank’s infamous Separation Wall.
However, the Separation Wall doesn’t stand anywhere near Gaza, and 80% of it doesn’t even run along Israel’s 1967 internationally recognised border or green line, running instead deep within the occupied West Bank separating Palestinian farmers from their land and Palestinian villagers from the water supplies.
Yet for some reason, which is difficult to comprehend, the police seem to have believed that the artwork expressed support for the 7 October attack. That might be understandable if there had been a paraglider depicted or any part of the Gaza boundary, but instead it featured the Separation Wall which has been frequently an object of political art ever since it was constructed.
Those detained were released, according to what I heard, on bail and, I understand, in at least some instances, without their phones.
According to a tweet by Vijay Prashad quoted in the Canary – "The police said that this image at UCL was illegal because the blue sky was in reference to the weather on October 7, 2023." He added "I would like to have a conversation about art criticism with the inspector in charge from Holborn police."
www.thecanary.co/trending/2024/05/07/ucl-arrests-student-…
Hopefully someone can explain that a blue sky above the Separation Wall is nothing unusual let alone some secretive message in support of terror as can be seen in the following linked photographs of the Separation Wall – I can’t see a single cloud in any of them – and most were presumably taken before 7 October 2023.
www.mediastorehouse.co.uk/discover-images-by-awl/lookout-…
www.alamy.com/the-separation-wall-in-bethlehem-palestine-…
www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/290200769713725569/
www.dreamstime.com/stock-photography-israeli-separation-w…
www.istockphoto.com/photo/idf-tower-and-barrier-rachels-t…
www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photos-palestinian-…
www.dreamstime.com/stock-photo-israeli-separation-wall-im…
www.istockphoto.com/photo/palestinian-children-at-playgro…
www.istockphoto.com/photo/foreign-visitors-touring-separa…
www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/an-eight-meter-hi…
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