Police deny and confirm protest incident

The police yesterday denied media reports that two police officers on duty during the recent pro-Palestinian march had stopped people from chanting "Down with USA" and "Down with Israel".

Yet, in the same statement, the police confirmed that the officers had told the organisers that it was against the law to chant provocative and offensive statements or slogans.

The Times had reported that a police officer had told the organisers such slogans were unacceptable, while a policewoman was heard telling an organiser: "If they continue we will have to stop the whole thing."

Last week, The Times sent questions to the police asking for an explanation and whether they believed that silencing protesters breached their right to freedom of expression.

Yesterday, the police media relations unit, acting on orders from its superiors, sent the statement to all the media. It said it was not their intention to breach the protesters' freedom of expression.

"The police strongly rebut the fact that participants taking part were ordered to stop chanting slogans or else the activity would be stopped. The police only took routine security measures to prevent any incidents which may arise in activities of this kind."

The police said that during the protest, slogans in Arabic were being chanted but the police officers present could only understand the words 'USA' and 'Israel'. The police, therefore, approached one of the organisers and requested to know what was being said.

When, according to the police, the organiser replied that she was not conversant in Arabic, the police informed her that according to law no provocative and offensive statements or slogans could be chanted and the protest continued without incident.

"This shows that police officers did their duty and it was never their intention to stop participants from continuing with their activity, or to interfere in (sic) their right of expressing themselves as long as everything was done in accordance with domestic law," the police concluded.