LONDON: Western governments are waging a sustained attack against the right to protest, the International Federation for Human Rights has warned, citing the growing criminalization of pro-Palestine demonstrations.<\/p>\n
Governments in the UK, US, France and Germany have \u201cweaponized\u201d domestic counterterrorism legislation and fears of antisemitism to suppress public anger over the Gaza war, the study found, drawing on open-source research, eyewitness testimonies and reports from international organizations.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis trend reflects a worrying shift towards the normalization of exceptional measures in dealing with dissenting voices,\u201d said Yosra Frawes, head of the Maghreb and Middle East desk at FIDH.<\/p>\n
The study, which was conducted between October 2023 and September 2025, highlights concerns over the censorship of elected politicians, violations of media rights, and the silencing of civil society and academic freedom in the four major Western countries, where pro-Palestine protests have regularly been held since the outbreak of the war.<\/p>\n
It warns that the \u201cright to protest has come under sustained attack from the British government across administrations and party lines,\u201d and that it has \u201cpushed to legitimize Israel\u2019s genocidal violence\u201d and \u201ccontinued to justify support for Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n
Senior figures in the UK, such as former Home Secretary Suella Braverman, have also pushed a censorious narrative against pro-Palestine demonstrators exercising their free speech by calling weekly rallies \u201chate marches,\u201d the study said.<\/p>\n
When considered with statements made by government figures, the public narrative has stigmatized \u201csupport for Palestine and Palestinian resistance movements,\u201d and \u201cworked to discriminate against Muslims and other racialized groups in the UK,\u201d it added.<\/p>\n
Despite Labour\u2019s election victory last year, there has been \u201clittle\u201d change in government narratives about the war and domestic protest movements, the study found.<\/p>\n
The government continues to link criticism of Israel and support for Palestine to \u201cviolent antisemitism\u201d and \u201ctargeted Muslim and racialized groups.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hate crimes against Muslims in the UK have risen by almost one-fifth, recent government data shows.<\/p>\n
But according to Tell Mama, an organization that records anti-Muslim incidents in the UK, Islamophobic attacks surged by 73 percent last year.<\/p>\n
Despite the variation in protest laws and rights among the four major Western countries, the FIDH report highlighted a broad trend of repression against Palestinian solidarity globally.<\/p>\n
Pro-Palestine rallies in the US, France and Germany have been met with blanket bans in some cases, as well as legal action and arrests.<\/p>\n
The study calls on the UK government to launch an independent body to monitor policing practices during demonstrations.<\/p>\n
It also says section 12 of the UK Terrorism Act, which criminalizes support for outlawed groups, must be overhauled to exclude protected political opinions and broad slogans of solidarity.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u200b\u200bUltimately, the crackdown on solidarity with Palestinians reveals a profound crisis, not only of human rights in the occupied territories but of freedom itself, in societies that claim to be democratic,\u201d it warned.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LONDON: Western governments are waging a sustained attack against the right to protest, the International Federation for Human Rights has warned, citing the growing criminalization of pro-Palestine demonstrations. Governments in the UK, US, France and Germany have \u201cweaponized\u201d domestic counterterrorism legislation and fears of antisemitism to suppress public anger over the Gaza war, the study …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":88142,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-88129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=88129"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88129\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88144,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/88129\/revisions\/88144"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/88142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=88129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=88129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=88129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}