A pro-Iranian march planned in London this weekend has been banned.
Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said she had approved a request from the Metropolitan Police to block it to “prevent serious public disorder”.
Ms Mahmood said this was due to the “scale of the protest and multiple counter-protests”.
A stationary protest will be allowed, but will be strictly policed.
The march is an annual event to mark Al Quds Day, which is timed towards the end of Ramadan to express solidarity with the Palestinian people.
However, it has drawn criticism after organisers expressed support for Ali Khamenei, Iran’s former supreme leader who was killed during US-Israeli strikes on Tehran.
The Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC), which has condemned the decision to ban the march, has said the ayatollah was killed for “standing on the right side of history”.
“Ayatollah Khamenei’s death will be mourned by freedom loving people all over the world,” it said last week. Tehran’s regime is thought to have killed thousands of protesters this year alone.
‘Extreme tensions’
The Met has not requested a ban on London’s Al Quds march since 2012. The force said this year’s event would have posed “unique risks and challenges”.
Those risks are “so severe that placing conditions on the protest will not be sufficient”.
“We must consider the likely high numbers of protestors and counter protestors coming together and the extreme tensions between different faction,” a statement added.
“We have taken into consideration the likely impact on protests of the volatile situation in the Middle East, with the Iranian regime attacking British allies and military bases overseas.”
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The Met also cited threats posed by the Iranian regime on British soil, including the recent arrests of four men by counter-terror police on suspicion of spying on the Jewish community.
Previous marches, it added, had resulted in arrests for supporting terrorist groups and antisemitic hate crimes.
But this year’s request for a ban was not taken lightly, it said, adding: “We do not police taste or decency or prefer one political view over another, but we will do everything we can to reduce violence and disorder.”
‘Politically charged decision’
The IHRC said it still hoped to see people attend the stationary rally and would seek legal advice on the ban.
“This is a politically charged desision; not one taken for the security of the people of London,” it added.
Opposition to the march has grown since the October 7 attacks by Hamas on Israel and subsequent bombardment of Gaza.
