(Ahlul Bayt News Agency) - The gathering was held to protest against the detention of Sheikh Raed Salah, the head of the northern branch of the Islamic Movement in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, who was arrested in London on 1 July.
Raed Salah's arrest marked yet another example of a rising tide of Islamophobia in Europe and the UK government's obedience to Israeli regime's racist policies.
British authorities nabbed the three times elected mayor of the Palestinian town of Umm el-Fahm irrespective of the fact that there were no legal or legitimate reasons for him to be pursued.
Raed Salah had been invited by Labour Party legislators to a pro-Palestinian event at the British Parliament, but he was accused by the Zionist establishment and its supporters in the UK of antisemitism.
Sheikh Salah has been the target of a vicious and concerted smear campaign by the pro-Israeli lobby in the UK, said Hanan Chehata, the press officer for the Middle East Monitor.
Meanwhile, the UK government has also weighed in to give legitimacy to the systematic persecution of Palestinians on British soil.
Raed Salah's arrest is a clear example of double standards policies, since the government is doing its utmost to change the British laws on Universal Jurisdiction to make it easier for Israeli war criminals to visit the UK without the fear of arrest warrants being issued against them, added Hanan Chehata.
But, at the same time, they are happy to arrest Palestinian authorities who have committed no crime but visit Britain to expose Israeli war crimes and discuss peaceful methods of resolution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.
Sheikh Salah is a spokesperson for the Palestinian people; for the people of East Jerusalem al-Quds whose homes are routinely demolished; for the Muslims and Christians who are being denied access to their holiest sites of worship; for the native Palestinian residents who are being made homeless in favour of pro-Israel immigrants who come from abroad to usurp their land. He is being treated as a criminal despite having committed no crime.
The shocking treatment of Sheikh Raed will backfire as it is simply exposing the fact that, once again, the British authorities seem willing to do the Israelis' dirty work for them no matter how much it flies in the face of British standards of justice, democracy and free speech.
Sheikh Raed's arrest in London coincided with the visit by Britain's Middle East minister Alistair Burt to the besieged Gaza Strip, where he toured a UN school in Jabalia refugee camp and met with a group of selected businessmen.
Burt, the first Foreign Office minister to visit Gaza in five years, said he was struck by “the need by the need for further progress to allow imports by UNRWA and others to complete much-needed projects and to facilitate exports”.
Yet, he said that his government was opposed to delivering much needed aid to the oppressed and impoverished Gazans through international flotillas.
The British official made it clear that Israeli regime and its western allies are starving more than 1.5 million people in the Gaza Strip as part of their malicious attempts to force the Palestinian leaders to return to the negotiating table and make concessions.
This is while that a former British diplomat turned human rights activist has said that all attempts aimed at preventing Gaza-bound flotillas from sailing and delivering international aid were politically motivated.
Former ambassador Craig Murray lashed out at the Greek government for seizing Gaza-bound Freedom Flotilla's aid ships, describing its actions as disgraceful and unlawful.
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