LONDON (Dispatches) – Thousands of people from all walks of life staged a mass rally in the UK capital London on Sunday to commemorate the 74th anniversary of the ‘Nakba,’ or Catastrophe, when the ethnic cleansing of more than 700,000 Palestinians took place along with the destruction of more than 500 villages as the Zionist regime was created in 1948.
People gathered in front of Broadcasting House, the headquarters of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), in central London on Saturday afternoon before marching to Number 10, the official residence and executive office of the prime minister, in Downing Street.
The participants waved Palestinian flags, chanted slogans and expressed anger at the ongoing brutal oppression of Palestinians at the hands of Zionist troops.
They also strongly condemned the killing of veteran Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who was fatally shot by Zionist troops as she was covering an army raid on the Jenin refugee camp in the northern part of the occupied West Bank.
The demonstrators also signed a memorial book in honor of the slain reporter for the Qatar-based and Arabic-language Al Jazeera television news network.
“Shireen Abu Akleh is the 55th journalist to be murdered by Israeli occupation forces since 2000,” a placard put up next to the memorial book read.
The rally in London comes as a Berlin court, on Friday, upheld a ban on all Palestinian “Nakba Day” demonstrations which were scheduled to take place in the German capital this weekend, the Berlin-based Tagesspiegel newspaper reported.
The administrative court outlawed five Palestinian demonstrations because what it said was a risk of inflammatory or “anti-Semitic” calls and violence.
Reacting to the prohibition, the Palestinian civic group “Palestine Speaks” strongly criticized the ban on their demonstrations as an attack on the basic rights of freedom of assembly and freedom of expression.
“The ban on the commemorative events by the Berlin police restricts Palestinians in Germany in their fundamental rights and is worrying on several levels according to the standards of a democratic constitutional state,” the group said in a statement.
“The Nakba commemorative events are an important way for us, Palestinians, in Germany to remember the injustice perpetrated against our ancestors and to take a stand for the human rights of Palestinians everywhere,” according to an unnamed spokesperson for “Palestine Speaks”.
Palestinian groups had announced that they would protest against Zionist regime policies on the day of expulsion, Nakba (Catastrophe), especially on Saturday and Sunday.
Palestinian civic leaders in Berlin have repeatedly made clear they do not condone anti-Semitic slurs in their demonstrations, saying their only objective is to highlight the ongoing Zionist repression in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Germany is an ardent ally of the occupying regime and has repeatedly been silent on the regime’s continued brutal crackdown in the occupied West Bank and East Al-Quds.