Sometimes, you see something and you know it just doesn’t feel right. Watching the hundreds of Palestine Action protestors being arrested for doing nothing more than holding up a placard is, rightly, uncomfortable. About half of those arrested and carried off by unhappy-looking police officers at Saturday’s event in Parliament Square – who have already been dubbed “march martyrs” – were over 60.
Of course, people of that age can be dangerous in all sorts of ways, not least, to themselves, but they do not, by and large, make for ideal terrorists. Calling them such, and detaining them under Section 12 of the Terrorism Act 2000, feels absurd. It’s just too heavy-handed and inappropriate.
