Mark Rylance, the star of the BBC’s Wolf Hall, has joined the singer Charlotte Church and actor Juliet Stevenson to condemn a decision by the police to ban a pro-Palestine protest outside the corporation’s Broadcasting House headquarters.
Protesters were planning to gather in Portland Place in central London on Saturday 18 January before marching to Whitehall. A ban was imposed on Thursday by the Met, with officers citing the risk of “serious disruption” to a nearby synagogue on the Jewish holy day, as congregants attend Shabbat services.
Rylance is among more than 150 signatories, including organisations such as Liberty, Amnesty International UK and Greenpeace, to a statement issued on Friday accusing the Met of “misusing” its powers.
The statement says: “The BBC is a major institution – it is a publicly-funded state broadcaster and is rightly accountable to the public. The police should not be misusing public order powers to shield the BBC from democratic scrutiny.
“The excuse offered by the police is that the march could cause disruption to a nearby synagogue which is not even on the march route.
“As the Met police have acknowledged, there has not been a single incident of any threat to a synagogue attached to any of the marches. Any suggestion that pro-Palestine marches are somehow hostile to Jewish people ignores the fact that Jewish people have been joining the marches in their thousands.”
The statement, whose signatories also include the musician Brian Eno and actor Maxine Peake, goes on: “The rights to protest and free speech are precious. It is not acceptable in a democratic society that, in the face of an ongoing genocide in Gaza, people should be barred from protesting at the BBC. We call on the police to drop their objections and allow the protest to go ahead as planned.”
Announcing the ban, the Met said it had “reflected on the views of local community and business representatives”, including congregation members at a synagogue a “very short distance” from the proposed rally meet-up point, before reaching its decision.
Commander Adam Slonecki, who is leading the policing operation in London that weekend, said the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) had refused to change its plans and was “continuing to encourage protesters to form up in Portland Place”, giving the force “no choice but to use the powers available to us”.
He later said that the Met was open to a protest being held on a day other than Saturday or on an alternative route. “We will continue to engage with the PSC and we hope they will rethink and put forward an alternative proposal in the coming days,” Slonecki added.
The Central Synagogue on Great Portland Street is a few hundred yards from Broadcasting House on Portland Place.
The Met police commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, was accused last month by the chief rabbi, Sir Ephraim Mirvis, of failing to ensure British Jews feel safe after the force permitted pro-Palestinian protests to take place near synagogues.
The decision to start the proposed protest outside the BBC had been taken by organisers on the grounds of what they described as the corporation’s “pro-Israel bias”. The BBC denies any bias.