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A pro-Palestinian march in London on Sunday has been banned by Shabana Mahmood after police warned of a risk of “serious public disorder”.
The annual al-Quds Day march has drawn criticism over apparent backing for the Iranian regime after its organisers expressed support for the country’s late leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Some participants in the past have waved the flag of the Iranian-backed Hezbollah group, which is banned in the UK as a terrorist group.
Announcing her decision to ban the march after a request by the Metropolitan police, Mahmood said she was “satisfied doing so is necessary to prevent serious public disorder, due to the scale of the protest and multiple counterprotests, in the context of the ongoing conflict in the Middle East”.
The home secretary added: “Should a stationary demonstration proceed, the police will be able to apply strict conditions. I expect to see the full force of the law applied to anyone spreading hatred and division instead of exercising their right to peaceful protest.”
The march has been a target of counterprotest by the past, including some organised by far-right groups and the police are understood to have been concerned about the potential for disorder.
The Islamic Human Rights Commission, which organises the protest, has previously insisted the demonstration is always “good natured and peaceful”. In a statement on the organisation’s website, the IHRC said it “strongly condemns” the decision and was seeking legal advice.
Confirming a legal static protest will go ahead on Sunday, the statement said: “The police have brazenly abandoned their sworn principle of policing without fear or favour. They cannot present evidence because there is none.
“In essence, this is a politically charged decision, not one taken for the security of the people of London.”
It is the first time a protest march has been banned since 2012.
The Metropolitan police said previous a-l Quds Day marches resulted in arrests for supporting terrorist organisations and antisemitic hate crimes.
In a statement, the force said: “The decision to ban it this year is purely based on a risk assessment of this specific protest and counterprotests – 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.”
The Met said the “uniquely complex” international situation and “severe” risks meant merely placing conditions on the protest “will not be sufficient to prevent it from resulting in serious public disorder”.
It added that it would place strict conditions on any static protest, which the law does not allow the police or government to ban, but “given the tensions, we have to accept that confrontations could still take place”.
The decision follows calls from Labour and Conservative MPs to ban the march.
The courts minister, Sarah Sackman, had said on Tuesday that she expected “robust action” to be taken by the home secretary and police against the march, adding: “Those expressing support for the malign regime in Iran and the IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] and its proxies have no place in our society.”
“They shouldn’t be on the streets of London calling for hate and hostility against this country. That’s thoroughly anti-British and I expect the police and the home secretary to take the necessary action against those people.”
A spokesperson for the IHRC, Faisal Bodi, told the BBC’s The World Tonight that it was “a sad day for freedom of expression, freedom of assembly and the right of people to legitimately protest about issues they feel strongly about”.
He added: “This demonstration has taken place for the last 40 years peacefully.”
The IHRC has previously expressed support for Iran’s former supreme leader. After his death in a US-Israeli airstrike last month, the group said Ali Khamenei “chose to stand on the right side of history” and described him as “a rare role model” who would be “mourned by freedom loving people all over the world”.
