A 74-year-old woman has said she was left “shaken and frightened” after being arrested at a pro-Palestine rally under terrorism laws, in what she called an attempt to restrict freedom of speech.
Audrey White, from Liverpool, was among more than 100 people detained across the UK at the weekend on suspicion of supporting the recently proscribed group Palestine Action.
White had been holding up a sign before she was surrounded by officers in Liverpool city centre on Sunday.
Video shows four police officers detaining the veteran campaigner on the ground to chants of “shame on you” and “let her go”. One protester shouts: “Britain is a fascist state.”
The officers then drag White across the pavement before handcuffing her as she lies prone on the ground. Footage then shows her being carried to a police van where she was taken to a police station for nearly eight hours.
“I’m very sore, very shaken, very emotional and I’m frightened to be honest,” White told the Guardian on Monday.
Demonstrations were held in London, Manchester, Edinburgh, Bristol and Truro over the weekend as part of a campaign coordinated by Defend Our Juries. The Liverpool rally was held by Liverpool Friends of Palestine.
It has been a criminal offence to be a member of, or show support for Palestine Action since 5 July after the protest group was proscribed under the Terrorism Act despite opposition from UN experts and civil liberties groups.
White, who has a heart condition and low bone density, which means she is at risk of fractures, said it was the first time she had been arrested in more than half a century of campaigning against conflicts.
“It’s designed to stop human rights and to stop protest and to stop free speech,” she said.
“There’s two things to be afraid of in this country and one is that we lose everything we are proud of – the ability to speak out – and the other is that we would ever be involved in a genocide.
“We look at these visions of children losing their limbs and being blown to bits. We’ve got to say: how can we stop our country’s involvement in this genocide? Everyone has a responsibility to stop horrors like this all throughout history.”
The Trades Union Congress has previously described White as one of the pioneering activists of the last 150 years after her decades-long campaign to change sexual harassment laws in Britain. Glenda Jackson played White in a film about her crusade in 1988.
Merseyside police released White and three other protesters on bail shortly before midnight on Sunday.
She said one of her bail conditions effectively leaves her “trapped in the house” because it restricts her from entering Liverpool city centre, where she lives.
White, who is the secretary of the Merseyside Pensioners Association and cares for her husband who has cancer, said a police officer had told her she was allowed to attend medical appointments but that she could be arrested if she visited a shop afterwards.
“I’m just an ordinary woman with a family and problems and health issues and love a holiday. I just feel very strongly that these laws are being used against organisations and individuals now,” she said.
“They’re against civil liberties, they’re restricting the freedom of speech we were all proud of.”
White said she was “in pain and feel terrible” after being dragged into a police van. “I’m just sore all over. I’m swollen in some places. One of the worst things is my head, it feels like it’s blowing off me,” she said.
The former shop worker is banned as part of her bail conditions from attending another pro-Palestine march but encouraged others to “stand in solidarity with people who oppose genocide”.
“I only want peaceful demonstration,” she said. “There was no need to do that to me. There was no need to arrest any of us. I don’t believe they are entitled to arrest people for holding a piece of paper.
“I hope a lot of people saw what happened to me and realise they’ve got to draw the line somewhere … People who are peaceful should not be labelled as terrorists, me included.”
