Holocaust survivors denounce UK police for questioning Stephen Kapos
Forty Holocaust survivors and their descendants have signed a letter denouncing the Metropolitan Police for calling in Stephen Kapos, 87, for questioning about a pro-Palestine protest in London on 18 January.
Kapos is a survivor of the Holocaust who was born in Budapest, Hungary, in 1937. He has regularly attended marches in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza since Israel's war on the territory began.
Earlier this month, the Met police handed out letters to a number of prominent activists, calling them in for questioning over their alleged roles in the march in late January.
They include Kapos, actor Khalid Abdalla, and officers from the Stop the War Coalition, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmement and Friends of al-Aqsa.
A protest will take place outside Charing Cross police station at 2pm on Friday, when Kapos is due to be interviewed.
New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch
Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters
Police accused protesters on 18 January of breaking through a police cordon between Whitehall and Trafalgar Square.
Organisers of the protest two months ago have disputed the police account, saying that protesters were invited by officers to “filter through” to Trafalgar Square. They have accused officers of “heavy-handed and aggressive policing”.
"Any repression of the right to protest is bad enough - but to persecute a Jewish 87-year-old whose Holocaust experiences compel him to speak out against the Gaza genocide, is quite appalling," the Holocaust survivors and descendants wrote in a joint letter.
"This very concerning development makes it even more important for Jews to speak out against the genocide."
The signatories include Holocaust survivors Agnes Kory and Jacques Bude, the latter of whose parents were murdered in Auschwitz.
More than 70 people were arrested during the protest two months ago, including Chris Nineham, the chief steward of the demonstration.
'Massive overreach of powers'
Ben Jamal, the head of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC), was also charged with a public order offence. He pleaded not guilty during proceedings last month.
MPs Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell, the former leader of the opposition and shadow chancellor, were interviewed under caution over their involvement in the protest.
The PSC said: "That a Holocaust survivor is called in by the police for the alleged offence of carrying a bunch of flowers into Trafalgar Square underlines the unjustifiable extremes to which the Metropolitan Police are prepared to go to restrict the right to public protest and silence the Palestine solidarity movement."
The group accused the Met of a "massive overreach of their powers" and of misrepresenting the events that took place.
Two years ago, Kapos resigned from the Labour Party after being told he would be expelled from the party if he spoke at a Holocaust Memorial Day meeting organised by a left-wing group.
He had been asked to speak about his experiences as a child survivor of the Holocaust at an event by the Socialist Labour Network.
Kapos received an email - which Middle East Eye has seen - from the London Labour party, warning him that if he spoke at the meeting, he would was likely to be expelled from the party.
In his resignation letter to the party, Kapos said Labour’s “attempt to effectively bar me from speaking about the Holocaust on Holocaust Memorial Day was the last straw for me”.
He stressed the importance of speaking about his experiences as a Holocaust survivor and accused Labour’s current leadership of “McCarthyism”, a reference to the campagin to smear left-wing people in the United States in the 1940s and 50s.
“As a child survivor and one of the fewer and fewer still living direct witnesses to the Holocaust, I feel a compelling duty to bear witness and speak out about it at any platform that would invite me and to any audience ready to listen,” he said.
Middle East Eye delivers independent and unrivalled coverage and analysis of the Middle East, North Africa and beyond. To learn more about republishing this content and the associated fees, please fill out this form. More about MEE can be found here.
