Royaume-Uni : 466 arrestations lors d’une manifestation en soutien au groupe interdit Palestine Action

Un total de 466 partisans de l’organisation Palestine Action ont été arrêtés samedi à Londres au cours d’une manifestation de soutien à ce réseau propalestinien, interdit début juillet et classé “organisation terroriste”, a annoncé la police londonienne.Celle-ci a procédé à ces interpellations – un des plus grands nombres pendant une seule manifestation dans la capitale britannique – pour “soutien à une organisation interdite”.La police a précisé avoir arrêté ou être “en train de le faire” toutes les personnes ayant brandi la pancarte “Je m’oppose au génocide, je soutiens Palestine Action”. Sur place, des manifestants ont porté d’autres pancartes comme “Agir contre le génocide n’est pas un crime” ou “Free Palestine”.La guerre dans la bande de Gaza a été déclenchée après l’attaque sans précédent du Hamas en Israël le 7 octobre 2023 qui a entraîné la mort de 1.219 personnes, en majorité des civils, selon un décompte de l’AFP réalisé à partir de données officielles israéliennes. Les représailles israéliennes ont depuis fait au moins 61.369 morts dans ce territoire palestinien, majoritairement des civils, selon les chiffres du ministère de la Santé du Hamas, jugés fiables par l’ONU.”C’est un impératif moral d’être ici”, a déclaré à l’AFP Mathilda, qui ne souhaitait pas donner son patronyme.”S’ils veulent m’arrêter, je ne m’enfuirai pas et je ne me cacherai pas”, a ajouté cette septuagénaire arrivée spécialement de Bristol, à l’ouest de Londres, et qui était assise aux côtés d’autres manifestants avec la pancarte de soutien au groupe interdit.- “Rien à me reprocher” -“Qu’ils nous arrêtent tous”, a renchéri Richard Bull, un londonien de 42 ans dans un fauteuil roulant. “Ce gouvernement est allé trop loin. Je n’ai rien à me reprocher.” De nombreux drapeaux palestiniens étaient visibles dans la foule, à quelques pas de laquelle étaient alignés des voitures de police, a constaté une journaliste de l’AFP.Les forces de l’ordre avaient mis en garde les participants contre les “potentielles conséquences pénales” de leurs actes.Les personnes arrêtées n’ont pas opposé de résistance, beaucoup formant un “V” de la victoire avec leurs doigts, sous les applaudissements d’autres manifestants, a constaté une journaliste de l’AFP.Palestine Action a été ajoutée début juillet à la liste des organisations considérées comme “terroristes” au Royaume-Uni, après des actes de vandalisme perpétrés par ses militants, notamment sur une base de l’armée de l’air.Le groupe Defend Our Juries organise depuis des manifestations pour protester contre cette interdiction, jugée “disproportionnée” par l’ONU.”Nous continuerons tant que le gouvernement tentera de faire taire ceux qui dénoncent sa complicité dans des crimes de guerre”, a réagi Defend Our Juries dans un communiqué.”Nous sommes déjà de plus en plus nombreux à nous préparer pour la prochaine vague d’actions en septembre”.”L’arrestation de manifestants par ailleurs pacifiques constitue une violation des obligations internationales du Royaume-Uni de protéger les droits à la liberté d’expression et de réunion”, a dénoncé l’ONG Amnesty International samedi sur X.Le gouvernement britannique affirme que les sympathisants de Palestine Action “ne connaissent pas la vraie nature” de ce mouvement. “Ce n’est pas une organisation non violente”, a assuré la ministre de l’Intérieur Yvette Cooper, disant disposer d'”informations inquiétantes” sur ses projets.Plus de 200 de ses partisans avaient déjà été interpellés avant la manifestation de samedi, selon Tim Crosland, un représentant de Defend Our Juries. Trois personnes ont été inculpées en vertu de la loi antiterroriste jeudi pour avoir exprimé leur soutien à Palestine Action, une infraction passible de jusqu’à six mois de prison.L’appartenance à un groupe interdit ou l’incitation à le soutenir peut quant à elle valoir jusqu’à 14 ans de prison. L’interdiction de Palestine Action a donné lieu à une action en justice entamée par Huda Ammori, cofondatrice en 2020 de cette organisation qui se présentait comme un “réseau d’action directe” visant à dénoncer “la complicité britannique” avec l’Etat d’Israël, en particulier sur la question des ventes d’armes. La justice britannique doit examiner ce recours en novembre.

Kyiv won’t give up land, says Zelensky as US-Russia summit confirmed

Ukraine won’t surrender land to Russia to buy peace, President Volodymyr Zelensky warned Saturday, after Washington and Moscow agreed to hold a summit in a bid to end the war.Presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump will meet in the US state of Alaska next Friday, to try to resolve the three-year conflict, despite warnings from Ukraine and Europe that Kyiv must be part of negotiations. Announcing the summit on Friday, Trump said that “there’ll be some swapping of territories to the betterment of both” sides, without elaborating.Hours later, Zelensky said on social media: “Ukrainians will not give their land to the occupier.”Any decisions against us, any decisions without Ukraine, are also decisions against peace,” he added. “They will achieve nothing.” The war “cannot be ended without us, without Ukraine”, he said.Zelensky urged Ukraine’s allies to take “clear steps” towards achieving a sustainable peace, during a call with Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer.National security advisors from Kyiv’s allies — including the United States, EU nations and the UK — gathered in Britain Saturday to align their views ahead of the Putin-Trump summit.French President Emmanuel Macron, following phone calls with Zelensky, Starmer and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, said “the future of Ukraine cannot be decided without Ukrainians” and that Europe also had to be involved in the negotiations.UK Foreign Secretary Lammy received US Vice President JD Vance, Ukraine’s Defence Minister Rustem Umerov, top Zelensky aide Andriy Yermak and European national security advisors.On Saturday, Lammy posted on X: “The UK’s support for Ukraine remains ironclad as we continue working towards a just and lasting peace.”In his evening address Saturday, Zelensky stressed: “There must be an honest end to this war, and it is up to Russia to end the war it started.”- A ‘dignified peace’ -Three rounds of talks between Russia and Ukraine this year have failed to bear fruit, and it remains unclear whether a summit could bring peace any closer as the warring sides’ positions are still far apart.Tens of thousands of people have been killed since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, with millions forced to flee their homes.Putin has resisted multiple calls from the United States, Europe and Kyiv for a ceasefire.Putin, a former KGB officer in power in Russia for over 25 years, has ruled out holding talks with Zelensky at this stage.Ukraine’s leader has been pushing for a three-way summit and argues that meeting Putin is the only way to make progress towards peace.- Far from the war -The summit in Alaska, the far-north territory which Russia sold to the United States in 1867, would be the first between sitting US and Russian presidents since Joe Biden met Putin in Geneva in June 2021.Nine months later, Moscow sent troops into Ukraine.Zelensky said of the location that it was “very far away from this war, which is raging on our land, against our people”. The Kremlin said the choice was “logical” because the state close to the Arctic is on the border between the two countries, and this is where their “economic interests intersect”.Moscow has also invited Trump to pay a reciprocal visit to Russia later. Trump and Putin last sat together in 2019 at a G20 summit meeting in Japan during Trump’s first term. They have spoken by telephone several times since January, but Trump has failed to broker peace in Ukraine as he promised he could.On Friday, Putin held a round of calls with allies, including Brazil, China and India, in a diplomatic flurry ahead of the Alaska summit. In a 40-minute phone conversation Saturday between Putin and President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the Brazilian leader reiterated his support for dialogue “and the pursuit of a peaceful solution”, his office said.Trump has imposed an additional tariff on India for buying Russia’s oil in a bid to nudge Moscow into talks. He has threatened China with a similar tax, but so far has refrained from doing so.- Fighting goes on -Russia and Ukraine continued pouring dozens of drones onto each other’s positions in an exchange of attacks in the early hours of Saturday. A bus carrying civilians was hit in Ukraine’s frontline city of Kherson, killing two people and wounding 16. The Russian army claimed to have taken Yablonovka, another village in the Donetsk region, the site of the most intense fighting in the east and one of the five regions Putin says is part of Russia. Four people were killed as of Saturday morning in Donetsk after Russian shelling, Ukrainian authorities said. In 2022, the Kremlin announced the annexation of four Ukrainian regions — Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson — despite not having full control over them. Russia had previously annexed the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine in 2014.As a prerequisite to any peace settlement, Moscow demanded Kyiv pull its forces out of the regions and commit to being a neutral state, shun Western military support and be excluded from joining NATO.Kyiv said it would never recognise Russian control over its sovereign territory, though it acknowledged that getting land captured by Russia back would have to come through diplomacy, not on the battlefield.burs-jj/gv

UK police arrest hundreds for backing banned pro-Palestine group

Police in London arrested 466 people Saturday for supporting Palestine Action at the latest and largest protest backing the group since the government banned it last month under anti-terror laws.The Metropolitan Police said it had made the arrests, thought to be one of the highest number ever at a single protest in the UK capital, for “supporting a proscribed organisation”.It also arrested eight people for other offences including five for alleged assaults on officers, though none were seriously injured, it added.The government outlawed Palestine Action in early July, days after it took responsibility for a break-in at an air force base in southern England that caused an estimated £7 million ($9.3 million) of damage to two aircraft.The group said its activists were responding to Britain’s indirect military support for Israel amid the war in Gaza.Britain’s interior ministry reiterated ahead of Saturday’s protests that Palestine Action was also suspected of other “serious attacks” that involved “violence, significant injuries and extensive criminal damage”.But critics, including the United Nations and groups such as Amnesty International and Greenpeace, have condemned  the move as legal overreach and a threat to free speech.- ‘Unprecedented’ -A group called Defend Our Juries, which organised Saturday’s protests and previous demonstrations against the ban, said “unprecedented numbers” had risked “arrest and possible imprisonment” to “defend this country’s ancient liberties”.”We will keep going. Our numbers are already growing for the next wave of action in September,” it added.Attendees began massing near parliament at lunchtime bearing signs saying “oppose genocide, support Palestine Action” and other slogans, and waving Palestinian flags.Psychotherapist Craig Bell, 39, was among those holding a placard. For him, the ban was “absolutely ridiculous”. “When you compare Palestine Action with an actual terrorist group who are killing civilians and taking lives, it’s just a joke that they’re being prescribed a terrorist group,” he told AFP.As police moved in on the demonstrators, who nearly all appeared to offer no resistance, attendees applauded those being arrested and shouted “shame on you” at officers.”Let them arrest us all,” said Richard Bull, 42, a wheelchair-user in attendance.”This government has gone too far. I have nothing to feel ashamed of.”However, interior minister Yvette Cooper insisted late Saturday Palestine Action had been outlawed “based on strong security advice” and following “an assessment from the Joint Terrorism Assessment Centre that the group prepares for terrorism”.”Many people may not yet know the reality of this organisation,” she said, adding it “is not non-violent”. “The right to protest is one we protect fiercely but this is very different from displaying support for this one specific and narrow, proscribed organisation.”- NGOs opposed -Police forces across the UK have made scores of similar arrests since the government outlawed Palestine Action on July 5, making being a member or supporting the group a criminal offence punishable by up to 14 years in prison.Police announced this week that the first three people had been charged in the English and Welsh criminal justice system with supporting Palestine Action following their arrests at a July 5 demo.Seven people have so far been charged in Scotland, which has a separate legal system.Amnesty International UK Chief Executive Sacha Deshmukh wrote to Met Police chief Mark Rowley this week urging restraint be exercised when policing people holding placards expressing support for Palestine Action.”The arrest of otherwise peaceful protesters is a violation of the UK’s international obligations to protect the rights of freedom of expression and assembly,” Amnesty said Saturday on X.A UK court challenge against the decision to proscribe Palestine Action will be heard in November.

Chad court jails ex-PM, opposition leader for 20 yearsSat, 09 Aug 2025 21:13:37 GMT

A court in Chad jailed former prime minister and opposition leader Succes Masra for 20 years Saturday, convicting him of hate speech, xenophobia and having incited a massacre.The court in N’Djamena jailed Masra, one of President Mahamat Idriss Deby Itno’s fiercest critics, for his role in inciting inter-communal violence in which 42 people were killed …

Chad court jails ex-PM, opposition leader for 20 yearsSat, 09 Aug 2025 21:13:37 GMT Read More »

Thousands protest in Tel Aviv against Israeli govt move to expand Gaza war

Thousands took to the streets in Tel Aviv on Saturday to call for an end to the war in Gaza, a day after the Israeli government vowed to expand the conflict and capture Gaza City.Demonstrators waved signs and held up pictures of hostages still being held in the Palestinian territory as they called on the government to secure their release. AFP journalists at the rally estimated the number of attendees to be in the tens of thousands, while a group representing the families of hostages said as many as 100,000 people participated. Authorities did not provide an official estimate for the size of the crowd, though it dwarfed other recent anti-war rallies. “We will end with a direct message to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: if you invade parts of Gaza and the hostages are murdered, we will pursue you in the town squares, in election campaigns and at every time and place,” Shahar Mor Zahiro, the relative of a slain hostage, told AFP.On Friday, Netanyahu’s security cabinet greenlighted plans for a major operation to seize Gaza City, triggering a wave of domestic and international criticism.Foreign powers, including some of Israel’s allies, have been pushing for a negotiated ceasefire to secure the hostages’ return and help alleviate a humanitarian crisis in the Strip. Despite the backlash and rumours of dissent from Israeli military top brass, Netanyahu has remained defiant over the decision.  In a post on social media late Friday, Netanyahu said “we are not going to occupy Gaza — we are going to free Gaza from Hamas”.The premier has faced regular protests over the course of 22 months of war, with many rallies calling for the government to strike a deal after past truces saw hostages exchanged for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli custody. Out of 251 hostages captured during Hamas’s 2023 attack, 49 are still being held in Gaza, including 27 the military says are dead.- ‘A new crime’ -The Palestinian Authority (PA) on Saturday lambasted Israel’s plan to expand its operations in Gaza.According to a statement carried by the official Palestinian news agency Wafa, PA president Mahmud Abbas said the plan “constitutes a new crime”, and stressed “the urgent need to take action to stop it immediately”.He also emphasised “the importance of enabling the State of Palestine to assume its full responsibilities in the Gaza Strip”.In the same meeting that approved the Gaza City plan, the security cabinet adopted a set of principles for ending the war in Gaza that included establishing a new “administration that is neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority”.The PA, conceived as a first step towards a Palestinian state, exercises limited administration over parts of the Israeli-occupied West Bank, but does not have a presence in Hamas-run Gaza.A statement issued Saturday by the foreign ministers of Italy, Australia, Germany, New Zealand and the United Kingdom again criticised the decision to occupy Gaza City. “This will exacerbate the catastrophic humanitarian situation, endanger the lives of hostages, and increase the risk of a mass exodus of civilians,” they said. Russia also condemned the Israeli plan to take control of Gaza City in a statement Saturday.Implementing such plans “risks worsening the already dramatic situation in the Palestinian enclave, which shows all the signs of a humanitarian disaster”, said a foreign ministry statement.Gaza’s civil defence agency said at least 37 people were killed by Israeli fire across the territory on Saturday, including 30 civilians who were waiting to collect aid. Israel’s offensive has killed more than 61,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza’s health ministry, figures the United Nations says are reliable.Hamas’s 2023 attack on Israel — which triggered the war — resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

Foot: le PSG officialise l’arrivée du gardien Lucas Chevalier

Le Paris SG a officialisé samedi le recrutement du gardien Lucas Chevalier, en provenance de Lille. Le club champion d’Europe a publié sur X une vidéo mettant en scène l’arrivée du joueur de 23 ans au centre d’entraînement parisien, à la fin de laquelle il dit: “Ici c’est Paris”.”Je suis un gamin qui est en train de réaliser son rêve”, déclare le jeune portier sur le site du club, où le président Nasser Al-Khelaïfi le qualifie de “renfort fantastique”.Le transfert porte sur cinq saisons, indique le club, et se chiffrerait à 40 millions d’euros, selon des sources proches des discussions contactées vendredi par l’AFP.Chevalier a été régulièrement appelé en équipe de France mais n’a pas encore joué pour les A. Il devrait être disponible dès mercredi avec le PSG pour affronter Tottenham en Supercoupe d’Europe à Udine (Italie).L’ex-Lillois a séduit les recruteurs parisiens lors des dix rencontres qu’il a disputées en Ligue des champions la saison dernière. Il a notamment brillé lors des grandes affiches contre le Real Madrid (1-0) et l’Atlético Madrid (3-1), où il a largement contribué à la victoire des siens.L’arrivée de Chevalier soulève de nombreuses questions alors que Gianluigi Donnarumma vient d’achever une saison historique dans les cages des champions de France et d’Europe, finalistes de la Coupe du monde des clubs cet été. Paris a repris l’entraînement le 6 août, une petite semaine avant son premier match officiel cette saison, et comptera avec Chevalier cinq gardiens: Donnarumma, Matvey Safonov, Arnau Tenas et le nouveau venu Renato Marin. L’entraîneur Luis Enrique a l’habitude de pratiquer la concurrence dans son groupe, mais Chevalier aurait reçu des garanties du directeur sportif Luis Campos sur le statut de N.1 qui lui sera accordé. Malgré les services rendus, Gianluigi Donnaruma doit donc désormais trouver une porte de sortie.Par ailleurs, le Paris SG, qui a été sage sur le marché des transferts cet été, s’est mis d’accord avec le club anglais de Bournemouth pour le recrutement du défenseur central ukrainien Illia Zabarnyi, âgé de 22 ans, selon plusieurs médias français.

Four astronauts home from space station after splashdown

An international crew of four astronauts is back home on Earth Saturday after nearly five months aboard the International Space Station, returning safely in a SpaceX capsule.The spacecraft carrying US astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers, Japan’s Takuya Onishi and Russian cosmonaut Kirill Peskov splashed down off California’s coast at 8:44 am local time (1534 GMT). Their return marks the end of the 10th crew rotation mission to the space station under NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, which was created to succeed the Space Shuttle era by partnering with private industry.The Dragon capsule of billionaire Elon Musk’s SpaceX company detached from the International Space Station (ISS) at 2215 GMT on Friday.When these capsules reenter Earth’s atmosphere, they heat up to 3,500 degrees Fahrenheit (1,925 Celsius), according to NASA.Atmospheric reentry — then the deployment of huge parachutes when the capsule gets closer to Earth — slows its speed from 17,500 miles (28,100 kilometers ) per hour to just 16 miles per hour.After the capsule splashed down, it was recovered by a SpaceX ship and hoisted aboard. Only then were the astronauts able to breathe Earth’s air again, for the first time in months.The crew will now fly to Houston to be reunited with their families.They conducted numerous scientific experiments during their time on the space station, including studying plant growth, how cells react to gravity, and the effect of microgravity on human eyes.- ‘Bittersweet’ return -NASA acting Administrator Sean Duffy praised the successful mission.”Our crew missions are the building blocks for long-duration, human exploration pushing the boundaries of what’s possible,” he said in a NASA statement.McClain said her farewell to the ISS was “bittersweet” because she may never return.”Every day, this mission depends on people from all over the world,” she wrote on X.”It depends on government and commercial entities, it depends on all political parties, and it depends on commitment to an unchanged goal over many years and decades.”NASA said last month it would lose about 20 percent of its workforce — around 3,900 employees — under cuts from the US President Donald Trump’s sweeping effort to trim the federal workforce.Trump has meanwhile prioritized crewed missions to the Moon and Mars.The Crew-10’s launch into space in March allowed two US astronauts to return home after being unexpectedly stuck aboard the space station for nine months.When they launched in June 2024, Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams were only supposed to spend eight days in space on a test of the Boeing Starliner’s first crewed flight. However, the spaceship developed propulsion problems and was deemed unfit to fly back, leaving them in space for an indefinite period.NASA announced this week that Wilmore has decided to retire after 25 years of service at the US space agency. Last week, US astronauts Zena Cardman and Mike Fincke, Japan’s Kimiya Yui and Russian cosmonaut Oleg Platonov boarded the ISS for a six-month mission.