Former SDLP leader Colum Eastwood has appeared in court charged with taking part in an unnotified parade in Northern Ireland in protest at Israel’s war on Gaza.
The Foyle MP was in court in Derry facing a charge connected with a pro-Palestinian rally that took place in the city last February.
The event was held at the War Memorial in the Diamond area of the city centre. After speeches, participants walked to Derry’s Guildhall.
Under Northern Ireland’s legislation governing parades and processions, the organisers of such events must apply in advance to the Parades Commission adjudication body for permission.
Mr Eastwood is one of several people charged in relation to the event on February 14th last year.
During the short hearing on Tuesday a solicitor for Mr Eastwood told the court that he intended to ask Northern Ireland’s Public Prosecution Service to review the basis for pursuing the charge, as he suggested it was not in the interests of justice.
The case was adjourned to June 3rd.
Outside court, Colum Eastwood said he would not be deterred from “standing up” for the people of Gaza.
“The people who are standing here today as defendants respect the law, we respect this court,” he told reporters outside Derry Magistrates’ Court.
“But, actually, we were marching and protesting, and have been for years now, against a bigger, a more important law being broken, and we are seeing the Israeli government in the dock in the highest courts in the world because they are committing genocide in Gaza.
“They are right now deliberately starving children. There are trucks of aid lined up at the border of Gaza that can’t get in. They have just announced that they’re going to, as we’ve always known they were going to do, fully occupy the Gaza Strip and try to rid it of the Palestinian people.
“That is the crime that we and many other people in this city were protesting on that evening and it is, frankly, bizarre to anybody with any basic understanding of the justice system why the PPS would be deciding that this was the thing that they should be focused on.
“I frankly, given the amount of work I’ve done with victims over the years and other people, can’t understand how this seems to be a priority for them.
“Others can speak for themselves, but I don’t think anybody who’s a defendant in this case will ever be put off standing up for the people of Gaza and standing up for the rule of law around protecting people from a genocide, one that is being committed live on our TV screens and global powers are doing nothing other than enable it by providing the Israeli government with weapons.” – PA
