Gaza my love
© AFP Photo/Kenzo TribouillardA protester wearing a Guy Fawkes mask hold a sign reading "Gaza my love" as others carry Palestinian flags during a demonstration in Paris to denounce Israel's military campaign in Gaza on July 23, 2014
French police have banned a protest against Israel's Gaza offensive that was due to take place in Paris on Saturday, following several similar rallies that turned violent.

The ban, announced by police on Friday, comes in the wake of clashes earlier this month at pro-Palestinian demonstrations, in which some protesters shouted anti-Semitic slogans and fought with police.


Comment: Protesting against the Israeli war crimes is not anti-semitic. Paris decided to place a ban on protests instead of investigating the cause of clashes. Sad state of affairs.


Two of those rallies had been banned but went ahead anyway.

Following Friday's announcement, French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve appealed on organisers to cancel the rally.

"I urge the organisers to abandon the event on Saturday," he told AFP, accusing them of taking a "high-risk path" if they went ahead.

But a lawyer representing the organisers of the rally said they had lodged a legal challenge against the ruling.
Protests at Invalides
© AFP Photo/Kenzo TribouillardPeople gather in front of the Invalides during a demonstration to denounce Israel's military campaign in Gaza on July 23, 2014 in Paris
"The government is trying to ban a fundamental right," said Omar Alsoumi, an organiser of the protest and member of the Palestinian Youth movement.

The administrative court in Paris threw out the appeal, meaning that the ban remained in place, a legal source told AFP later Friday.

On Wednesday, several thousand people protested peacefully in Paris against the Israeli offensive in Gaza.

Police said the rally attracted about 14,500 people, while organisers put the figure at 25,000.

The government, which had banned the prior protests seeking to restrain what it called anti-Semitic radicals, authorised the march after its organisers gave "security guarantees."

Israel's offensive in Gaza, which is in its 18th day, has killed almost 850 Palestinians and 33 Israelis.

The conflict has stirred up huge passions in France -- home to the largest Muslim and Jewish communities in western Europe with around five million Muslims and half a million Jews.

Elsewhere in Europe, about 1,000 pro-Palestinian demonstrators marched through Berlin on Friday, closely watched by police for any banned anti-Semitic slogans and separated from pro-Israel rallies.

Jewish groups and German politicians had voiced outrage in recent days that protesters at past pro-Gaza rallies had chanted anti-Jewish slurs and hate speech, in the country that perpetrated the Holocaust.


Comment: Politicians outraged at the protestors not for Israeli war crimes. What a sick political world we live in ?


Several hundred people marched peacefully in the Macedonian capital Skopje in support of the Palestinians in Gaza.

And in Africa, thousands marched through the streets of Nigeria's biggest city Kano to demonstrate against what organisers dubbed a "merciless bombardment in Gaza by the illegal state of Israel."

Source: AFP