Police probe Remembrance Sunday Palestine protest - if one exists
The PSNI are probing a possible pro-Palestine protest during Remembrance Sunday services at Belfast City Hall.
It comes after major unionist figures condemned the move, arising from a poster circulating online that claims a protest is due to happen at 11am on November 9th. At that time, senior political figures are due to solemnly lay wreaths at city hall’s cenotaph to remember the fallen.
MLA Edwin Poots said he’d written to the chief constable about it, labelling the demonstration “deeply disrespectful to those who made the ultimate sacrifice”.
However, the News Letter can find no evidence such a protest is actually planned, or who is supposed to be behind it, or what it will involve – while the poster circulating shows strong indications of being an AI construct.
The black and white poster reads “Ireland stands with Palestine in our shared struggle”, also containing the location of Belfast city hall plus the date and time of the protest and the word “occupation”.
Detecting software employed by the News Letter said the image has a 97% chance of being AI-generated, while its look is more in-keeping with republican posters seen in the first half of the Troubles than modern day designs used by either pro-Palestine activists or republican groups.
While a Belfast protest against Palestine Action’s ban is on the cards, it’s roughly a fortnight after Remembrance events. None of the major pro-Palestine groups in the city mention anything about Remembrance Sunday on their frequently updated social media accounts.
And the Parades Commission is showing no record of any applications to march on November 9th from Palestine campaigners.
A PSNI spokesman told the News Letter: “Police received a letter from an elected representative in relation to a potential protest and are making enquiries.”