LFI vice-chair Louise Ellman presses police over Hezbollah flags at Al-Quds march

This article first appeared in the JewishNews. 

An MP who is vice-chair of Labour Friends of Israel has pushed the Metropolitan Police to raise concerns about protesters waving Hezbollah flags at the annual Al-Quds Day march in London.

Louise Ellman MP met police chiefs and expressed concern that marchers were exploiting a legal loophole, under which it is only an offence under Section 13 of the Terrorism Act to support Hezbollah’s military wing, not the political wing. That is because only the military wing is proscribed as a terrorist group.

Ellman and others have urged Home Secretary Amber Rudd to proscribe the entire group, arguing that Hezbollah chiefs themselves make no distinction between the political and armed wings.

After the meeting, she said: “The flag of a terrorist organisation that explicitly seeks the destruction of the world’s only Jewish state has no place on the streets of London. If the police are unable to take action under existing legislation, the Home Secretary should proscribe Hezbollah in its entirety.”