Architecture educator Jeremy Till arrested at Palestine Action protest in London

Former head of Central Saint Martins Jeremy Till, and three other British architects were among the hundreds of people arrested at a Palestine Action protest in London.

Till, Walter Menteth, Studio Bark founder Nick Newman, and Manalo & White commercial manager Steve Fox were four of the 532 people arrested last Saturday at a sit-in demonstration held at Parliament Square in support of Palestine Action – a British pro-Palestine organisation that the UK government proscribed a terrorist group in July.

The proscription, which occurred after activists from the group caused an estimated £7 million damage to jets at RAF Brize Norton military base, means that it is a criminal offence to be a member of Palestine Action or express support for it, punishable by up to 14 years in prison.

All but 10 of the 532 arrests on Saturday's protest, which was organised by pressure group Defend Our Juries, were for displaying placards in support of Palestine Action. Till, Menteth, Newman and Fox each held signs that read "I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action".

The four architects have since released a statement on the arrest and their involvement in the protest, in which they defended the right to protest and expressed outrage at the UK government.

"The government is now attempting to use terror laws to silence those like us who wish to speak out or take non-violent action against the Palestinian genocide," they said. 'This is the same government that is complicit in the genocide, primarily through allowing the continuing flow of arms and military support from the UK to Israel, which Palestine Action sought to protest."

Several UN reports have found Israel's warfare to be "consistent with the characteristics of genocide". Two leading human rights groups based in Israel, B'Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights, have also said that Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and that the USA and European countries have a legal and moral duty to stop this from happening.

"The overreach by the UK government is leading to mass arrests of ordinary people, creating a chilling effect for free speech: civil disobedience is not terrorism," the architects continued.

"The proscription restricts the rights of citizens to express despair at, and opposition to, the genocide and the UK government's role in it. This should be a matter of concern for everyone, including architects."

In their statement, Till, Menteth, Newman and Fox stated their support for UK-based Architects for Gaza, which wrote a letter to the RIBA in June demanding an "expulsion of Israel" from the International Union of Architects.

The four architects also applauded Palestine Regeneration Team's contribution to the British Pavilion at this year's Venice Architecture Biennale.

Till, Menteth, Newman and Fox each attended the Palestine Action demonstration separately for their own reasons.

With shared backgrounds in architecture, they came together after the protest and put together the statement, which included calls for the RIBA and other built environment institutions to "divest and refuse funding, partnerships, or collaborations with Israeli state institutions or international firms complicit in the occupation, colonisation, or ongoing erasure of Palestinian life and architecture".

The group note that a resolution made by the RIBA Council in 2018 stated that the institute's activities were committed to centring social purpose and ethics.

"We urge all architectural workers to consider what action they can take to oppose Israel's implementation of the Palestinian genocide," the architects said.

"We also insist that architectural firms never take punitive action against workers who take action in support of the people of Palestine," they continued.

"We need to state clearly that any professional engagement with the illegal settlements in the West Bank and in the occupation and appropriation of Palestinian territory should be sanctioned."

Israel recently intensified its bombing of Gaza, despite condemnation from world leaders and global outcry over the death of six journalists in the region.

According to Gaza's health ministry, 61,599 Palestinians have died in Israel's most recent military campaign, launched in response to Hamas's 7 October attacks.

"All architecture is political," said Till, Menteth, Newman and Fox. "The Israeli government has weaponised architecture as an instrument of war."

"As architects, every line we draw has spatial, and therefore social, consequences for individuals, collectives and societies," they continued.

"This is manifestly true in Gaza, where the deliberate erasure of those lines, in terms of the destruction of buildings and infrastructure, has led to the mass displacement and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their land, homes and communities."

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