Campaign Against Antisemitism truck displaying billboards showing pictures of Israeli children who remain missing following Hamas’ terror attack on October 7, 2023. Photo: Screenshot

London’s Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) on Friday responded to allegations that officers threatened to arrest members of a British nonprofit for “breach of peace” if they continued to display billboards showing pictures of Israeli children who are believed to have been taken hostage during Hamas’ invasion of Israel on Oct. 7.

Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA), a nonprofit that tracks antisemitic hate crimes, made the complaints against the police. According to the Jewish Chronicle, the nonprofit had organized a convoy driving through London displaying images of the Israeli children in order to draw attention to the Palestinian terror group Hamas’ atrocities.

However, the convoy was stopped on Wednesday by anti-Israel protesters who began heckling and intimidating them. When police officers came, they asked the CAA convoy to shut off its billboards and leave the area.

“The officers told our drivers to turn off their billboard and stop showing the faces of children kidnapped by a proscribed terrorist organization, apparently because their sympathizers on British streets might attack us for showing them,” CAA executive director Gideon Falter said in a video posted to the organization’s X/Twitter page after the encounter. “Before we set out, we had worried that these billboards might attract attention from Hamas sympathizers. We never imagined that it would be the police who would stop us from showing the faces of children kidnapped by a terrorist group banned by the UK government.”

MPS shared with The Algemeiner a statement explaining the officers’ actions, insisting that it was not their intent to squelch a lawful demonstration.

“Officers were keen to avoid the billboard vans becoming a point of tension or conflict,” MPS said. “We took similar actions on Saturday where we prevented pro-Palestinian demonstrators from reaching the area around the Israeli embassy given their doing so would likely have led to an escalation in tension and a possible risk to public safety.”

MPS also vowed to review the matter and determine “what we might do differently should a similar situation arise again.”

CAA has said it may take legal action.

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.