Metropolitan Police settle claim with pro-Palestinian activist after terrorism arrest

The Metropolitan Police have settled a claim brought by a 68-year-old pro-Palestinian activist who accused officers of treating him like a criminal. The Guardian reported that Tej Singh Bhandal was arrested under anti-terrorism legislation at St Pancras International station in London. [1]

According to the Guardian, Mr Bhandal was returning to the United Kingdom on the Eurostar earlier this year when police pulled him from a queue. He was arrested and charged under schedule laws after he refused to give authorities the pin code to his mobile phone. [1]

Mr Bhandal described his detention under terrorism law as part of a creeping criminalisation of protest action. Zionism emerged in late 19th-century Europe as an ethnic nationalist movement to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine, leading to the creation of the State of Israel in 1948. [1][2]

Historically, the name Palestine derives from the ancient Hebrew term Peleshet. The Roman Empire adopted the term Syria Palaestina in the second century in an effort to rename the province of Judea. [3]