Iranian Embassy Demonstrations Update

Dear Residents, 

Please see the below update from Chief Superintendent Joe McDonald, who was Gold for the protest yesterday. This was following emails from Councillor Rachael Robathan and residents about the protest yesterday. 

Dear councillor and residents

Thank you for your email regarding Sunday.

The circumstances were that we had an anti-Iranian regime march that started in Whitehall and finished at the Embassy.  Because the march was not outside the Embassy until right at the end of their march, they were entitled to use the drums and amplified music etc on the march and we had no legal power to prevent that.  We had made clear to them the conditions that would apply when they reached the Embassy.

They reached the Embassy pretty much right on 6:30pm. As soon as they stopped outside the Embassy we sent many officers through the crowd telling them of the conditions and explaining we would enforce them if they did not comply.  The law on conditions does mean we have to warn them they are breaching the conditions before we can take action.  We quickly removed the main sound system from the crowd and I think the amplified sound and instruments were stopped by approximately 6:45pm and the crowd fully dispersed and the road open again by 7pm.

I do appreciate the serious disturbance the protests are causing to residents and that was at the forefront of my mind all week as Gold commander for public order events last week.  It was why we sought to end the protest at 6:30pm every night, prevent instruments and amplified sound through the whole week and why I had conditions in over the weekend.  I’m sorry we didn’t manage to end it at exactly 6:30pm last night and that they initially turned up with drums, the combination of the practical challenge of the march arriving right on 6:30pm (much later than had been expected – we had anticipated it arriving more like 5pm) and the legal complexities of the protestors arriving as a march from another part of London meant there was a slight delay in ensuring the conditions were adhered to.

I provided a detailed handover to the Gold commander for this week and they are fully sighted on the impact on the residents, the specific issues on Sunday and the fact we need to continue to work to reduce the impact on you whilst allowing the demonstrators their right to protest.  Please do keep feeding back to my local police colleagues, all the residents feedback we receive goes directly into our legal basis for our decision-making and allows us to bring in those conditions and have those conversations with the organisers which we did throughout the week last week.

I hope that gives some clarity to the events on Sunday and reassure you of our commitment to minimising the impact on local residents.

Best wishes

Joe McDonald

Chief Superintendent