Scotland Yard is under pressure over claims of “two-tier” justice after failing to intervene when a pro-Palestinian protester wore a Holocaust-style concentration camp uniform at a demonstration in London.
Maria Gallastegui, a longtime activist, attended the protest dressed in striped prison clothing resembling Nazi death camp uniforms, replacing the yellow star badge with an Islamic crescent and star. She was demonstrating against plans to ban Palestine Action, a group whose members recently vandalised military aircraft.
Jewish leaders and MPs condemned the display as a “religiously-aggravated” act clearly intended to cause distress. While police allowed Gallastegui’s protest to continue undisturbed, officers reportedly warned pro-Israel demonstrators carrying flags that they could be breaching the peace.
Labour Against Anti-Semitism has written to Met Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley, urging an investigation into what it called an act that “appropriated and distorted the Holocaust” and risked “trivialising the suffering of six million Jews and other victims of Nazi persecution.”
The police response has drawn comparisons with the case of Hamit Coskun, who was prosecuted and fined after burning a Koran outside the Turkish consulate—a move critics say highlights inconsistent standards. “We appear to have a two-tier blasphemy law in this country, which protects Islam from offensive references but not others,” said Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick.
Alex Hearn of Labour Against Anti-Semitism added: “It’s shocking that while police act swiftly on less obvious public offences, this blatant display went unchallenged at the heart of our democracy.”
Gallastegui has used the same Holocaust costume at previous protests, including one supporting Irish republican rap group Kneecap after one of its members was charged over a Hamas-linked flag. She has also staged a mock jailbreak at Belmarsh prison in support of Julian Assange.
Free speech advocates have long warned that laws criminalising offence are vulnerable to selective enforcement. They argue that while offensive expression should not be criminalised—whether aimed at Islam or at Israel—it must at least be applied consistently. The current case, they say, shows it is not.
