Protesters and the empty council chamber after the mayor asked for the meeting to be suspended

• AS you noted in your article of October 15, the mayor of Camden Samata Khatoon and borough solicitor Andrew Maughan called police officers last Monday to remove silent protesters from the viewing gallery of the council meeting for the apparent crime of holding up letters spelling stop genocide.

It is incredible that police should be called on local residents exercising their right to be present at the council’s public deliberations and, as your article notes, “not making any noise or heckling the meeting – instead standing in silence while holding up their signs”.

What is even more incredible is the reason the council gave for calling the police. Maughan told protesters: “If you remove genocide, we’ll continue with the meeting… To a lot of people that word is offensive.”

Later, he says: “If you were saying stop the war or something of that nature [we would allow you to continue],” with council chief executive Jenny Rowlands nodding her agreement when he turns to her for confirmation.

If Camden Council finds the word genocide offensive, it should know that many of its residents, like me, are not just offended but enraged and deeply saddened that the council continues to allow money paid in council taxes to be invested in companies that are facilitating Israeli atrocities against Palestinians.

According to the council’s own disclosures, £7.07million of pension funds it manages on behalf of former employees is invested in such “problematic companies”, while Israel’s largest arms manufacturer, Elbit Systems, is among the companies council pension funds support.

After more than a year of unbearable scenes of “plausible” genocide in the words of the International Court of Justice, the British government’s suspension of sales of some arms to Israel because of the “clear risk” they will be used to commit war crimes and now even the US government’s demand of proof from Israel that it does not have an active policy of starvation in northern Gaza, it’s hard to know what word other than genocide to describe what is happening there.

Nevertheless if mayor Khatoon and borough solicitor Maughan are offended by the word, there is a simply way to ensure it is not seen in the council chamber again: divest council funds from Israel now.

RACHEL ROWAN OLIVE
Camden Friends of Palestine