Around 600 protesters marched through town in solidarity with the O4AP encampment in a demonstration supported by local trade unions and community groups. Students, workers and activists began their march in Oxford Brookes and walked through High Street before ending with a final rally outside the Bodleian.
The main march began at midday and merged with a series of ‘feeder’ marches from across town at Cowley roundabout. An Imam led the crowd’s chants from Cowley onwards, and people in the crowd played the drums. Protesters implicated Irene Tracey, Rishi Sunak, Keir Starmer and the Oxford Union in their chants, telling them “you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide” and calling for a “ceasefire now.”
A large police presence, on foot and on bicycles, followed the protestors at a distance offering advice to onlookers and managing traffic flow.
The local branches of the national education union, Unite, Stop the War Coalition and Health Workers 4 Palestine took part in the march. Alongside the banners of their organisations, protesters raised the flags of Palestine, Kurdistan, West Papua and the Communist Party.
The march ended at the encampment outside the Radcliffe Camera at around 1.30pm where protestors stopped for a final rally at the entry into the Bodleian. Representatives from the various organisations participating in the protest spoke to the crowds massed at Radcliffe Square.
