London, United Kingdom – Civil rights groups and Palestine solidarity campaigners are accusing the United Kingdom of “intimidation tactics” after two young pro-Palestinian activists were recently arrested while on bail.On Monday, 21-year-old Qesser Zuhrah was detained after sharing a social media post calling on people to take “direct action”.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemsend of listMasked officers handcuffed Zuhrah at her home in Watford at dawn. Just a month ago, she was released on bail following 15 months in prison awaiting trial, during which she participated in a lengthy hunger strike.Four days earlier, on Thursday, plainclothes police officers in south London also arrested Audrey Corno, 23, accusing her of tampering with her electronic tag in breach of bail conditions – a charge she denies.“They just grabbed me,” Corno told Al Jazeera. “I broke down into tears. This was a complete shock and very re-traumatising.”She was told that a month earlier, her tag had been offline for 20 minutes.The police surprised her as they emerged from “an undercover car” that was parked “right outside my home address”, Corno said.“I don’t know how long they had been waiting there for. I was just back from a walk with my friends,” she said. “I would have no idea how to tamper with my tag for it to stop working and then work again.”Before their latest arrests, both Zuhrah and Corno were imprisoned over their alleged participation in separate raids on military hardware manufacturers in 2024 that were claimed by Palestine Action, the direct action group wh …
