A Bastille Day to Remember — Or, How I Tried to Get Arrested and Failed Spectacularly.

Monday, the 14th of July. Bastille Day. A fine date for revolutionaries, and — entirely by accident — the day I decided to try and get myself arrested.

Not for fun, but to start the ball rolling against the terror legislation, given our country's history of civil disobedience against unjust laws, this I feel needs to be done.

At around 2pm I made my way to New Scotland Yard. My mission? To be arrested under Section 12 of the Terrorism Act — the very law now being weaponised to criminalise those of us who support Palestine Action. This isn't about public safety. It's about silencing dissent. So I thought: let’s put that to the test.

I’d prepared a written statement — now my pinned tweet — declaring my open support for Palestine Action, and read it out in full to the camera before walking into Scotland Yard and asking the desk officers to arrest me.

Their response?

“Sorry, we can’t.”

Turns out, Scotland Yard is just the national operational HQ. No holding cells. No custody suite. No powers to detain random revolutionaries wandering in with a letter and a spine brace. Just uniforms, clipboards, and that hypnotic spinning sign.

So, not quite the moment of rebellion I’d pictured.

But I wasn’t done trying.

Outside the building, I took a break in my zero-gravity chair — a necessary luxury given the state of my broken back — stretched out under the infamous Scotland Yard sign, sipping Palestinian coffee, when two officers walked past. My solicitor, Tas Akunjee, couldn’t resist.

“Excuse me officers, would you mind arresting him please?”

They looked me up and down — coffee in hand, fully reclined, clearly not much of a threat — and replied:

“Nah.”

He with his usual sarcasm, shot back:

“Aren’t you even going to ask what crime he’s committed before refusing to arrest him?”

They shrugged:

“We’re not interested. Go away.”

I nearly choked laughing. So did he.

And as we packed up to move to our next stop, Tas turned to me and said:

“This is all Sadiq Khan’s fault. Police don’t arrest people anymore.”

The man was taking the piss — but he wasn’t entirely wrong as you will note.

So off we went to Charing Cross Police Station, where they do have cells.

I walked in, handed over my written statement again, and declared — clearly and loudly — that I supported Palestine Action. A direct breach of the new Terror law, by the government’s own definition.

They told me someone would come down shortly. Some 45 minutes later, two officers appeared.

And that’s when things took a truly bizarre & surreal turn.

It was the exact same two police officers who were first on the scene when I got hit by a car back in March.

Out of 33,000 serving Police officers in the Met, it just happens to be the same two who’d spent seven hours with me and my family that life-changing day when my back was fractured. It was the same two that my family got tea and coffee for. The same two who were legally required to stay with me from the roadside to the hospital ward, logging everything because I was, at the time, in a very critical condition — a possible death-by-driving case.

They remembered me instantly. I remembered them. We all burst out laughing.

And here's where fate really screwed me.

Because these two officers already knew who I was — name, address, everything — there was no legal obligation to arrest me. The police only have to arrest you if they can’t confirm your identity or if you pose a risk. But because of that near-death moment months ago, I was officially known to them.

So ironically, the thing that nearly killed me is now the thing preventing me from getting arrested.

They took my name and details again, chuckled at the ridiculousness of the situation, and I explained — for the third time that day — that I wanted to be arrested.

But still… no dice.

And when I was finally interviewed under caution (the video attached), the last voice you hear in the video is my solicitor saying:

“See, no one likes you. That’s why no one wants to arrest you.”

It was meant as a joke. But honestly? I think there’s some truth in it.

A farcical, hilarious, utterly British attempt to provoke the legal system — and failing, not because I wasn’t serious, but because the police were too decent to cuff a man in a zero-gravity chair sipping Palestinian coffee.

I tried to get arrested... and ended up getting sympathy, tea recommendations, and two old friends from the car crash instead.

Honestly, if this is what political rebellion looks like in Britain now — I might need to start carrying a banner that says: "Arrest me, I’m famous."

And just when I thought the day was done, the plot thickened.

At 8pm that evening, I got a call from the anti-terrorism unit at Hammersmith Police Station. Very polite. Very official. They invited me down for a chat — said they'd like to ask a few questions and conduct an Interview "Under Caution +3".

So off I went again, this time to Hammersmith, where I arrived around 9:35pm. We had a calm, 45-minute interview. At the end, I asked the obvious question:

”So... are you going to arrest me now?”

One of the officers smiled and said:

“You tried to break into Scotland Yard to get arrested. Then you went to Charing Cross and tried again. Quite frankly, Mr Shafiei, we have no fear whatsoever of you doing a runner. You're the first suspect in British history who’s trying too hard to get arrested.”

And with that, they opened the door and said:

“You can leave Hammersmith Police Station now, too.”

Rejected. By counter-terrorism. For trying too hard.

Some people get medals for bravery. I got politely told to go home.

This was my Bastille Day