Palace banner is probed

HUMAN RIGHTS campaigners expressed disbelief last night that police were investigating a banner that opposed the Saudi takeover of Newcastle United.

The probe into Crystal Palace fans’ decision to highlight the Gulf state’s human rights atrocities was described as ‘remarkable’.

The banner accused the Saudi regime, backers of the multi-million-pound takeover, of murder, terrorism and beheadings and took a swipe at the Premier League’s owners’ and directors’ test.

‘The banner is the type of cutting political satire that the UK can rightly be proud of,’ Nicholas McGeehan, director of human rights consultancy FairSquare, said.

‘The Crystal Palace fans who made it deserve

nothing but credit. We should not be repressing our hard-fought rights and freedoms to spare the feelings of the Saudi state or the Newcastle fans who desperately want to believe that criticism of the Saudis’ human rights abuses is racist.’

The banner included caricatures of both Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, chair of the investment fund that has bought Newcastle, and Richard Masters, the Premier League chief executive.

‘It clearly attributes the abuses to the Saudi state and not to Saudis in general,’ McGeehan said.

‘But if people are going to be offended when people satirise that in a creative way, there is nothing for the police to be investigating.’

Police said they had received complaints the mural was ‘offensive’. ‘Officers are carrying out enquiries,’ said Croydon Metropolitan Police. ‘Allegations of racist abuse will be taken seriously.’