Freedom of Speech is a Luxury That Burnham, like Starmer, is Willing to Sacrifice in the Drive to War - Juries Are Our Last Line of the Defence of Freedom
On Tuesday evening at 7
pm Brighton and Hove Palestine Solidarity Campaign will hold a meeting at the
Friends Meeting House in Ship Street, Brighton.
The theme is the silencing of Palestinian advocacy and I will be one of four speakers – the others include Sukaina Rajwani, whose daughter Fatima was sentenced to almost 6 years in prison by Injustice Jeremy Johnson because he added on a ‘terrorism’ connection to a minor criminal damage conviction. This is an injustice that has to be rectified. If a judge is going to sentence anyone for terrorism then a jury must first convict them of terrorism.
Lubna Speitan, who is
spearheading the Zionism is Racism motion at the Green Party conference is also
speaking as is Stephen Kapos, a child
survivor of the Hungarian holocaust.
It is remarkable. No
Zionist supporter of genocide in Gaza has been prosecuted for supporting
Genocide in Gaza. Only the opponents of genocide have been arrested and
imprisoned. Genocide is the supreme crime. It is a crime under the International
Criminal Court Act 2001 yet the Police initially
refused even to investigate British citizens who went to fight in the IDF.
Let alone those who fund the genocide.
Instead the Police have
directed all their energies at supporters of the Palestinians. They have
deployed the ‘anti-Semitism’ weapon in the same way as the Zionists. A nearby
synagogue was the pretext
for the Met banning a demonstration starting near the BBC. On October 4, 2024 I
was arrested for making a speech comparing the Israeli state to Nazi Germany.
Later they dropped the charges and I’m presently suing them.
All of this should be
no surprise because Britain has a military
alliance with the Israeli state and has provided arms and intelligence to
them. Despite Ed Miliband’s speech
in Parliament condemning Jewish terrorists on the West Bank nothing has changed.
All the actions proposed are, his officials reassured the Americans, ‘symbolic’.
The reasons are simple.
Britain has, since 1956, been aligned with US Imperialism. Israel is the
operative arm and attack dog of the United States in the Middle East. The
European Union and Germany have also given full throated support to the
Genocide and the war against Iran.
The behaviour of the
German state is particularly vile given their record. Having participated in or
initiated four genocides – the Maji
Maji, Herero/Nama,
Armenian
and Nazi holocaust,
Germany is eager to support Israel’s holocaust in Gaza in order to come to
terms with its own record.
What is even more
remarkable is that whereas public opinion, in
Britain, Europe
and the United
States has turned decisively against Israel, including in Germany,
the elites have been consistent in their support for Zionism and Israel.
\The plaque on the walls of the Old Bailey which commemorates the 1670 Bushell's case in which a Jury successfully defied a Judges Attempt to Make Them Convict Two Preachers
All of this is no
accident. Blair and Straw planned it that way in the Terrorism Act 2000. That
was why s.1 of the Act defines terrorism in terms of ‘serious damage’ to
property, health and safety and attacking electronic systems.
What Chamberlain J called the ‘colloquial’ definition of Terrorism bears no
relationship to s.1 of the Terrorism Act.
“An action done for the purposes set out in s. 1(1)(b) and (c) constitutes terrorism if it involves serious damage to property even if it does not involve violence against any person or endanger life or create a risk to health or safety… [T]his definition of ‘terrorism’ makes the statutory concept wider than the colloquial meaning of the word.”
I chose 5 dictionary
definitions of terrorism – none of them mentioned property, health and safety
or electronic systems. All of them mentioned violence and terror against
people.
The Cambridge Dictionary definition of terrorism is ‘violent action or threats designed to cause fear among ordinary people, in order to achieve political aims.’
The Miriam Webster definition of terrorism is ‘the systematic use of terror especially as a means of coercion’
The Brittanica Dictionary definition of terrorism is ‘the use of violent acts to frighten the people in an area as a way of trying to achieve a political goal’.The dictionary.com definition of terrorism is ‘the unlawful use of violence or threats to intimidate or coerce a civilian population or government, with the goal of furthering political, social, or ideological objectives.'
The Oxford Reference Definition is ‘The calculated use of violence or threat of violence to inculcate fear.
In his 2014 Report David Anderson, the Independent
Reviewer of Terrorism legislation wrote
about
the extraordinarily broad definition of terrorism under UK law, and the heavy reliance that is placed on the wise exercise of discretions by Ministers, prosecutors and police.
It was Conservative MP Douglas Hogg who warned in the parliamentary debate in 2000 on the Terrorism Act that
By extending the definition of terrorism, we put at risk our long tradition of giving sanctuary to people who are fighting oppressive regimes abroad. I do not want protesters to be classified as terrorists.
The qualms of Douglas
Hogg, who was no liberal, were disregarded by Blair and Straw just as half a
century later they would be disregarded by Starmer and Yvette Cooper when
proscribing Palestine Action.
Jack Straw simply lied
when reassuring Alan Simpson MP:
people supporting one or another of the international causes he cites will not even remotely come under the Bill.... However, to think that the Bill will restrict the right of peaceful protest, demonstration and campaigning is wholly erroneous.
Simon Hughes of the Lib Dems made a similar point.
...the Bill's definition sweeps in not only people who attack property for an environmental objective or for objectives connected with other general issues such as animal rights, but people who support organisations outside Governments in countries that are not democratic. All those people would now be included in the definition.
Jeremy Corbyn pointed out that
Calling your opponents ‘terrorists’ is a familiar tactic of repressive states and it was something that New |Labour was about to introduce in this country.
Jack Straw said
that ‘an organisation becomes a candidate for proscription only if it is
concerned in terrorism’ and what was ‘terrorism’? Well that was the whole
point. By redefining terrorism the British State could include within its remit
just about any protest group that annoyed them.
New Labour politicians
knew that they could rely on lying and servile British judges to aid and abet
them. And no group of judges is more dishonest or servile than the present
Court of Appeal under Liar Lady Justice Sue Carr, a blue stocking who decided
to romanticise
the Suffragettes:
Palestine Action characterises itself as a non-violent “direct action protest group” which follows in the footsteps of the suffragettes, and the campaigns against apartheid and the Iraq war.
It was not accurate for Ms Ammori to paint Palestine Action as an “ordinary protest group engaged in activities that fall within the well-established tradition of peaceful protest”.
Palestine Action’s activities are planned and undertaken secretly with the objective of avoiding detection ...
Secondly, the members of Palestine Action do not vouch their sincerity by accepting the penalties imposed by the law. Thirdly, on a fair analysis, Palestine Action has little or nothing in common with the suffragettes or the anti-apartheid or Iran War protest groups.
The whole premise of Palestine Action is to cause damage to property belonging to Elbit and other companies trading lawfully in the United Kingdom. (my emphasis)
It is, nonetheless, a fundamental mistake to overlook the fact that Palestine Action overtly promotes unlawful violence amounting to terrorism. It is not, as it claims, a direct action civil disobedience protest group like the suffragettes operating transparently in the open. It is a covert organisation that operates using secret cells to avoid the detection and prosecution of those using violence to destroy the property of third parties. Palestine Action’s activities have caused injury as well as property damage.
Palestine Action was classed as a
violent terrorist organisation, operating covertly unlike the genteel folk of
the Suffragettes. Yet the opposite was the case.
The National Scot was the only national paper to cover my acquittal - if I had been convicted no doubt all of them would have highlighted it
The suffragettes were anything but
peaceful. From 1912-14, they openly embarked on a terror campaign, bombing and burning their way across the
country. The Suffragettes certainly didn’t plan their arson or bombing
campaigns in open meetings!
Below are just a few examples of the
peaceful, ‘transparent’ Suffragettes that Liar Lady Carr referred to:
Bombings and High-Profile Arson
The campaign saw the widespread deployment of
improvised explosive devices (IEDs) and petrol-fueled fires.
·
David Lloyd George’s House
(1913):
A bomb exploded at a house under construction for the Chancellor of the
Exchequer in Walton-on-the-Hill.
·
Theatre Royal, Dublin (1912): Suffragettes deployed several
bombs and used petrol to set fire to the theatre during a live performance
attended by Prime Minister H.H. Asquith.
·
Westminster Abbey (1914): A bomb was detonated inside the
historic abbey, damaging the Coronation Chair.
·
Kew Gardens Tea Pavilion (1913): The famous tea pavilion was
entirely destroyed by arson. Weeks prior, suffragettes smashed orchid houses
and destroyed rare plants.
·
The Home Office (1912): A powerful bomb was discovered
and safely defused in Home Secretary Reginald McKenna's office.
·
Holloway Prison: A bomb was detonated outside the
walls of the facility holding imprisoned suffragettes.
·
Bombs
exploded at Edinburgh's Royal Observatory, Rosslyn Chapel, St. Paul's
Cathedral, train stations (like Oxted and Westbourne Park), and various public
infrastructure sites
Assaults, Vandalism,
and Infrastructure Sabotage
·
Assassination
Attempt on the Prime Minister: In July 1912, a suffragette threw a
hatchet at Prime Minister Asquith's carriage. It missed him but struck and
injured Irish nationalist MP John Redmond.
·
Nationwide
Postal Sabotage (1912–1914): Suffragettes launched a systemic campaign
targeting public pillar boxes. They poured ink, corrosive acids, and liquid
phosphorus into postboxes to destroy mail, occasionally leaving postal workers
and police officers with chemical burns.
·
Art
Destruction (1914):
Activist Mary Richardson entered the National Gallery and used a meat cleaver
to slash Diego Velázquez’s famous painting, the "Rokeby Venus," protesting the re-arrest of Emmeline
Pankhurst.
In their attempts to destroy the
direction action movement, judges lie. When Burnham and Starmer say there is no
Genocide in Gaza they lie. Lying is an integral part of the system we live in. When
the Court of Appeal says that making quadcopters to murder civilians is a ‘lawful
business’ they lie.
The British
state has been desperate to criminalise activists in Palestine Action and those
who are prominent in the Palestine solidarity movement. That is why the Police
raided my home on December 20 on a trumped up charge of ‘inviting support’ for
Hamas, after 9 complaints from individual Zionists including the obsessive
Heidi Bachram.
The Terrorism Act 2000
and in particular s.12 has been wheeled out in order to attack freedom of
speech on Palestine. To my knowledge at least 7 people, probably more, have
been prosecuted under the Act.
The only problem for
the State is that juries have been remarkably unwilling to convict people for
exercising their right to freedom of speech.
Between October 7 2023
and October 7, 2024 the Crown Prosecution Service initiated
11 prosecutions under s.12(1A) of the Terrorism Act 2000.
Of those we know about Kwabena Devonish, Sarah
Cotte, Tony
Greenstein and Natalie
Strecker were acquitted and two Hanin Barghouthi and
Majid
Freeman had hung juries.
There
were also the "Paraglider Imagery" Appeals (Metropolitan Police /
London Magistrates). Three women (Heba Alhayek,
Pauline Ankunda, and Noimutu Olayinka Saka) were convicted at Westminster
Magistrates in early 2024 of a terrorism offense for displaying images of
paragliders at a protest shortly after October 7. They all received conditional
discharges.
Following structural challenges
regarding intent and the definition of symbolic support, multiple similar cases
involving protest imagery have been quietly dropped by the CPS or successfully appealed due to the high legal
threshold required by the Supreme Court's
R v ABJ precedent.
It is interesting to look at the reaction of the
Zionists to my acquittal. The non-Jewish Zionist obsessive, Heidi Bachram,
reacted ‘furiously’ saying
it was ‘a huge failure of the legal
system to protect the population from extremism and support for terrorism.’
Translated means protecting Heidi from free speech.
Both Heidi
and another Zionist, Crepidarian
argued that I should have been prosecuted under s.12(1A) which criminalises ‘expressing an opinion or belief supportive
of a proscribed organisation’ and believe the CPS chose the wrong charge.
This may comfort them because you have to be reckless in what you are doing. However
the Prosecution still have to prove intent and in any case my closing speech to
the jury was based on the right of the Palestinians to resist the occupiers, so
this is simply an exercise in wishful thinking.
The point I made in my first
blog on my acquittal is still valid. It is a mistake simply to deal with
such charges legally without ensuring that the jury understands the context. It
is because lawyers find it difficult to provide the political context when
judges remove such defences that where possible defendants should consider
taking the final speech and certainly ensure that via their cross-examination
that jury know the whole case and not simply that which the judiciary want the
jury to know.
The role of the judge is to try and pull the wool
over the jury’s eyes which was why I emphasised that whereas the judge deals
with the law, the jury is there to ensure justice.
The Only Thing of Interest in My Trial was Gary Lineker Retweeting My After the Verdict Speech
The Terrorism Act 2000 is also a racist act. Many
migrants in this country support liberation or resistance organisations in
their countries of origin. Yet Britain proscribes many such groups because our
state is friends with the dictators who run such a state.
This is particularly true in the case of the Kurds
of Turkey. The PKK Kurdish Workers Party is proscribed as a ‘terrorist’
organisation because we are friends with Turkey’s
semi-fascist dictator, Recip Erdogan. It is a national liberation
movement which most Kurds in this country support.
As David Anderson, the Independent
Reviewer of Terrorism wrote in his 2012 Report on Terrorism
Legislation:
the current law allows members of any nationalist or separatist group to be turned into terrorists by virtue of their participation in a lawful armed conflict, however great the provocation and however odious the regime which they have attacked.
As Anderson also wrote in his 2012 Report there was
‘a case for shrinking the definition of terrorism... the definition is so broad as to criminalise certain acts carried out overseas that constitute lawful hostilities under international humanitarian law. Examples include UN-sanctioned use of force and acts of violent rebellion against oppressive governments, even where such acts target only military objectives and minimise civilian casualties.
Anderson also wrote in his Report that:
As presently drafted, the definition is so broad as to criminalise certain acts carried out overseas that constitute lawful hostilities under international humanitarian law.... the current law allows members of any nationalist or separatist group to be turned into terrorists by virtue of their participation in a lawful armed conflict, however great the provocation and however odious the regime which they have attacked.
Tony Greenstein
See:
Greg Hadfield The
most important half-hour of my life
The
British state has lost the argument, even as it rigs the trials of genocide
opponents Jonathan Cook
How Britain Tried To Rig
the Trial of a Genocide Opponent – and Lost -
antiwar.com
