While the Telegraph & GB News Had a Collective Tantrum About Allison Pearson, They've Ignored the Raids & Arrests of Activists for Speaking Out on Palestine
Jewish leftist Greenstein charged under Terror Act as Starmer assault on anti-genocide speech continues
Tony Greenstein's interview on Al
Jazeera about Police repression of Palestine solidarity activists
Whilst
Telegraph nonentity Allison Pearson is described by the Standard as a ‘free speech martyr’ and the Spectator’s Laurie Wastell attacks
Private Eye for not applauding this racist ‘heroine’, the Anti-Terrorist Police
have been raiding the homes of Palestine solidarity activists and dissident
journalists up and down the country, without a word of protest from the Torygraph, Spectator or Guardian.
Allison Pearson - Torygraph Presstitute
Sarah Wilkinson, a Palestinian supporting journalist, was raided
by police thugs in balaclava who trashed her house, stole her money, hid her
credit cards and took her passport (whilst making it a condition of bail that
she surrenders it). Not a peep out of the Scum, Mail etc.
Our 'free press' only get worked up when the police arrest by mistake one of their stenographers
Sarah
was asked
for details of activists in Gaza, including their location. Given the close
collaboration between the Israeli and British military this suggests that they
were setting these people up for assassination.
Activist Sarah Wilkinson was reportedly asked to reveal the location of her contacts in Gaza when she was arrested by UK police earlier this week.
— Middle East Monitor (@MiddleEastMnt) September 6, 2024
Wilkinson was taken from her home after a morning raid by Counter Terrorism Police on 29 August. According to her son, Jack: “They… pic.twitter.com/oSXvp54F5Y
Details on Fiona's arrest:
— Gordon Dimmack (@GordonDimmack) November 24, 2024
They arrested her Saturday morning at 11am and searched her in front of her 7 year old daughter. Then, drove her an hour to custody and held her for 5 hours in a cell, before telling her that her ‘make Christmas Palestinian’ video had prompted a number…
Fiona Rayan's Xmas message that Jesus was a Palestinian led to the Filth arresting her and the courts sentencing her to a suspended prison sentence
Asa
Winstanley, a journalist on Electronic Intifada,
had his house raided
on October 7 and all his equipment seized, although he wasn’t arrested. In the
wake of the raid on Winstanley’s home, the Committee to Protect Journalists called
on British authorities to cease using counter-terrorism laws to intimidate the
press.
The
National Union of Journalists “condemned
the rising use of counter-terrorism legislation against journalists as an
intimidatory measure harmful to public interest journalism and press freedom”.
Its
general secretary Michelle Stanistreet said that
The UK
government cannot on one hand state its commitment to valuing media freedom
whilst endorsing the targeting of journalists through raids and seizures.
Richard
Medhurst, another pro-Palestinian journalist, was arrested
at Heathrow airport, held in solitary confinement for 24 hours, had his equipment
seized and is facing a charge under the notorious Terrorism Act 2000, which
carries a 14 year sentence.
The
NUJ and International Federation of Journalists also
expressed grave concern over the chilling effect of Richard Medhurst’s
detention and wrote to Matt Jukes, UK Head of Counter Terrorism Policing with
concerns.
BREAKING: Palestine Action are on a roof above Elbit's Israeli drone maker in Shenstone, Staffordshire.
— Palestine Action (@Pal_action) November 28, 2024
From here, actionists are able to dismantle the factory and halt the production of weaponry. pic.twitter.com/CiivraNDTi
These
arrests are just the tip of the iceberg. Up and down the country activists,
including families of activists, have been raided
by the Police using counter-terrorism powers in their efforts to defend the
genocidal state of Israel. They have particularly concentrated on attacking
activists associated with Palestine Action.
I
am pleased to say that the Police have failed. I was arrested driving activists
to the Shenstone UAV drone engine factory three years ago. It has been the
scene of repeated attacks by PA. As the Canary reported
On Monday 25
November, Palestine
Action started the week by shutting down the UAV Engines plant, locking-on inside
vehicles, to block the factory gates. On Wednesday 27 November, they were back
again, to once more blockade the gates to the Shenstone plant, and close
production down.
Now, Palestine
Action returned, and this time its actionists scaled the roof of one of the
factory’s two buildings. The action coincides with blockades at the Department
of Business & Trade and the Foreign Office by allied groups, including the
Palestinian Youth Movement.
In addition to these actions, on Tuesday 26 November, the UAV Engines factory
was the scene of a well-attended protest by Palestine solidarity activists
from the local community.
There
was a similar report
in the Morning Star. The Police claim to be politically neutral but it is clear
that when the capitalist state is involved in a war, as the British state
certainly is in Gaza, then all such pretences are dropped.
Not one genocide supporting Zionist
has been arrested despite genocide being a crime under
both national and international law.
On
20 December 2023 I was arrested
in a dawn raid on my home on suspicion of supporting a proscribed organisation.
No my ‘crime’ was not supporting the terrorist State of Israel which has carried
out a genocide in Gaza and is doing so to this day. It was supporting the Palestinian
Resistance in Gaza, of which Hamas are a component. Needless to say all my
electronic devices were also seized.
Nor
am I being charged with being an ancillary to, i.e. helping Israel to commit a
genocide by for example giving them the weapons to murder babies, children,
women and men. Although this is illegal under the International Criminal Court
Act 2001. If the above law was being enforced then it would be those who make
millions from the death of children who’d have been hauled up before the
courts.
The
war criminal leaders of the West – Genocide Joe, Killer Kamala, Blind Blinken,
to say nothing of Sunak, Starmer, Lammy, Scholtz et al. are not facing justice.
It has taken over a year for the International Criminal Court to even issue
arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant.
It is those who are opposed to these genocidal monsters who are facing Stasi-like repression from the British state and its echo chamber scribblers in the mass media – from the BBC, Daily Mail to the ‘liberal’ Guardian. It is opponents of genocide, racism and apartheid who are being criminalised.
My
arrest was for a tweet I made on 15 November 2023 by someone identifying himself
only as James who demanded:
“Just tweet I
support Hamas!’ 3 words is all you have to tweet and then we know where you
stand.”
I refused to take the bait
and responded “I support the Palestinians that is
enough” before going on to say ‘I support Hamas against the Israeli army’. As I told my police
interrogators after my arrest I would have supported the devil against Israel’s
genocidal army.
In fact because of a hospital appointment the date of charging was put back to Friday 29 November
But one tweet was enough for a dozen police to descend on my
flat in the early hours of the morning to conduct a raid. The Police often
complain that they are under-resourced when it comes to burglary, rape and
other trivial offences. But when it comes to defending the government’s criminal
foreign policy, because that is what it’s really about, then the Police have an
abundance of people.
We are facing a concerted attempt to close down free speech
in Britain using ‘terrorism’ as the State’s chosen weapon. Of course me or
dozens of others expressing a viewpoint about Hamas, or supporting the right of
Palestinians to defend themselves, has nothing to do with terrorism.
‘If Liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people
what they do not want to hear’.
Today the Police have determined that there are certain
things that we are not allowed to tell people. Liberty is the last thing on
their minds. In the words
attributed to Voltaire “I disapprove of
what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” Freedom
of Speech and Article 10 of the European Convention of Human Rights has become
a dead letter.
Voltaire
The Police, the Judiciary, the Wealthy and Corrupt have never
much liked the idea of freedom of speech but today it is under systematic attack.
Once again there is no difference between Starmer and the Tories when it comes
to extinguishing the flame of liberty. Supporting Israel’s ‘right to genocide’
is more important than freedom of speech.
Lord Waheed Ali - Bribing the rich but never the poor
But our rulers aren’t stupid. When they attack our right to
protest or suppress freedom of speech they do it, not in the interests of the
corrupt rich funders of Starmer, like Lord Waheed Ali, who freely
donates gifts to his corrupt political friends – Starmer, Reeves and the
already rich - but out of concern for the ‘safety’ of Jews or some other
minority.
When I was arrested by the Police on October 4th
for comparing Israel’s actions in Gaza to those of Nazi Germany I quoted the
key case on freedom of speech, Redmond-Bate v
DPP [2000] HRLR 249, a case concerning a Christian fundamentalist street
preacher who was clearly irritating those around him.
Lord
Justice Sedley ruled that:
'Free speech
includes not only the inoffensive, but the irritating, the contentious, the
eccentric, the heretical, the unwelcome and the provocative provided it does
not tend to promote violence.
Freedom only
to speak inoffensively is not worth having,'
Sedley was one of the few radical judges in Britain, as well
as being Jewish and anti-Zionist. My interviewers hadn’t even heard of the case
and I suspect this is true for most politicians too. In Redmond
Bate, Sedley was merely restating old principles that are being forgotten
as ‘terrorism’ is used as a weapon to silence anyone who disagrees with Starmer’s
support for genocide in Gaza.
One might expect that the Counter-Terror Police would concern
themselves with terrorism but that would be a mistake. As we learnt from the
Manchester Arena bombing which killed 22, mainly young people, at an Arianne
Grand concert, the evidence points to a close
link between the perpetrator Salman Abedi, MI5 and the Libyan February 17 Martyrs
Brigade and Tripoli Brigade. The subsequent public inquiry report
by Sir John Saunders was seen by the families and others with knowledge of what
happened as a whitewash.
In essence Abedi was being used to wage war on Britain’s
enemy, Col. Ghadaffi, without MI5 realising that he had turned on the infidels
who had funded him. Hence Saunder’s cover-up.
The reality is that terrorism in Britain, primarily from
ISIS, is a direct consequence of British and US foreign policy. There was no
ISIS before the illegal invasion of Iraq just as there was no Al Qaeda and
Taliban before the United States and western powers began supporting the
Mujahadeen in Afghanistan.
Hilary Clinton: "we have helped to create the problem we are now fighting"
Although it has disappeared down the memory hole, during the
cold war against the Soviet Union, the West often sponsored Islamic
fundamentalist groups.
Indeed in its efforts to dislodge President Assad in Syria, the
West via Qatar and Saudi Arabia began financing ISIS and Al Qaeda’s offshoort,
Al Nusra. Indeed Israel was providing
hospital and medical care for them!
This is the hypocrisy which lies behind the current police
raids on ‘terrorist’ supporters. Only yesterday they were our friends. Indeed Hamas
itself owes its origins to the time when Israel preferred to use it against its
Palestinian opponents. Indeed Netanyahu is accused
of having done much the same until October 7.
Tony Greenstein
