Natalie Strecker’s Acquittal on ‘Terrorist’ Charges Is A Victory for Palestine Solidarity & a Setback to the Attempts to Criminalise Activists

Now We Need to Build Support for the Hunger Strikers & Defeat Lammy’s Attempts to Abolish Juries

Natalie Strecker Speaking After Her Victory

The acquittal of Natalie Strecker on charges of inviting support for proscribed organisations, Hamas and Hezbollah, is a victory for the all of us and a defeat for a government that has given unstinting support to Israel’s Genocide in Gaza.

'Freedom of Speech and Protests Against Genocide are not Terrorism

Please Register for the Webinar on December 11^th 6 pm

https://tinyurl.com/2s3py925

However we cannot rest on our laurels. The government and its Zionist Attorney General Richard Hermer sent a senior King’s Counsel to Jersey to inform the Judge, Sir John Saunders and the Jurants that International Law was to be disregarded.

International law, be it the Genocide Convention  or the European Convention on Human Rights is now a frivolous extra to be disregarded by British courts. One wonders what the point is of signing onto such treaties if they are going to be comprehensively ignored.

We have a miserable ‘Labour government’ that is in hock to Trump who has sanctioned the International Criminal Court for daring to issue arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant on charges of war crimes like some second-rate mafia boss.

Trump has attacked anyone standing up for human rights. Francesca Albanesa has lost all her bank accounts, as a full spectrum attack is made on anyone committed to what remains of international law.

Not surprisingly Starmer and Hermer, both of whom were human rights lawyers, have not only failed to criticise a lawless and rogue American government they have actively aided him with their persecution of those who campaign against Israel’s genocide.

Bringing up the rear, the ever pathetic David Lammy is embarked on abolishing juries in most trials as the government does their best to ensure that the only independent voice in our constitution is silenced. Juries have a habit of acquitting defendants in trials whereas judges do their best to secure convictions.

Judges can be relied on to reflect Establishment views because they come from the very same Establishment

It took a long fight before juries were able to establish their right to reach a verdict that the judge in the trial did not like. The government has attempted to roll back the right of jurors, derived from the 1670 case of Edward Bushells, to deliver a verdict contrary to a judge’s directions and in accordance with their conscience.

Hunger striking UK political prisoners learn lessons from Palestine 

This despite a plaque commemorating this case being on the wall of the Old Bailey. The arrest of Trudy Warner and others who had the temerity to inform jurors of their right was a warning shot across the bows. However Judge Saini in the High Court made it clear that Bushell’s was still good law despite the behaviour of Judge Silas Reid and others in ordering the police to arrest those holding signs informing jurors of their rights. Although the Tory government appealed Saini’s judgment the incoming Labour government dropped it.

Before the Bushell’s Case in 1670 juries had been little more than creatures of the judges. They were termed the Judges 13 voices. It was not unusual for judges to instruct juries that they must return a verdict of guilty.

 In 1670 a jury refused to convict William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania and a prominent Quaker and William Mead, for preaching to an ‘unlawful and tumultuous’ assembly. They were only prepared to state that they had been preaching, which was a statement of fact.

The jury was then locked up for 2 days without food, water or a chamber pot. The jury was heavily fined but Edward Bushell refused to pay the fine and was imprisoned for contempt. He then petitioned for habeus corpus and the Court of Common Pleas under Chief Justice Vaughan established that juries could not be punished for their verdicts.

The independence of the judiciary was brought into stark relief when 3 pro-Israel conservative judges, led by Robert Maxwell’s former lawyer Dame Victoria Sharp, replaced a more liberal judge, Martin Chamberlain, at the last minute in the Judicial Review of the proscription of Palestine Action as a ‘terrorist’ organisation.

Craig Murray described how

The current legal establishment will adapt themselves to the legal framework of whatever sort is ordained by the rulers. Anybody expecting judges to defend liberties is likely to be sorely disappointed. They will happily remove the ability of juries to defend liberty too.

Democratic rights such as freedom of assembly and speech were established in the teeth of opposition to them by His Majesty’s loyal judges. If our few remaining democratic freedoms and civil liberties had rested in the hands of the judges they would have disappeared long ago.

This government, like its predecessor, have deliberately used the label ‘terrorist’ in order to suppress and close down protest movements. In this the judiciary have played a supporting role.

Protest Outside the BBC at its Silence

As Professor John Dugard KC, a distinguished South Africa International Lawyer and ad-hoc judge of the International Court of Justice said:

Terrorism is an emotive word that has no place in the assessment of the conduct of either a government or a resistance movement. One man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist. Few would today label members of the French resistance in World War II as “terrorist” and most would have no hesitation in describing the Nazi forces as “terrorist”. Yet today most western states refrain from describing the acts of government forces as acts of terror but have no hesitation in so describing the acts of resistance movements and other non-state actors.

We all know what terrorism is. It is the planting of a bomb in July 2017 that killed 22 young people at the Manchester Arena Ariana Grande Concert or the attack by ISIS on the Bataclan concert in Paris that murdered some 100 people.

True to form - the BBC is REFUSING to cover the hunger strikes

It is the State of Israel not Hamas or Hezbollah who are terrorists. Israel thinks nothing of bombing schools and hospitals, shooting children in the head and dropping 2,000 lb bombs on refugee camps. Yet instead of condemning Israel’s genocide in Gaza, Starmer is helping to supply the weapons of mass murder that enable the Israeli government to carry out its genocide.

The judiciary have proved their mettle by remanding in custody the Filton 24 who have been charged with the non-terrorist offences of criminal damage but have been held in conditions reserved for terrorists. Their only ‘crime’ was to have attack an Elbit factory that was manufacturing Quadcopters that are used by Israel after a missile or bomb attack to pick off the survivors.

It is incumbent upon us to step up the fight for the six hunger strikers, two of whom have already been hospitalised. That is why it is disappointing that neither Jeremy Corbyn nor Zarah Sultana have bothered to sign Early Day Motion 2386 calling on the government to intervene. Nor have the two Muslim independent alliance MPs.

Free the Hunger Strikers

The political prisoners for Palestine currently on hunger strike are  (L to R):

T Hoxha, Kamran Ahmed, Jon Cink, Heba Muraisi, Qesser Zuhrah and Amu Gib Their demands are:

1.     An end to censorship in jail. Prisoners’ letters and phone calls have been blocked.

2.     Immediate bail. Most have been held over the usual six-month time limit.

3.     The right to a fair trial. An end to government demonization and lies.

4.     Deproscribe Palestine Action and drop the “terror” link on these cases.

5.     Shut Elbit down.

See     British hunger strikers learn prison lessons from Palestine and

A prosecution under Jersey Terrorism Act affects us all

See The hunger strike is not being televised – nor will the last gasps of our dying freedoms

On Friday December 11^th Clare Hinchcliffe of the Filton 24 campaign will be speaking at a webinar organised by Jewish Network for Palestine along with Andrew Feinstein, Fahad Ansari, Huda Ammori, Richard Medhurst and myself among other speakers.

I will be facing the same charges that Natalie faced, namely ‘inviting support’ for a proscribed organisation when my trial begins at Kingston Crown Court on January 5 next year.

It is essential that we step up the campaign to have the hunger strikers freed. So far Palestine Solidarity Campaign has said nothing and done nothing. The BBC has, as expected, refused to cover the hunger strikes.

See Palestine Action Prisoners’ Hunger Strike to Become Biggest Since Irish Republicans and

The hunger strike is not being televised – nor will the last gasps of our dying freedoms