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 11th 6 pm
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 11th 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
.jpg)
