Showing posts with label Redmond Bate. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Redmond Bate. Show all posts

29 November 2024

Today I Was Charged with the 'Crime' of Defending the Right of the Palestinians to Resist Genocide

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

Brighton man charged with terror offences over Hamas comments


Tony Greenstein's interview on Al Jazeera about Police repression of Palestine solidarity activists


Please Donate to the Crowdfunder Which I've Set Up to Pay For Legal Expenses & Costs

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.


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.


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.

In the words of George Orwell

‘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 

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16 November 2024

The Met Have Informed Me That I Won’t Be Charged for Comparing Israel’s Gaza Holocaust to the Nazi Holocaust

I was arrested on October 4, the 88th anniversary of the Battle of Cable Street when the Met Tried to Force the British Union of Fascists on Jewish East Enders – 300,000 Stopped Them – the Met is Still the Same Racist Force

You may remember that I was arrested on October 4th for daring to make a comparison between Israel’s holocaust in Gaza and the Nazi holocaust. Two days ago I was informed by the Police that they weren’t bringing any charges.

The Police trying to find a way through Cable Street 88 years ago - genuine anti-Semitism has never bothered the Met

It is ironic that on October 4, 1936 the Met, under Commissioner Philip Game, tried to force thousands of Sir Oswald Moseley’s British Union of Fascists and National Socialists through the Jewish East End. However up to 300,000 East End workers, including Catholic dockers and thousands of non-Jewish workers were having none of it. What ensued became known as the Battle of Cable Street. The Met then was riddled with anti-Semites just as today it is riddled with Islamaphobes. After battling for hours Philip Game was forced to admit defeat as barricades were thrown up.

Notice published in the Jewish Chronicle urging Jews to keep their heads down - when it comes to genuine anti-Semitism the Jewish & Zionist Establishment has always preferred a policy of keeping one's head down

The Met hasn’t changed even if the target of its racism has changed. But even now it has a penchant for arresting anti-Zionist Jews who don’t conform their idea of ‘proper’ Israel supporting nationalist bigots.

In 1936 the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the Zionists told Jews they should stay at home and keep their heads down. Jewish workers ignored them in their thousands. Today there is no Jewish  working class.  Jews have migrated socio-economically upwards and politically rightwards such that their best friends today are bigots like Tommy Robinson and friends.

In my response I told DC O’Connor it was as I had predicted when I applied to vary my bail. The Police never had a case for racially/religiously aggravated harassment. It was simply another example of the Police deliberately trying to close down free speech on Palestine . If there was any harassment it was on the part of the police.

The person whose complaint against me led to my arrest was notorious Zionist fanatic Richard Millett who above describes a holocaust survivor who opposes genocide as 'scum' - this is the kind of person the Met takes seriously

I pointed out the even more outrageous arrest, two weeks later, of Professor Haim Bresheeth, a 79 year old Israeli academic suffering from cancer who was kept all night in a cold cell in Holborn police station by these bastards in uniform. He too was told he wouldn’t be charged.

Professor Haim Bresheeth - 79 year old Israeli academic who the Police arrested

It is noticeable that on no occasion have the Police arrested supporters of Israel’s genocide for their language. Supporting genocide is not an offence in the Met’s eyes, Opposing it is, despite the fact that committing or aiding the commission of war crimes or genocide is a specific offence in the International Criminal Court Act 2001, Section 52 of which specifically states that:

(1)   It is an offence against the law of England and Wales for a person to engage in conduct ancillary to an act to which this section applies.

(2)   This section applies to an act that if committed in England or Wales would constitute—

(a)   an offence under section 51 (genocide, crime against humanity or war crime), or

(b)   an offence under this section,

However the Met pick and choose which legislation they will enforce and which legislation they won’t enforce. They call it the ‘rule of law’ but in reality they turn the law into an instrument of political oppression.

The Met and the Anti-Terrorist Police are also engaged in a wholesale abuse of anti-terror legislation in order to clamp down on Palestine solidarity activists. In short the Police are, ever more obviously, becoming a political police whose job it is to attack critics of British foreign policy.

This man, believed to be one of the Zionist counter-demonstrators, was photographed pointing out Palestinian protesters to arrest. This is the collusion Palestine solidarity activists face in London

At the weekly protest at Swiss Cottage the Police eagerly video the speeches Palestine solidarity supporters make for any hint of a pretext with which to arrest them. Arrests are made, despite the Police being fully aware that charges are highly unlikely to follow. It is another form of intimidation. That is one reason why I informed Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley, in a complaint I made on 15 November, that I will be bringing proceedings against the Met for Wrongful Arrest and Unlawful Imprisonment. You can read my complaint letter here.

When it comes to the billions of pounds lost in COVID fraud the Met are remarkably disinterested in enforcing the law

I have also made it clear that I will continue to compare Israel’s behaviour in Gaza with that of the Nazis. The false IHRA definition of anti-Semitism, which asserts that such a comparison is anti-Semitic  is not, by its own admission, legally binding. In the Opinion of Hugh Tomlinson KC:

‘It is perhaps worth pointing out that the fact that conduct is “contrary” to the IHRA Definition could not, of itself, render  that conduct “illegal” in any sense.’

The IHRA has been described by Geoffrey Robertson KC as ‘not fit for purpose’.

Sir Stephen Sedley, a former Court of Appeal judge and himself Jewish, went even further in an article in London Review of Books, ‘Defining Anti-Semitism’, when he wrote that the IHRA ‘fails the first test of any definition: it is indefinite.’ So what the hell are the Metropolitan Police doing implementing a definition that is not legally binding, which is not fit for purpose and isn’t even a definition.  Apart from pleasing their political masters?

I intend to go back to the demonstration at Swiss Cottage in the near future to explain why Israel’s behaviour is certainly comparable with the Nazis. In some respects it may even be worse. Even the Nazis didn’t single out hospitals and their medical staff for death and destruction. It is a little known fact that the Jewish hospital in Berlin survived unscathed throughout the war and was still in operation when Berlin was liberated. If I am arrested again, so be it.

The theft of Palestinian organs, from those Israel has murdered, is another example of their Nazi-like mentality

If my speech offends racist Zionists and genocide supporters that's also fine. No one is forcing them to listen. Perhaps they will even learn something. In Israel it is not unusual to make such comparisons. As Stephen Sedley ruled, in the landmark case on free speech, Redmond Bate v DPP,  

“free speech includes not only the inoffensive but also the irritating, the contentious, the eccentric, the heretical, the unwelcome and provocative, provided it does not tend to provoke violence. Freedom only to speak inoffensively is not worth having


For example the late Professor Ze’ev Sternhell, a child survivor of the Premszyl ghetto in Nazi occupied Poland wrote an article in Ha’aretz, that in Israel there was a ‘Growing Fascism and a Racism Akin to Early Nazism’. No doubt the idiot who approved my arrest would have had no compunction in arresting a holocaust survivor for making such a comparison!

Jewish kids dressed as Israeli soldiers in N15 area with fake guns walking past local mosque as children leave

The comparisons begin with Defence Minister Yoav Gallant when he began the genocide, when he described Palestinians as “human animals” – the very same phrase that Himmler used about the Jews on October 4, 1943, in a talk to SS generals. Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich spoke about how “justified and moral” it would be to starve two million Palestinians, which is no different from the Nazi policy towards the Russians and Hans Frank’s implementation in Poland of ‘death by hunger’ against the Jewish ghettos.

We are facing a full square attack on basic democratic rights and freedom of speech by the police, backed by the State, Starmer and much of the judiciary. Erstwhile liberals such as Liberty are keeping quiet whilst anti-genocide activists are gaoled and harassed.

However those who stand silent are likely to find that the situation gets worse rather than better. So join the pickets of Hotoveli each Friday night and show that the Police and Starmer will not be allowed to introduce a police state by the back door.

Tony Greenstein 

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