Showing posts with label Silas Reid. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Silas Reid. Show all posts

20 April 2024

It’s Not Guilt That Causes Germany to Support Genocide But their Desire to Transfer Guilt for the Holocaust onto the Palestinians

When Germany Attacks Jewish anti-Zionists It is Following in the Footsteps of the Gestapo


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German Police Smash Up Palestine Congress

On the eve of the First World War Sir Edward Grey, British Foreign Secretary uttered the immortal phrase that summed up what was to come, when he said

‘The lamps are going out all over Europe. We shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.’



We could well say the same today. Patrick Devlin, a former Law Lord, wrote in his book Trial by Jury (1956) that the jury system was ‘the lamp that shows that freedom lives”. That too is under threat from judges like Silas Reid who threatened a jury at the Old Bailey with prosecution if they allowed their consciences to interfere with the verdict. Reid’s action were an echo of the famous case of Bushell’s in 1670, when a jury was imprisoned for 2 days and nights without ‘meat, drink, fire or tobacco’, because they refused to return a guilty verdict.


But it is not only in Britain that the lamp of liberty is in danger of being extinguished. In Germany, a state which 80 years ago was exterminating millions of people it classed as subhuman, 2,500 Police forcibly closed a Palestine Congress in Berlin, banning from the country the former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis.

Yanis Varoufakis Describes How He Was Prevented from Speaking at a Palestine Congress in Berlin by Germany’s Police

Germany’s Support for Israel Mirrors Nazi Germany’s Support for Zionism

Today the German state purports to be pro-Jewish but when it comes to Jewish anti-Zionists, the German State is following exactly the same path as the Nazis took 89 years ago. The Nazis too distinguished between Zionists, (good Jews) and anti-Zionists (bad Jews).

On 28 January 1935 Reinhard Heydrich, whom Gerard Reitlinger described as the ‘real engineer of the final solution’ issued a directive:

The activity of the Zionist-oriented youth organisations that are engaged in the occupational restructuring of the Jews … lies in the interest of the National Socialist state’s leadership. (These organizations) are not to be treated with that strictness that it is necessary to apply to the members of the so-called German-Jewish organizations (assimilationists).

This can be found in Lucy Dawidowicz’s War Against the Jews (p.118).

The result was that the activities of Zionist groups were supervised with ‘more benevolence’ than comparable activities by non-Zionist Jewish groups. The Gestapo and the SD (SS Security Service) ‘place(d) no restrictions on Zionist organisations.’ [Herbert Strauss, pp. 352-3., Jewish Emigration from Germany: Nazi Policies and Jewish Responses]

In May 1935 Das Schwarze Korps, the paper of the SS, wrote that:

the Zionists adhere to a strict racial position and by emigrating to Palestine they are helping to build their own Jewish state.... The assimilation-minded Jews deny their race and insist on their loyalty to Germany or claim to be Christians because they have been baptized, in order to subvert National Socialist principles.

On 26 September 1935 in Das Schwarze Korps Heydrich wrote that the German government

Is in agreement with the great spiritual movement within Jewry itself, Zionism, whose position is based on the recognition of the unity of Jewry throughout the world, and the rejection of all ideas of mixing in. [Francis Nicosia’s Zionism and Anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany].

Heydrich was the Deputy to Heinrich Himmler, the head of the SS and the second most powerful man in Germany to Hitler himself.

Ian Lustick, an Israeli political scientist, described in The Holocaust in Israeli Political Culture, (p.150) how, in the Eichmann Trial

Extraordinary precautions’ were taken to prevent the name of Hans Globke, the closest advisor to Konrad Adenaeur, the German Chancellor, from being made public.

In 1936 Globke, a senior official at the Interior Ministry, wrote a legal commentary on the Nuremberg Laws which became standard in Nazi Germany’s courts. It stipulated that sexual relations between Aryans and non-Aryans was a crime even if they took place outside Germany. In 1938 he introduced a regulation requiring Jews to take the first names, Israel and Sarah.

In 1941 Globke took part in drawing up an ordinance that stripped Jews in the conquered nations of their citizenship and allowed their possessions to be confiscated. A legal precondition for the Holocaust. ‘Hitler’s former henchman, was true architect of modern Germany’, The Times, 4.3.21.



Globke also played a key role in the development of Israel’s nuclear weapons. Protecting Israeli-German military and financial relations was paramount.[Lustick, fn. 27 p.150] Israel was determined to avoid a little matter like the role of ex-Nazi officials in the new German state coming between Israel and Germany. [ Lars Petersson, Hitler’s Deserters, pp. 123-9]


It is this that explains the strategic and military alliance between Germany and Israel and why Germany is prepared to openly support Israel’s genocide in Gaza, to the extent of joining it at the International Court of Justice. ‘Anti-Semitism’ is merely the pretext for attacking democratic rights in Germany itself.

After all Germany took part in 2 genocides in the last century, so what is a third genocide between friends? Indeed there was a direct link between the first genocide, the extermination of the Herero and Nama people in South-West Africa (Namibia) and the Holocaust.

It is no surprise that Namibia’s anger boiled over when Germany offered to join Israel’s case at the ICJ. It was in Namibia, then a German colony, that Germany’s extermination program became the template for the Holocaust.

Eugen Fischer was the Nazi doctor who helped pioneer eugenics in the Third Reich. As director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology (1927-42) Fischer provided the ‘scientific’ rationale for the Nazi’s war of extermination.

On Shark Island in SW Africa Fischer ran medical breeding experiments on the camp’s inmates. Racist ideas developed in the colony were brought back to German institutions along with the Africans’ skulls.

Fischer conducted medical experiments on children born from the rape of African women. His research inspired Adolf Hitler and in the 1930s, Fischer taught his racist theories to Nazi doctors. One of his students, Joseph Mengele, was responsible for the medical experiments in the Auschwitz-Birkenau camp.

In 1939, Fischer declared

When a people wants … to preserve its own nature, it must reject alien racial elements,… The Jew is such an alien and, therefore, when he wants to insinuate himself, he must be warded off.

An organisation named “Commission Number 3” was created by the Nazis to deal with the so-called problem of the “Rhineland Bastards”. This was organised under Eugen Fischer. It was decided that the African-German children would be sterilised under the 1933 Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring.

The programme began in 1937, when local officials were asked to report on all “Rhineland Bastards” under their jurisdiction.

All together, some 400 children of mixed parentage were arrested and sterilised. The Nazis went to great lengths to conceal their sterilisation and abortion programme. See The Holocaust’s forgotten black victims – the‘Rhineland Bastards’

Liberal Jews in Germany referred to the Zionists as ‘volkish’ or racial Jews. In Romania the Zionists were referred to by other Jews as ‘Hitler Juden (Jews)’. So when the modern day German State favours Zionist Jews they understand their ideological affinity

Why Does the German State Favour the Zionists?

The German State never deNazified after the war. In many cases the same civil servants, the same judges and police chiefs continued to play the same role that they had played in Nazi Germany.

Hostility after the war to Germany was very great, given the millions who had died at its hand. With the division of Europe into East and West, it was crucial to NATO and the Western Alliance that West Germany be integrated into the West’s military alliances. At the time there was a vigorous campaign against German  re-armament.

It was through Israel that Germany was rehabilitated and the price it paid was billions in reparations, which were meant for the holocaust survivors but were paid to the Israeli state. Israel stole the reparations together with the Jewish Claims Conference. To this day Israel keeps over a third living in poverty, choosing between heating and eating.

Reparations and Restitution

Yad Vashem, the Israeli state Holocaust museum boasted that West Germany’s government ‘realized that paying reparations would help accelerate West Germany's acceptance by the Western powers.’

Through reparations and direct transfers of weapons Israel paved the way for the integration of West Germany into NATO. But there was a political price. Israel was not to make an issue of the presence of Nazis in Konrad Adenaeur’s government.

Germany and Britain’s Attack on Democratic Rights

On December 20th I was arrested under s.12 Terrorism Act 2000 for having posted, a month before, a tweet supporting Hamas, a proscribed organisation. Although Hamas’s military wing, the Al Quassem Brigades had been proscribed in 2001 its political wing had not been proscribed until 2021.

No justification has ever been given for why this further step had been taken although the Zionist organisations had long been lobbying for it. The government’s explanation was that:

Hamas IDQ was proscribed by the UK in March 2001. At the time it was HM government’s assessment that there was a sufficient distinction between the so called political and military wings of Hamas, such that they should be treated as different organisations, and that only the military wing was concerned in terrorism. The government now assess that the approach of distinguishing between the various parts of Hamas is artificial. Hamas is a complex but single terrorist organisation.

No indication was given as to what this assessment was or what had changed since 2021. In fact there is no evidence whatsoever that Hamas is a single organisation any more than the IRA was a single organisation between 1969 and its ceasefire.

A Palestine solidarity demonstration in the Potsdamer Platz area, Berlin, October 15, 2023. The police suppressed the demonstration shortly after authorizing it.

See Germany cancels pro-Palestine event, bars entry to Gaza war witness

If Sinn Fein, the IRA’s political wing had been proscribed along with the IRA then there would have been no Good Friday peace agreement. The ban on Hamas makes it clear that the British government, despite pretending to oppose Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory, in practice does the precise opposite.  As the current genocide demonstrates, the real terrorists have always been the Israeli army and government.

Hilary Clinton Admits to Creating Al Qaeda

Hamas has never operated outside Palestine. It was elected, in free and fair elections, by the Palestinian people in 2006. Comparisons with ISIS are nonsense and merely police state rhetoric. If anyone is responsible for ISIS and Al Qaeda it is the United States. There was no ISIS before the invasion of Iraq and there was no Al Qaeda before the West began funding Islamic fundamentalist groups in Afghanistan in order to overthrow the secular pro-Soviet government there.

During the 1980s the Israeli government was instrumental in creating Hamas, for similar reasons. It wanted a Palestinian counterweight to secular Palestinian nationalism.

Brig. Gen. Yitzhak Segev, who was the Israeli military governor in Gaza in the early 1980s, told a New York Times reporter that he had helped finance the Palestinian Islamist movement as a “counterweight” to the secularists and leftists of the Palestine Liberation Organization and the Fatah party, led by Yasser Arafat (who referred to Hamas as “a creature of Israel.”)

“The Israeli government gave me a budget,” the retired brigadier general confessed, “and the military government gives to the mosques.”

“Hamas, to my great regret, is Israel’s creation,” Avner Cohen, a former Israeli religious affairs official who worked in Gaza for more than two decades, told the Wall Street Journal in 2009. In the mid-80s, Cohen wrote an official report to his superiors warning them not to play divide-and-rule in the Occupied Territories, by backing Palestinian Islamists against Palestinian secularists. See Blowback: How Israel Went From Helping Create Hamas to Bombing It

Today Hamas is enemy no. 1. ‘Terrorism’ is a term of abuse that one hurls at one’s opponents. It has no intrinsic meaning. As Lord Carrington, Margaret Thatcher’s Foreign Secretary admitted ‘one man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist.’ In other words ‘terrorist’ is a label to stick on your opponents.

The Nazis too labelled their opponents ‘terrorists’ or ‘bandits’. To them the Maquis, the French Resistance, was a terrorist group as were the Partisans and all those who fought against them but the British had no problem at the time allying with them.

That is why Britain’s anti-terrorist legislation is based on a lie. Hamas is no more of a terrorist than any number of groups that the US and Britain has funded when it founded convenient.

Hamas has never operated outside Palestine. Unlike ISIS it did not send operatives to blow people up in Europe such as at the Bataclan massacre in Paris in 2015 which both it and Islamic Jihad condemned.

Prevent & The Use of Anti-Terrorism To Silence Dissent – The Thinking of the Thought Police

The British state has been very adept at exploiting terrorism in order to politically attack their opponents and in particular Muslims. It has laid the basis of Islamaphobia. Prevent was first introduced by the Blair government in 2006 to counter terrorism.

Since the passage of the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act July 2015 there has been what is known as the Prevent Duty. Schools, Universities and a wide range of public sector bodies have a legal responsibility to “have due regard to the need to prevent people from being drawn into terrorism”.

It is based on the bonkers idea, which the Police have adopted wholesale, that non-violent ‘extremism’ is the conveyor belt to terrorism. It is bonkers because there is no proof of this theory and because the causes of terrorism are self evident. Little things like America and Britain’s illegal invasion of Iraq that MPs voted for and Blair lied for with the story of Weapons of Mass Destruction.

Terrorism has causes and they are down to the fact that Western imperialism insists on invading, bombing and destabilising countries in the Global South in order that they can extract their wealth.

In Libya a country under the unified government of Muammar Ghadaffi was bombed by NATO countries and the result was a failed state which included ISIS and a refugee crisis.

The same happened in Syria where the CIA, Saudi Arabia and Qatar funded and supplied weapons to a host of Jihadi groups in their efforts to overthrow the Assad regime. Not surprisingly this gave ISIS a headstart and as in Afghanistan, the West’s Frankenstein turned against them. This is what creates terrorism not radicalisation.

Prevent operates on the basis that people are ‘radicalised’ by ‘extreme’ views and then are susceptible to recruitment by terrorists. No proof has ever been found to back up this nonsense. If anything Prevent is likely to create the very problem it’s designed to overcome.

It is no accident that the vast majority of people targeted by Prevent are Muslims and that support for Palestine is one of the indicators that someone is susceptible to being drawn to terrorism.

When I was remanded in Birmingham prison for a week in 2021, after having been arrested going on a Palestine Action outing, I was asked at the prison reception whether I was an ‘extremist’.  I asked her if she knew what an ‘extremist’ was and she confessed she didn’t.

I then explained that all those who fight for their freedom and democratic rights are called extremists and I gave as an example the Suffragettes who were called ‘extremists’ and ‘terrorists’. Today they have plaques in the House of Commons and statues commemorating them but in their time they were vilified by people like Churchill.

Next thing I know, the Jewish Chronicle said I was comparing myself to the Suffragettes.  Some people just don’t get it.

Last Thursday I went to court challenging the Police seizure of my computer and electronic equipment. Although most of it has no value to the Police they insist on hanging on to it.

I brought an action under s.1 of the Police Property Act 1897. The matter was adjourned to a later date. For the hearing the Police officer in charge of my case, Chris Beckford from the Anti-Terrorist Police prepared a witness statement. It was very interesting and gives a good insight into the mentality of Britain’s Thought Police.

In his statement Beckford stated on page 2, paragraph 7 that:

It is important to the investigation that we fully understand Mr Greenstein’s mind set and ideology. This not only comes from public sources, ie his blog and social media, but from his internet search history and communication with others. How, and indeed if, he talks about Hamas with others away from the public domain provides highly relevant insight into Mr Greenstein. (my emphasis)

This isn’t ‘anti-terrorism’ it is the thought police. An insight into someone’s mindset and how they think. Not once in the course of two interviews lasting about 2.5 hours was I asked about any bombs I had made or planted.

The only questions related to articles on my blog or a speech I made at Holocaust Memorial Day on January 27. Counter-terrorism has become the policing of peoples’ minds and what they can say. And there are still fools, knaves and liars like Starmer and Sunak who pretend that this has something to do with peoples’ safety when it is about restricting what we are and are not allowed to say.

In the final paragraph of his witness statement Beckford wrote that:

The return of the property to Mr Greenstein at this stage would be prejudicial and compromising to the investigation as to whether he supports a proscribed terrorist organisation, and whether there is a wider risk to the public that they will be subjected to this support.

So what is this risk to the public? That they will be blown up by my words and thoughts? Chris Beckford is anxious to ensure that no one will be subjected’ to my views on Hamas and the Palestinians. Some might call this censorship but I would be loathe to do so.

This is not just a paper exercise. I was reported to the Police by Zionists and one racist in particular by the name of Heidi Bachram. The Zionist movement in this country is busy trying to extinguish our freedom of speech having done much the same in Israel.

The corrupt rogues and thieves who govern us go scot free. Billions of pounds went to the crooked cronies of the Tories via a VIP channel for procurement. Yet the Police are not interested in investigating corruption, perjury or miscarriages of justice. To date just 2 people have been investigated over the Post Office conspiracy to jail and convict nearly a thousand innocent sub-postmasters. The Met Police are not interested in crimes by the rich and powerful.

Clamping down on free speech in this country or playing the part of the Gestapo by Germany’s police is what freedom under capitalism means in the 21st century as world war comes ever closer and climate catastrophe signals the end of the human race.

So I guess I am an ‘extremist’ because i want to abolish capitalism before it abolishes us.

Tony Greenstein

23 June 2023

Defend the right to protest – Defend the right of juries to reach a verdict according to their conscience!

Show solidarity with the 4 Elbit activists who have been convicted of trying to prevent war crimes

Registration

https://tinyurl.com/dthrcy6t

Letter to Judge Reid from signholders

UPDATE

WE HAVE JUST BEEN INFORMED THAT THE SENTENCING HEARING THIS COMING MONDAY HAS BEEN POSTPONED TILL MONDAY 10th JULY 

This meeting has been called because 4 Palestine Action protesters, including myself, were convicted on May 16 of ‘intent to cause criminal damage’ to the Shenstone factory of Israeli arms company Elbit which manufactures engines which power the drones that murder and maim Palestinian civilians, including children.

We were arrested on March 9 2021 whilst driving to the factory. Two months later Israel attacked Gaza and murdered over 250 people, including 50 children.

The eagerness to prosecute for breaches of the law doesn't extend to Boris Johnson or powerful politicians involved in the COVID frauds

Of course Elbit Systems Ltd. could have been prosecuted under the International Criminal Courts Act 2001 of being ancillary to the commission of war crimes. Section 52 of the Act holds that acts committed outside the UK will be treated as committed here by persons resident in this country.

Carol Vorderman on corruption in this government

Matt Hancock too hasn't had his collar felt by the Police - strange that

However the Police, Judges and Tory/Labour politicians are more concerned with the damage to Elbit’s factories from paint than the damage done to human beings. That is the ‘logic’ of capitalism.

Today our fundamental rights are under attack. People are being sent to prison just for using the terms “climate change” and “fuel poverty” in court and arrested for literally upholding the law concerning the right of juries to make decisions on their conscience.

In 1670, Bushel’s Case established the right of a jury to reach a verdict ‘according to their convictions.’ This allowed the acquittal of the protesters that toppled the statue of the slave trader, Edward Colston. Since then the Court of Appeal has withdrawn ‘lawful excuse’ from damage to property.

Palestine Action activists have been prevented from explaining their motives when on trial. Climate activists have also been prevented from discussing their motives in court. This undermining of the jury system is a huge attack on all of our rights.

Amy Pritchard & Giovanna Lewis who were both sentenced to imprisonment for daring to mention climate change

You can show solidarity with Tony Greenstein and the 3 other Elbit activists on Monday June 26 outside Wolverhampton court (10am)

[the date is still not finalised because probation reports haven’t yet been obtained on most of the defendants]

Come along to our Zoom meeting on Saturday June 24 at 6pm

to discuss the issues and how we can fight back. Register here: 

https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_K4VLOrwARMueMGRUMnPjkg

Speakers include:

·         Huda Ammori from Palestine Action, which protests against factories supplying arms to Israel

  • Kush Naker of Just Stop Oil
  • Tim Crosland, Director of PlanB, which links mobilisation and litigation to hold power to account for the climate catastrophe
  • Tony Greenstein, who is facing a custodial sentence and has been prevented from speaking out about his motives in court
  • Deepa Driver on the fight for justice for Julian Assange

·         Cathy, Sally, Ollie arrested (28 April 23)

·         https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1CZteBxvaU

The Tolpuddle Martyrs also defied the law in order to form a union - unfortunately the TUC leaders don't have a fraction of their courage today despite holding a Tolpuddle Festival each year

 

QUOTES FROM PROMINENT JUDGES, LAWYERS, AND SCHOLARS

Lord Patrick Devlin, a former Law Lord and legal scholar, said:

‘The first object of any tyrant in Whitehall would be to make Parliament utterly subservient to his will: and the next to overthrow or diminish trial by jury, for no tyrant could afford to leave a subject’s freedom in the hands of twelve of his countrymen. Trial by jury is more than one wheel of the constitution: it is the lamp that shows that freedom lives.’

As Marcel Berlins and Clare Dyer wrote

Lord Devlin, one of the great law lords, regarded the jury's right to bring in a perverse acquittal as one of the glories of our jury system.’

"It gives protection against laws which the ordinary man regards as harsh and oppressive . . . an insurance that the criminal law will conform to the ordinary man's ideas of what is fair and just. If it does not, the jury will not be a party to its enforcement."

The BBC, Media and Politicians are always concerned about attacks on the right to protest in Hong Kong but never in Britain

Lord Justice Auld, a former Court of Appeal Judge said in 2001:

‘[Jury nullification] has been an accepted feature of our jury system for a long time and is seen as a useful long-stop against oppression by the State and as an agent, on occasion, of law reform.’

Melinda Janki, Guyana-based lawyer, and winner of the Commonwealth Rule of Law prize, 2023 said:

‘For decades ExxonMobil suppressed evidence that burning fossil fuels would destroy the global climate system. Today we in the Global South are living with the impacts. People are dying. Animals are dying. It is unconscionable and contrary to the rule of law for any judge to seek to suppress evidence of the destructive impacts of fossil fuels.’

Revd Dr Sue Parfitt, a priest and retired psychotherapist, said:

‘It’s a serious matter indeed if a jury feels unable to make decisions according to their conscience, just as it confounds the basis for the law in this land when defendants are prevented from telling the whole truth in court. Both rights must be defended.’

John Adams, lawyer, a leader of the American Revolution and later 2nd President of the USA, 1771, said:

‘It is not only [the juror’s] right, but his duty … to find the verdict according to his own best understanding, judgment, and conscience, though in direct opposition to the direction of the court.’

Oliver Wendell Holmes, US Supreme Court Justice, said in 1920:

the jury has the power to bring in a verdict in the teeth of both law and facts.

E.P. Thompson, writer and historian, said in 1980:

The English common law rests upon a bargain between the Law and the People. The jury box is where people come into the court; the judge watches them and the jury watches back. A jury is the place where the bargain is struck. The jury attends in judgment, not only upon the accused, but also upon the justice and humanity of the law….’

Michael Randle, addressing the jury in his own defence said:

The judge, Judge McCowan, in his summing up to the jury virtually directed them to find Clive Ponting guilty. He told the jury that the interests of the State were synonymous with the policies of the State and these were determined by the government of the day. Ponting's motives, he said were irrelevant. The jury should forget about any concept of moral duty. But the jury did not forget the concept of moral duty or were unwilling to accept the judge's contention that the interests of the state were synonymous with the policies of the government. They brought in a verdict of Not Guilty. The lamp of freedom shone more brightly that day, and a dangerous shift towards arbitrary power was avoided. I appeal to you today to keep that lamp burnished and shining and to allow considerations of humanity and common sense to guide your judgement. I invite you to agree with us that what we did was right and to find us Not Guilty.’

Matt Hutchings KC, a leading Barrister from London, said:

Our country is in crisis. The root cause is a clash between a government and media bosses who are acting at the behest of the fossil fuel industry, and our citizens, ordinary people who are calling for a rapid and just transition away from fossil fuels to green and clean energy. When people are charged with offences which they committed because of their sincere beliefs about the climate crisis, the jury should be allowed to hear evidence about these beliefs. It is not right that juries are prevented by judicial directions from hearing the truth about why the defendants are in the dock. The eminent judge Sir Patrick Devlin wrote in his book 'Trial by Jury' that juries were "an insurance that the criminal law will conform to the ordinary man's idea of what is fair and just". At a time when our democratic values and institutions are under attack, it is vital that we defend one of our sacred democratic principles: the independence of juries.’

Rabbi Jeffrey Newman from North London said: 

‘Intention is an ancient concept, fundamental in Jewish & British law, for example in distinguishing between murder and manslaughter. It seems to me, therefore, that we cannot disregard motivation when we come to look at actions and consequences in other contexts. As a Jew, and a rabbi - that is, a Jewish teacher - I have had to think very carefully about issues of obedience to the law and where and when a state may enact laws that a citizen, after careful and honest consideration, decides cannot and should not be obeyed. At such times, courageous protest by posters, placards or leaflet distribution have been prohibited by repressive regimes. Judges have sometimes focussed the attention of juries too narrowly thereby causing much harm. At this time, we must consider with all due wisdom the needs of our planet and all its species and of future generations as we assess the proportionality of protest.’

Paul Stephens, 58, a former Police Officer, said:

‘I joined the police in 1983 to protect the good people from the bad. Simplistic I know but I was 19. The legal system in the UK is doing the exact opposite. They are protecting polluters, allowing increased harm and obscene profits; whilst prosecuting people trying to save life in a way that is so unjust; gagging them from sharing their motivation with the jury. Extinction changes everything and the legal system must wake up and become a force for good.’

Heather Hallett, a member of the Court of Appeal from 2005-2019 and currently chairing the Public Inquiry into the COVID pandemic. In her 2017 Blackstone Lecture on the Role of the Jury said:

A jury may refuse to convict in spite of the law and the evidence because it concludes that the law is an unjust law. The jury passes its verdict on the law. Secondly, it ensures that the prosecution and the judge are on trial….

These trials all took place in the full glare of publicity. Here we see a specific application of the principle of open justice: the public can attend court and scrutinise what is going on. They can see the jury make its protest as to what they see as an unjust law or unjust application of the law. There is a check against arbitrary or oppressive conduct by the court. Here the 17th century rationale lives on despite Caverno’s claim. We see as Professor Zander has properly pointed out the jury can set aside ‘unjust laws, oppressive prosecutions and harsh sentences.’

Law Lord Lord Hoffmann confirmed this in R v Jones (Margaret) [2007] 1 AC 161 (89) when he stated:

My Lords, civil disobedience on conscientious grounds has a long and honourable history in this country. People who break the law to affirm their belief in the injustice of a law or government action are sometimes vindicated by history. The suffragettes are an example which comes immediately to mind. It is the mark of a civilised community that it can accommodate protests and demonstrations of this kind.

Trudi Warner (3 March 23)

Save Our Juries

A new group Save our Juries has been set up, the purpose of which is to protect and defend the right to a fair trial through the power of collective action, as judges undermine it by concealing from juries their proper role

Save Our Juries will defend and protect the right to a fair trial and shine a spotlight on the repression that is taking place by: 

1.    Literally upholding the law on signs which explain a jury’s right to acquit a defendant as a matter of conscience

2.    The power of silence and blank signs as a symbol of state repression. 

More than 20 people have already been referred to the Attorney General for upholding the law on our signs. The more the state reacts against us the more it exposes to the public its violence and authoritarianism. If you want to take collective action against the Government’s programme of repression at this critical moment.

Just as the fossil fuel companies and others have for decades hidden the truth of the climate and ecological crises from the public to maintain their profits, the British judiciary now perpetuates the suppression of evidence through the courts, including by:

1.     Banning those engaged in campaigns of political defiance from explaining their motivations and beliefs to the jury

2.     Telling the jury that motives, even if articulated, are irrelevant and must be ignored

3.     Sending people to prison just for using the terms “climate change” and “fuel poverty” in court

4.     Banning references to a jury’s right to acquit a defendant as a matter of conscience

5.     Arresting and referring for prosecution those who remind jurors of their right to make decisions on their conscience.

6.     Directing the jury that defences such as necessity, proportionality or reasonable excuse are not available.

7.     Limiting the time to present a defence to 15 minutes.

Jury trials are being turned into show trials, with the jury being used just to rubber-stamp the politicised directions of the judge.

Save Our Juries will campaign to protect & defend the right to trial by jury by nonviolent collective action.

The principle that juries can acquit a defendant on their conscience (“jury nullification”) has a long history. It was first established in 1670 when the Recorder of London tried to compel a jury to convict two Quaker preachers, William Penn and William Mead, for holding an unlawful assembly. Chief Justice Vaughan, of the Court of Common Pleas ruled that juries have the right to “give their verdict according to their convictions”. That ruling is celebrated with a marble plaque in the Old Bailey.

Because of that principle, the penalty of hanging for stealing sheep was abolished in this country because juries refused to convict people of that offence. After the passing of the Fugitive Slaves Act 1850, many US juries declined to convict those who had helped the enslaved to gain their freedom. In 1985, a British jury acquitted Clive Ponting for breach of the Official Secrets Act after he leaked a document which exposed the Government’s lies over the sinking of the Argentine ship, General Belgrano, with the loss of 368 lives, despite the judge’s direction that he had no defence in law.

The Jury is the “Achilles heel” in the Government’s programme of repression against those expressing defiance against its authoritarian policies. It only takes 3 out of 12 jurors to prevent a guilty verdict. If ordinary people are empowered to act on their conscience, as is their right, and presented with the relevant context, many will refuse to convict their fellow citizens who have been taking a stand against the corruption of the fossil fuel industry or those who are supplying arms with which to commit war crimes.

If juries routinely decline to convict, that’s not embarrasses the Government, it haemorrhages one of their primary sources of power, repression through the criminal courts. That’s why such extreme measures have been taken to bypass juries in conscience cases.

When Trudi Warner, a retired social worker held up a placard communicating the jury’s right to make decisions of conscience, she was arrested and sent to the Old Bailey. When 24 of us replicated her action in May outside Inner London Crown Court, Judge Reid referred us to the Attorney General for contempt of court. Those taking part included Quakers, health professionals, a priest, legal professionals and a retired police officer.

The Attorney General, the Government’s most senior legal adviser, now faces a dilemma. See The Times. She can either decline to prosecute, undermining the authority of the judges. Or she can prosecute us, in which case there will be more of us and the assault on trial by jury will be brought to national and international attention.

Likely and unlikely allies

Save Our Juries is a natural point of intersection for diverse campaigns and movements, including anti-racism, peace and climate movements. Juries have acquitted those who toppled the statue of the slave-trader, Edward Colston, those attempting to block violent deportations, and those resisting climate breakdown and fuel poverty. Likewise a judge had recently ruled that those blocking the sale of drones to Israel which would be used to target Palestinians, could not explain their motivations to the jury and could not inform the jury of their right to acquit as a matter of conscience.

Save Our Juries reaches across political divides. When someone’s liberty is at stake, the right to a fair hearing and the right to trial by jury are fundamental even to a ‘conservative’ sense of British justice. Judge Reid’s actions have already been gathering support from some unlikely sources, see for example “Protesters must be allowed to explain motives in court”, The Times:

 “Whether you sympathise with Insulate Britain or regard them as woke tofu-munchers, surely any defendant in a criminal trial is entitled to defend themselves when their liberty is at stake? … Banning all reference to motive also compromises the jury. Shouldn’t jurors be able to consider whether these protestors were acting out of conscience?”

Save Our Juries campaigns to prevent the suppression of evidence and the subversion of democracy (hence its support for the self-determination of peoples and the decolonisation of land, education and ecosystems). Initially, Save Our Juries will support the following collective actions:

1.           Upholding the law on signs

Upholding the law on a sign outside court for an hour (e.g. between 9 and 10am) is a simple, accessible and powerful action. It presents the State with a deep dilemma. It must either:

i)  criminalise people for literally upholding the law, exposing to public view its repressive nature; or

ii)  permit jurors to be empowered by being informed of their right to acquit a defendant as a matter of conscience, risking a critical mass of jury acquittals.

A letter can be handed in to the presiding Judge, openly communicating the rationale for the action (such as the letter handed to Judge Reid by the 24 signholders in May).

2.           The power of silence (and blank signs) as a symbol of oppression

Blank signs may be held outside courts where defendants are being prevented from explaining their motives and advancing a defence (blank signs being the international symbol of state repression).

Campaign launch: at Gail Bradbrook’s trial at Isleworth CC (Monday 17th July), and on Friday 21st July) at Isleworth, ILCC, Hove, and other Crown Courts

If you’re interested in joining a sign-holding action in July (or at some later date), please email us at saveourjuries@protonmail.com

Unity not uniformity

There is a central working group of 5-6 people who have been working on the development of the campaign, action designs and the essential administration and care that allows people to take action.

Given the diversity of the movement, different groups engaging in the campaign will know best how to communicate with their communities. Quakers involved in the campaign, for example, have emphasised the role of Quakers in establishing the original precedent on the principle of jury nullification in 1670:

Tony Greenstein

Quakers stand up for vital legal precedent established in 1670 Quaker trial”.

Contact

To join or support the campaign, please contact saveourjuries@protonmail.com.

Useful references

A.      PATTERN OF JURY ACQUITTALS

We took direct action against the UK’s racist policies, and a jury acquitted us. Resistance can succeed” (Guardian, 16 June 23)

Extinction Rebellion co-founder cleared of further charge in paint-throwing case” (Independent, 21 February, 2023)

Insulate Britain activists cleared in court after M4 protest” (Bristol Post, 16 January 23)

The government is undermining the idea of trial by jury after Colston Four verdict” (Independent, 20 April 22)

Juries keep letting Extinction Rebellion off the hook — here’s why” (Evening Standard, 8 April 22)

UK activists keep being acquitted by juries. What does that mean for protest?” Open Democracy, 22 January 22

Grant Shapps slams Bristol jury for clearing Colston Four” (Daily Mail, 6 January 22)

Jurors see the bigger picture: activists who were cleared in court”, (Guardian, 6 January 22)

Jury acquits Extinction Rebellion protesters despite ‘no defence in law’” (Guardian, 23 April 21)

Extinction Rebellion founder cleared of vandalism in landmark case after arguing climate change justification” (Independent, 10 May 2019)

B.       TRUTH-TELLING AND SOLIDARITY ACTIONS TO DATE

 Climate activists risk contempt charges over placards outside court” (The Times, 2 June 23)

Judge refers doctors, priest and Olympic Gold medalist to Attorney General over

alleged contempt of court” (Press release, 2 June 23)

Judges join lawyers in the bear pit” (Law Society Gazette, 23 May 23)

17 May 2023: Judge Silas “Silencing” Reid defeated by show of solidarity for retired social worker arrested for holding up a sign” (Press release, 17 May 23)

Climate activists call crown court judge ‘unprincipled bully’ during protest” (Independent, 15 May 23)

Protesters must be allowed to explain motives in court” (The Times, 13 March 23)

Insulate Britain activist jailed for eight weeks for contempt of court” (Guardian, 7 February 23)

Activists jailed for seven weeks for defying ban on mentioning climate crisis” (Open Democracy, 3 March 23)

Climate activist who allegedly held sign directed at jurors may be charged” (Guardian, 4 April 23)

C.       ACTION AND MEDIA RESOURCES

Video and stills from signholders and others

Still pics

D.         OTHER RELEVANT MATERIALS

 “‘Not only a right, but a duty’: A history of perverse verdicts” (Justice Gap)

Jury Nullification: The Short History of a Little Understood Power” (Midlands Historical Review)

School syllabus (Penn and Mead)

History GCSE: The Conventicle Act of 1664 and the Independence of the Jury (BBC)

The Auld Review, September 2001, Juries, paras. 99ff

Lawyers For Israel Oppose Conscience”, Craig Murray, 20 May 23

Fully Informed Jury Association (US)

Jury Nullification (Wikipedia)