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UK

MEET THE NEW BOSS SAME AS THE OLD BOSS

Palestine Action co-founder faces charges under (TORY) Terrorism Act

Labour is cracking down on Palestine protesters and locking up climate campaigners



Palestine Action co-founder Richard Barnard (Picture: Palestine Action)

By Charlie Kimber
Thursday 29 August 2024 
SOCIALIST WORKER

Labour home secretary Yvette Cooper is going to court to force through Tory anti-protest laws. And the government is presiding over a blizzard of repressive arrests, jailings and charges.

On Thursday Palestine Action announced that its co-founder Richard Barnard is facing three charges for two speeches. He is accused of supporting a proscribed organisation under the Terrorism Act and encouraging “criminal activity”.

On the same day counter-terrorism police re-raided one of the “Filton 10” Palestine activists’ addresses, over three weeks after they were first arrested. Cops arrested six of the Filton 10 on 6 August after they broke into the Israeli-owned arms research, development and manufacturing hub in Filton, Bristol.

Police rounded up four others from across Britain allegedly in connection to the action. They detained all ten for a week without charge under the Terrorism Act. The state then charged them for non-terror offences and remanded them to prison.

Palestine Action said, “The state is harassing Palestine Action, in a bid to protect Israel’s weapons trade. We will not be intimidated into allowing a genocide to happen.

On the same day police arrested pro-Palestine human rights activist Sarah Wilkinson. “The police came to her house just before 7.30am. There were 12 of them in total, some of them in plain clothes from the counter-terrorism police,” Jack Wilkinson told social media account Suppressed News.

“They said she was under arrest for ‘content that she has posted online.’ Her house is being raided, and they have seized all her electronic devices.”

As the crackdown happens, Cooper will appeal against a high court ruling that quashed anti-protest laws after civil rights group Liberty challenged them. The new laws allowed the police to impose restrictions on protests where there was merely a “more than minor” hindrance on people’s daily lives.

It lowered the threshold which had previously permitted police curbs only where there was a risk of “serious disruption.” Akiko Hart, Liberty’s director, said, “We are very disappointed. This legislation is undemocratic, unconstitutional and unacceptable.

“With hundreds of people wrongfully arrested and convicted due to this unlawful legislation already, it is not right to continue to carry on with this law that should never have been made in the first place.”

Meanwhile, the state is ramping up repression against climate protesters. This week a group of five Just Stop Oil (JSO) protesters who have not been found guilty were sent to prison until their trial—in February next year.

Effectively, the court jailed them for six months even before there is any consideration of their case. And the group, known as the Manchester 5, had not taken any action.

The police arrested Indigo Rumbelow, Margaret Reid, Ella Ward and Daniel Knorr pre-emptively in Manchester on 5 August. Noah Crane’s crime is that he is alleged to have supplied a phone.

All five are charged with conspiracy to commit public nuisance, which has a ten-year maximum jail time. This is the same charge that saw five others jailed for between four and five years back in July.

Before this week’s court appearance, Noah said, “We are faced with a choice. We can either sit back and watch as governments allow the deaths of hundreds of millions of people to protect profit, or we can do everything in our power to prevent that.

“When I think about it that way, it’s really a no-brainer. I’m not scared of going to prison. What I am scared of is what will happen if we don’t act on this crisis.

“The world is in a position where there is no threat they can make towards me, that outweighs the consequences of inaction.”

The new government is cracking down on Palestine protesters, locking up climate campaigners and driving through the Tory anti-protest measures. It should be repealing them, not relentlessly supporting them. Under Labour, the rate of jailing protesters is rising.

JSO said, “Since the current government came into power 26 people have been imprisoned for taking nonviolent climate action. The judiciary has led a coordinated, repressive approach to climate trials and sentencing.

“Harsh bail conditions continue to be applied by both the police and courts.”

Courts have jailed more than 40 political prisoners in Britain since July. Of these 16 are linked to Palestine Action and the rest are JSO supporters.Support Palestine Action’s Richard Barnard at his plea hearing on Wed 18 Se
pt from 10am at Westminster Magistrates’ Court, London, NW1 5BR

UK Continues Use of Anti-Terrorism Law to Arrest Palestine Defenders

"1984 has arrived and is alive and well in the United Kingdom," said musician Roger Waters.




British pro-Palestine activist and journalist Sarah Wilkinson—seen here in an undated photo—was arrested on August 29, 2024 for what police said was "content that she has posted online" amid Israel's Gaza onslaught.
(Photo: Sarah Wilkinson/X)


Brett Wilkins
Aug 30, 2024
COMMON DREAMS

At least a dozen police officers raided the home of British pro-Palestine activist and journalist Sarah Wilkinson on Thursday over "content that she has posted online" that allegedly ran afoul of the United Kingdom's anti-terrorism law.

"The police came to her house just before 7:30 am," Wilkinson's son, Jack Wilkinson, said on social media. "There were 12 of them in total, some of them in plain clothes from the counterterrorism police... Her house is being raided and they have seized all her electronic devices."

Police—who later freed Wilkinson on bail—did not disclose what content she posted that led to her arrest. Wilkinson has been a tireless critic of the U.K. government's support for Israel and has posted many images of the death and destruction in Gaza, where Israeli forces have killed and wounded more than 144,000 Palestinians. Israel is on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice.

"The British prime minister is determined to terrorize into silence critics highlighting his, and now his government's, complicity with Israel and its genocide in Gaza."

Pro-Israel media reported Wilkinson called the October 7 attack on Israel by Hamas-led militants an "incredible infiltration" and hailed the late Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh—who was assassinated last month in Iran—as a "hero."

Section 12 of the U.K.'s Terrorism Act of 2000 criminalizes anyone who "invites support for a proscribed organization" or "expresses an opinion or belief that is supportive" of such a group. Violators can be punished with up to 14 years' imprisonment and a fine. Hamas is included on the U.K. government's list of proscribed groups.

Critics say the U.K. government uses the highly controversial anti-terror law to silence dissent.

Israel-based British journalist Thomas Cook said in a Friday blog post that Wilkinson's arrest is "definitive proof" that U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer's "authoritarian purges of the Labour left are being rolled out against critics on a nationwide basis."

"The British prime minister is determined to terrorize into silence critics highlighting his, and now his government's, complicity with Israel and its genocide in Gaza," Cook added.

Musician and staunch Israel critic Roger Waters, who co-founded the rock band Pink Floyd, said in a video posted Thursday on social media that Wilkinson was arrested "for standing up for human rights and campaigning against genocide."



"If you allow this to stand, the arrest of Sarah Wilkinson and the persecution of my friend Craig Murray among others, then you have absolutely accepted that England is now a fascist state," Waters asserted, adding that "1984 has arrived and is alive and well in the United Kingdom."

In addition to her pro-Palestine activism, Wilkinson is a news contributor for the Lebanon-based news site MENA Uncensored.

"The pro-genocide U.K. regime has arrested MENA Uncensored's roving reporter and human rights activist Sarah Wilkinson for supporting the Palestinian resistance and relaying what is really happening in Gaza and the West Bank to the world," the outlet said on social media.

Wilkinson's arrest came one week after Syrian-British independent journalist Richard Medhurst was apprehended at London's Heathrow Airport and held for nearly 24 hours for allegedly violating Section 12 with social media posts "expressing an opinion or belief that is supportive of a proscribed organization."



Richard Barnard, co-founder of the London-based group Palestine Action—with which Wilkinson has been involved—is also facing three criminal charges for two speeches allegedly supporting a proscribed organization.


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