Palestine Action activists receive suspended sentences and community service orders – for ‘damage’ to Israeli weapons factory that never happened
Four Palestine Action (PA) activists have received suspended sentences at Wolverhampton Crown Court today for damage that was never inflicted on an armed drone factory owned by Israeli weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems.
Under UK law, the maximum sentence that can be imposed for criminal damage to a value below £5,000 is three months, but the prosecution and court decided to prosecute based on damage that might have occurred had the group not been arrested by police, which they estimated at over £200,000 along with loss of production – which also never happened – at the factory.
Banning the group from defending their actions on political grounds as an attempt to prevent war crimes, the judge instead chose to categorise the attempted action as a ‘revenge attack’. However, after representations from the four’s barristers, he imposed sentences, suspended for two years, of nine months on Tony Greenstein, Palestinian Ibrahim Samadi and Alex Waters, and twelve months on Jeremy Parker, along with varying community service and rehabilitation orders.
The news was greeted by cheers from massed supporters inside the packed courtroom and outside the building:
The judge also insulted Suffragettes, referring to claims that their civil disobedience had put back the cause of votes for women by five years, yet referred to their actions had been ‘proportionate’ – suffragettes conducted a campaign of bombing and arson! – unlike the PA protesters, which had been ‘disproportionate’ (even though it never happened).
Leaving the court building, Greenstein told Skwawkbox that the four had all been prepared for immediate custodial sentences despite the clear mitigations and that police had lied about various aspects of the case to incriminate the activists – and criticised the decision to prosecute for damage that didn’t happen, when Palestinian civilians are being killed with impunity by Israeli forces:
The trial of four more PA activists for protests against Elbit begins next week in Manchester.
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Good grief, ‘justice’ seems to be pot luck, these days.
Interesting to see, and hear, what happens in Manchester, next week.
HATTA AL-NASR TONY GREENSTEIN AND ALL!!! WELL DONE!!!
FREE PALESTINE!!!
Solidarity Tony Greenstein…..
And all the other activists standing up for Palestine.
#BDS #PalestineWillBeFree
Should never have even went to court.
But here’s a quick message for keef (And ‘Ill bet he’s fewmin 🖕😁🖕)
Nevermind keef. But let’s not forget all those nonces – including your candidate dewey – who are walking free because of YOU.
And they actually committed the crimes they were charged with.
Sentenced for a crime which didn’t happen. Kafka would have understood. They’ll be coming into our living-rooms soon arresting us for having thoughts they don’t like. But great news the four won’t got to prison, let’s keep up the pressure on Elbit and long live Palestine.
Is the judge an ” anti semite” ? Must be – after all he didn’t order that Tony and the others should serve a minimum of 20 years hard labour with daily floggings and a diet of bread and water
This would be the type of sentence the pro Israel lobby would regard as “justice”. I am so very glad they were disapointed.
Suppose that makes me an ” antisemite” – what an honour it would be to be deemed an antisemite by a bunch of extremists and fanatics whose dedication to a nation which thinks its OK to kill children and little babies is ” without qualification” .
Shame on them and solidarity with Tony and his comrades.
Smartboy, welcome to the ProSemites. We have a long, honourable history.
An unsatisfactory outcome, but better than I could have reasonably have expected.
Well done, Mr Greenstein.
Meanwhile, Re: Unite and the efforts to suppress the film and book.
It appears that a letter sent by Unite Membership Services says that Paul Mason (yes, he of the silly spider diagram and the conspiracy theories) was a/the source quoted as having fed into the decision to blacklist the film and book launch.
Here’s the coverage/report on the Brighton and Hove News website:
https://www.brightonandhovenews.org/2023/09/06/brighton-activist-dodges-prison-over-drone-factory-plot/
Right Wing 0 Humanity 1.
So I thought I’d do a search on the CAAs website to see if they’ve posted anything (yet) about the sentencing, and I assumed their headline would have Tony’s name in it, so I typed >tony greenstein< into their search engine, and got 59 results. About a dozen or so (at the top of the list) have his name in the headline, and the rest mention him in the article.Here's one with his name in the headline, and another (which I'll post underneath) which doesn't. Both of them are just pure poison of course:
Tony Greenstein and Piers Corbyn make Nazi comparisons in speeches at far-left demonstration outside Labour Party HQ, in anticipation of significant NEC meeting
https://antisemitism.org/tony-greenstein-and-piers-corbyn-make-nazi-comparisons-in-speeches-at-far-left-demonstration-outside-labour-party-hq-in-anticipation-of-significant-nec-meeting/
CAA submits complaint against teacher and ex-union official who referred to “dirty Zionists” and made other inflammatory remarks
https://antisemitism.org/caa-submits-complaint-against-teacher-and-ex-union-official-who-referred-to-dirty-zionists-and-made-other-inflammatory-remarks/
PS So I just did (another) search on the CAAs website to see if there were any later articles about the teacher (for example, did the CAA manage to get her sacked from her job), and so I put her name into their search engine, and just the one article came up (the one I linked to above). So I then thought to put ‘dirty zionists’ in their search engine, and got TWO results, the second of which is one headlined ‘Prosecutions For Antisemitism’. So I had a look through the list of prosecutions for this year so far, and then last year, and then the year before, and her name wasn’t among them, and so I concluded that either the CAA didn’t report her to the police (for antisemitism/hate-speech), or they DID, but nothing came of it.
I have little doubt it was the former, and of course – to give just TWO examples – neither have they ever reported Tony to the police, who they have repeatedly described as a ‘notorious antisemite’, or Jeremy, who they regularly describe as an antisemite, or the antisemitic former leader, and THAT of course tells us all just how legitimate and kosher their claims ARE! And THEY are! Yes, we already knew of course, and have done for years, but this is actual proof that they are nothing but a black propaganda outfit smearing innocent people.
One for Squawkbox security:
Strange how none of these comments have been liked in the 8 hours since this post appeared, though I might have an answer. I just liked a comment and a few seconds later it disappeared before my eyes. The star went from orange, back to blue. Most queer!
Anyone else experienced this?
To what extent should any British Citizen trust the Police Service (or Force), our Politicians, the 4th Estate or the Judiciary?
I see that the appropriately named Chris Pincher has resigned from parliament.
Meanwhile, an interesting report from OpenDemocracy:
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/keir-starmer-grant-thornton-weber-shandwick-corporate-lobbying/