Police continue to abuse draconian powers under Terrorism Act against peaceful campaigners and journalists highlighting Israel’s mass murder of Palestinians
More anti-genocide activists have been being targeted under terrorism legislation, an abuse whose escalation under Keir Starmer Skwawkbox predicted before the general election and has documented since.
Kwabena Devonish, a Cardiff-based anti-racism campaigner, has been charged under the Terrorism Act for supposedly promoting support for a proscribed group. The supposed offence related to a speech Devonish made at an anti-genocide protest last November in Cardiff.
Evidently under orders from Keir Starmer or his drones to intensify the state’s repression of pro-Palestine solidarity, police have arrested and in some cases charged a number of anti-genocide campaigners as well as journalists who dare to report too penetratingly on the genocide in Gaza, on Israel’s other war crimes and on the Palestinian resistance to the occupation, even though resistance, even armed resistance, to organisers is a right under international law.
In August, police detained journalist Richard Medhurst citing the Terrorism Act as his plane arrived in the UK, before stripping him of his electronic devices and forcing him to disclose passwords. Refusal to hand over logins or to answer any questions is an automatic offence under the legislation. Medhurst was also denied access to legal advice and even water, and was not permitted to let anyone know where he was until he was eventually released almost twenty-four hours later. He has been charged with ‘holding or expressing an opinion’ supportive of a proscribed group.
A week later, journalist Sarah Wilkinson was arrested as masked officers raided her home in the early hours of the morning. Her devices were removed, she was forced to hand over passwords and police attempted to make her hand over details of her contacts in Palestine, a gross violation of journalistic privilege. She was then bailed under conditions that forbade her to use a mobile phone or computer and was only able to contact her lawyer or let people know what had happened because her adult son – also abused by police during the raid – happened to be staying at the house. On the same day as Wilkinson’s arrest, police arrested and charged Palestine Action co-founder Richard Barnard for supposedly supporting a proscribed group and used the Terrorism Act to arrest seven other Palestine Action activists, abusing the Act’s powers against them before eventually charging them with non-terror offences.
Keir Starmer was not the first to abuse the Terror Act – widely considered by legal experts and human rights groups to be an unfit piece of legislation. His blue Tory predecessor oversaw the arrests of Jewish activist Tony Greenstein, journalist Kit Klarenberg and journalist and former ambassador Craig Murray was detained on his way back from an Assange event in Iceland.
But the acceleration of arrests and blatant harassment, along with the use of the Terrorism Act’s powers to force their way into the devices and records of people who oppose genocide shows that Starmer – who is known as a ‘long-time servant of the British security state’ and enthusiastically collaborated with the Tories to pass anti-protest laws – has stepped up that state’s attempted repression of support for human rights and of opposition to war crimes.
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The typical modus of the abject shithouse.
When it comes to international law scrutinising him, keef’s all tentative for fear he might be in violation. Making the most incremental and inconsequential of compliances (while probably still in breach).
When it comes to domestic law, he’s taking the piss. (ab)Using powers to their fullest for mere reporting of facts that he (and blue-rinse benny) would prefer you didn’t know.
Hiding behind the law like that odious, sneering cowardly shit – jeremy kyle – used to hide behind the security goons on that ‘show’ of his.
It seems obvious to me, the police must be obeying Starmer via the power of the secret services and ‘security state’, an evil power-base Starmer was once just a humble servant of, but now commands in authoritarian glory.
I hate that man more each day.
I think it is safe to say that the pigs won’t be arresting Sturmer for complicity with international war crimes any time soon.
People have a right to declare independence, whether Israel likes it or not.
People also have a right to resist illegal occupation, including through force of arms, whether Isreal likes it or not.
Successive British governments – of both persuasions – clearly do not believe in the rule of international law, might is right, and they are supported by a corrupt police force.
It could be argued the first quasi legal ruling on Palestine was by the British Government, the Western elite who felt they were superior had given Britain the ‘Mandate’ in Palestine with The Balfour Declaration (1917). It said a “Jewish Home in Palestine” but NOT a state (which Zionists had been pressing them for) but importantly it also said It should do nothing that should be to the detriment of the indigenous (Palestinian) population. This I believe gives sustenance to One Secular Multi-Ethnic Democratic State of Palestine (H.Eid, E. Said) from the rivers to the sea with The Right of Palestinian Refugees to Return.
A peaceful & logical solution
Then a Free Palestine could exploit its own resources to care for its diverse citizens and if it chose it could build a new canal to benefit world trade.
See: G.D.Smith, A 3,000 Year History of Palestine, Bernard Regan, The Balfour Declaration. And if you want to know about Labour, the Left & Palestine see Paul Keleman, The British Left & Zionism: A History of Divorce.