Analysis

Video: mother of anti-genocide activist jailed before trial speaks about her own ‘lawfare’ arrest

Emma Kamio describes Starmer regime’s use of Terrorism Act in ‘lawfare’ war on dissent to support Israel’s genocide

Emma Kamio and her daughter Leona (inset).

Emma Kamio, the mother of Leona Kamio, one of the Filton 18 who is still behind bars for taking action against Elbit Systems, has spoken publicly about her experience of being wrongfully arrested and detained incommunicado for five days under the Terrorism Act:

Video: CAGE International

The Filton 18 have been jailed pending trial for more than six months so far and will have been imprisoned for fourteen months by the time their trial takes place, after the Starmer government used anti-terror legislation to have them denied bail, even though they are only charged with criminal damage for direct action against the Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit’s weapons factory in Filton, Bristol. Faced with the acquittal of protesters by juries who value free speech and the need for action to prevent war crimes, the state is ‘making the process the punishment’ to try to deter dissent.

Leona Kamio.

Like Leona, a nursery school teacher, and her fellow political prisoners, Emma Kamio suffered the confiscation of her computers and phones under the Terrorism Act, which have still not been returned to her. The tactic is being used repeatedly as part of Keir Starmer’s ‘lawfare’ war against journalists, activists and academics who expose and speak out against Israel’s genocide in Gaza – and, as Emma Kamio’s testimony confirms, against their families too.

According to human rights group CAGE International, Leona has been mistreated and denied fundamental rights in prison as she awaits trial, including withholding money sent by family and supporters, preventing her making phone calls to family and friends, denial of adequate nutrition and denial of supplements needed for her health.

Israel has murdered at least 200,000 Palestinian civilians so far and is starving around two million by imposing a complete blockade on food, water, medicine, fuel and other essentials for life. The Starmer regime has provided direct military assistance to Israel as well as oppressing its UK critics and has now joined in direct bombing attacks on Yemeni facilities that have helped Yemen to block Israeli and Israel-bound shipping to fulfil Yemen’s obligations under international law to prevent genocide. UK Defence Secretary John Healey has confirmed this morning that the RAF carried out bombing raids on Yemen last night in support of the US airforce, which has killed hundreds of Yemeni civilians and refugees to support Israel.

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16 comments

  1. Ive seen the FOIA request that shows israel complicit in these arrests. Its completely illegal. Facebook restrict me to 3-5 comments a day even thou I don’t break their rules. Apparently this is the same interference from the israelis. Our justice system has been colonialised. https://www.councilestatemedia.uk/p/foi-documents-show-that-israel-is?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=441wj9&fbclid=IwY2xjawJ-_ANleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHtr2fY-A9yJJsSZFHYBJ4fCOWMuPUT6CPZQ0pA-TuwqbFQtqzxtixdTk3bu2_aem_3hGFoAy_sNlJtzx4br87jg&triedRedirect=true

  2. To be fair to New New Labour, The Tories are also to blame, as Leona was jailed close to 5 month before New New Labour took power.

  3. As a Spaniard the appropriate word to describe what is going on is FASCISM
    Franco’s Spain had representatives elected to Parliament, only that political plurality was illegal. Hence, we were only able to vote for candidates affiliated to the Falange.
    In Great Britain nowadays their is a mirage of democracy, since different political parties stand candidates. However, in reality we only have a choice between: Red Tories and Blue Tories.
    The same as the Falange, the Red Tories and Blue Tories pass legislation that subverts the democratic rule as it makes a mockery of our individual human rights. The few socialist within the Labour Party with parliamentary representation are very much to keep the appearance of democracy and even they are coy no to upset to much the establishment.
    Very much like Franco’s Spain.

    1. Maria, was Franco’s Spanish Falange (fascist) movement completely zionist? I ask because in the modern world a total, unreserved acceptance of Z’ism seems to be a pre-requisite for ‘democratic’ power.

  4. Ground breaking conference launches a fightback against racism in the UK by uniting diverse groups from the police, NHS and education
    By davidhencke on April 30, 2025

    Obviously, at present we are in the midst of an invisible war. The “culture wars” were quietly declared by the Conservative government in 2020. Their aim was to prevent black people empowering themselves by mobilising and using the energy from the #BlackLivesMatter movement to become a political force, such as that which helped the Democrats win the November 2020 election.

    “It is an ideological war. Those who do not accept the alleged British way of life (“white is right”) are to be humiliated, made to feel unwelcome, harassed and invited to leave Britian. DEI is to be ended. Unconscious bias training is to stop in the civil service. White (northern working class) people are to be viewed as the real victims, not black people or women. Diversity (and equality) has gone too far. The term “Institutional Racism” is unhelpful and must not be used by the EHRC in any report findings. Black ministers (NB: who ideologically see no racism) were deployed to implement the war tactics to deflect from and provide deniability from their innate racist motivation.

    1. Yes SteveH, but playing ‘culture wars’ differently doesn’t turn Keir Starmer into “a goody”.

      As somebody called Akehurst has written at Jacobin “Anti-immigration politicians around Europe have increasingly outsourced border policing to authoritarian states in Africa. Britain’s Labour Party has followed the same approach.” https://jacobin.com/2025/02/starmer-migration-far-right-clampdown

      He’s fighting the same battles and supporting the same economic positions as the instigators of the “culture wars” i.e. the (blue) tories, the hard-right and hard-line “atlanticists.
      ALSO:
      *”Lawfare” doesn’t just happen without daily instructions to continue it from the current PM, i.e. Keir Rodney Starmer.

      **Palantir and BlackRock are deeper embedded into the British (security) state than they were under Rishi Sunak and all his predecessors.

      ***No PM other than Keir Starmer has ever been called “a long-term servant of the security state”.

      Surveillance is increased. Big Brother is daily becoming stronger and stronger thanks to Keir ‘palantir’ Starmer.

      1. qwerty – Would you rather live with the same ‘freedoms’ that are enjoyed by the inhabitants of China, Iran and Russia?

      2. Those few ‘freedoms’ that keef is eroding, just as quickly as b.liar?

        Gobshite.

      3. You mean the freedom:

        – not to starve?
        – to have a roof over your head?
        – not to go to school hungry?
        – not to work for wages so low that you need welfare to survive?
        – not to have to rely on food banks to feed yourself and your family?
        – not to get into debt just to eke a living?
        – not to have poor health care?
        – not to have your economy ripped off and crippled by parasitic rent seeking financiers?
        – not to have to put up with crumbling, shoddy, expensive not fit for purpose infrastructure whilst the Government borrows tens and hundreds of billions at compound interest rates to nurture conflicts aimed at regime change to install puppet Governments and support, aid and abet Genocide in your name whilst committing you to pay for it all?

        Once again, you are simply parroting evidence free propaganda which you fall for hook, line, sinker and copy of Angling Times. Much like as portrayed in this cartoon:

        https://steelcityscribblings.uk/wp/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/china-is-bad.jpg

        Talking out of your rear orifice about matters you clearly have no experience of or expertise in. Like the sheep in Animal Farm.

        Doubtless, on past precedent, you will claim the IMF – whose own figures concede, for example, that in the past few decades China has lifted over 700 million people out of poverty – are [checks notes] Communist supporters?

        Sleepless in Seattle was on the box the other night. Today, as we are most days, we are ‘treated’ to Clueless in the Caribbean (allegedly).

        Come on then, Billy, surprise us all. Which inane one-liner from your extremely limited list is it going to be on this occasion?

        Place your bets, everybody.

      4. Dave – What was that you were you saying about pushing buttons. 😏

      5. It’s called grown up evidence based debate, Billy.

        You might want to try it sometime. You’ll need some Gorm though.

      6. Dave – I’m quite happy to leave it to other readers to decide for themselves who’s been pushing who’s buttons for the last 2+ years, are you?

      7. Another thinly-veiled admission from the nonce excuser/enabler/apologist that his raison d’etre is to do nothing more than get a rise out of folk.

        Hence the reason he’ll never quantify and qualify his statements and claims.

        The infantile imbecile.

      8. Au contraire, Billy.

        You being the gift that keeps on digging, consistently provide us all with tangential to the topic opportunities and openings to post links and exchange ideas and arguments which other participants may have missed and which might otherwise not fit smoothly into the flow of the conversation.

        With the added bonus of you never ever providing a single substantive evidence based argument or counterargument which requires any of us to break sweat.

        It’s like getting paid to watch a prancing Motley Fool – like a Parolles or a Malvolio – who is incapable of recognising the role he is playing in undermining everything he has been programmed to believe about the world and how it works.

        Keep digging sucker.

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