Use of ‘suspicion’ under designation of specific group flouts High Court ruling in PA case – law protects right to protest and to condemn genocide
Yesterday, Skwawkbox published video showing Kent Police officers harassing and threatening to arrest a peaceful anti-genocide protester in Canterbury, claiming that the government’s ‘proscription’ ban on Palestine Action (PA) – which it has now classified as a terrorist group alongside ISIS and al-Qaeda – mean that under anti-terror laws any public condemnation of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, or calls for the freedom of Palestine from occupation, creates ‘reasonable suspicion’ that a protester supports the banned group.
Support for a proscribed organisation carries a sentence of up to fourteen years in prison.
This claim was self-evidently wrong: most people who oppose Israel’s genocide and want freedom for the Palestinians have never had any connection to PA and such a political position is clearly no indication of membership or support – but the government and its pro-Israel backers who pushed for the proscription would clearly love to see the anti-genocide protest movement chilled by the fear of arrest, prosecution and potential imprisonment.
But the police’s claim is not only clearly wrong, but has already been ruled unlawful by the judge who, earlier this month, heard PA co-founder Huda Ammori’s legal case attempting to have the proscription suspended pending a judicial review of its legality.
Justice Chamberlain refused Ammori’s request for a stay on the proscription order, but said that he was doing so because the order does not make pro-Palestine protests illegal and that former PA members are even free to commit similar criminal damage, which would not cease to be criminal but neither would the crime be ‘aggravated’ by the ban on PA:
It will remain lawful for the claimant and other persons who were members of PA prior to proscription to continue to express their opposition to Israel’s actions in Gaza and elsewhere, including by drawing attention to what they regard as Israel’s genocide and other serious violations of international law. They will remain legally entitled to do so in private conversations, in print, on social media and at protests.
Justice Chamberlain, Ammori vs SSHD
Even if their protests take the form of direct action which involves criminality, the fact that they were previously members of an organisation which is now proscribed would not as a matter of law aggravate their criminal conduct.
Whether the ‘over-reach’ of individual officers, a Kent Police policy or an instruction from the Home Secretary to all police forces, the use of the PA ban against protesters for protesting against genocide without reference to PA is entirely unjustified and already ruled unlawful. Kent Police has been provided with this excerpt by Skwawkbox but has not yet provided the requested confirmation which of the above three options is the case.
Until this situation is formally clarified, anyone protesting for the Palestinians and against Israel’s crimes should keep a copy of the judgment or a link to this article to hand to educate police if they try similar tactics.
Skwawkbox understands that Thanet4Palestine is planning a major protest tomorrow against the local force’s actions.
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Nice one Skwawkie will have a copy of this at future Palestine demos.
Some suggest some of the police haven’t a clue about some of the law?
For armed is for warned.
The Australians seems as good a chocolate teapot as Starmer. IN answer to a heartfelt question Starmer reiterated his banal, callous tones about hostages (only the Israeli ones) and the two state solution.
I am amazed that MPs haven’t pointed out that the UK “normally” refuses to supply weapons to such regimes, and that there is at least a Parliamentary debate before aiding, militarily, a foreign country, even if it is one Starmer appears to hold allegiance to rather than the country of which he is PM.
“I am amazed that MPs haven’t pointed out that the UK “normally” refuses to supply weapons to such regimes”
Or, for that matter, the media.
Over to Peter Haenseler:
“Accomplices are punished like the main offenders
It is obvious that practically all commercially run media in the West twist concepts in the worst possible way, rape history and, as paid henchmen, not only promote genocide, but contribute to the genocide, which they make accomplices.
Criminal law distinguishes between aiding and abetting and co-perpetration, whereby the contribution to the offence is subordinate in the case of aiding and abetting, but must be causal to the realization of the offence in the case of co-perpetration. This contribution does not require equivalence, but relevance in the commission of the offense.
If the media reported objectively and factually correctly, this reporting would make the genocide impossible, as the populations of the world would force their governments to break off all contact with Israel and thus Israel would be unable to commit these crimes due to a lack of weapons and money.
The Western media are therefore guilty of complicity. Accomplices are punished in the same way as the main perpetrators. There is no mitigation of punishment due to this form of participation, as genocide can only be carried out with the participation of the media.
Nuremberg precedent: Julius Streicher
This view is by no means far-fetched. The editor-in-chief of the National Socialist diatribe “Der Stürmer”, Julius Streicher, was hanged with other major war criminals in Nuremberg in 1946. The ladies and gentlemen of the media concerned should do some soul-searching.”
Though it would seem reasonable to observe that it is way too late in the day for such soul searching.
Igu Helpon kaj Instigon de Genocido Kapitala Krimo