Police misuse of Palestine Action proscription against wider anti-genocide movement spreads
Lancashire County Councillor Michael Lavalette is to be questioned by police – for a social media post expressing solidarity with the Palestinian people against genocide, in the latest in a series of political attacks on Palestinian support and solidarity.
Independent Cllr Lavalette, a long-standing advocate for Palestinian rights and an honorary member of the General Union of Palestinian Writers has been ‘invited’ to attend a ‘voluntary police interview’ to discuss a Facebook post relating to the genocide in Gaza. In May he was elected to Lancashire County Council as a ‘Preston Independent’, part of the pro-Palestine, anti-austerity network coalescing around the ‘new left’ project, and ultimately likely new party, around MPs Zarah Sultana, Jeremy Corbyn and the network of independent MPs in Westminster. Lancashire Police confirmed that the move arose from a complaint about the post, presumably from an individual or group supporting Israel.
Lavalette becomes the latest elected politician to be questioned by police in relation to Palestine solidarity and activism. Labour MP John McDonnell and independent MP Jeremy Corbyn were interviewed under caution in relation to the National March for Palestine on 18th January this year. Although neither was charged, several organisers of the march are awaiting trial for alleged public order related offences, despite abundant video evidence proving that they had crossed police lines on police instruction when they were violently arrested for being in a ‘conditioned’ area.
More recently, the last two weekends have seen significant numbers of arrests of protestors demonstrating against the proscription of a non-violent direct action group – and this week Kent Police officers were caught wrongfully threatening a Canterbury woman with arrest for supposed support of the banned group, despite carrying and showing only general items calling for Palestinian freedom and an end to Israel’s genocide – protests already explicitly ruled by a High Court judge to be lawful and not banned.
The Israel lobby-driven police clampdown comes at a time when opinion polls have repeatedly shown that the majority of British people support an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and support an arms embargo on Israel. The growing attempt to criminalise support for Palestine has led to a statement signed by twenty-two general secretaries of trade unions defending the right to protest and “the freedoms to organise, of assembly and of speech”.
The latest move by Lancashire police forms yet another example of the Starmer regime’s police-state attempt to criminalise pro-Palestine campaigners, many of them Jewish, in Britain and is also an attack on the established rights and freedoms in Britain, including those of assembly, protest and free speech.
Lavalette condemned Lancashire Police’s over-reach and promised not to be silenced:
A post on Facebook supporting the rights of Palestinians should not lead to a police inquiry. This is an attack on the Palestinian movement, but broader than this, it is an attack on all our established freedoms of speech and action.
This Labour government has become one of the most authoritarian in recent memory. I want to make it clear: I have done nothing wrong and I will defend myself and the Palestinian movement vigorously. We will not be silenced whilst a genocide is taking place.
Fellow Lancashire councillor Almas Razakazi added:
This is an attack on our right to speak out and organise against the horror in Gaza. The establishment want to silence us, but they won’t succeed and we will organise to defend Michael against this politically motivated investigation.
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That’s it then. We are all f@#ked now. Trawl my social media feed and the peelers are going to be battering my door in.
There’s no better argument for having NOTHING at all to do with social fucking media.
I rest my case.
Me too .
And only one fellow ‘labour’ councillor voiced their objection?
I wouldn’t even fear any disciplinary process. I wouldn’t resign, neither. I’d give them both barrels, and having expelled, reloaded, and returned to the council chamber to give the rest of the shithouse hangers-on both barrels.
It’s becoming more and more evident that instructions have gone out from on high for the police to intimidate Palestinian supporters using the proscription of Palestine Action as a justification to do so.
Anyway, I was checking out the CAAs website a few days ago and there was an article entitled Glastonbury, and the undoing of Britain which, of course, is total WOTT propaganda bollox. Here are some clips from it:
Francesca Nadin was also on the schedule. Ms Nadin is a member of the soon-to-be-proscribed Palestine Action, an extremist group of thugs which gained even more notoriety after it recently claimed the sabotage of two RAF planes.
Now in the UK, the chants are indistinguishable from the chants in Tehran, broadcast by our state broadcaster. Under Emily Eavis, Glastonbury has continued its headlong descent into a pit of extremism and hatred, but it is the behaviour of the BBC that is even more dangerous….
Any artist claiming to be a humanitarian should be steering clear of Glastonbury, but more importantly, our national broadcaster must face repercussions for its dissemination of this extremist vitriol. Those responsible must be removed from their positions. That must inevitably include Tim Davie, the BBC’s Director-General, who has had more than enough chances to stop this abuse of licence fee payers’ money to platform bigots and extremists from Gaza to Glastonbury.
If this is not met with the firmest condemnation and recourse, then it is the surest sign yet that Britain is becoming a haven for hatred and unsafe for Jews.
Campaign Against Antisemitism is also writing to Glastonbury and the licensing authority regarding the events of this weekend.
The vast majority of people who visit their site are of course Jewish, and as with Jeremy Corbyn and the national protest marches – which the CAA knows damn well have from the outset included a large contingent of Jews – never tire of fear-mongering and hate-mongering.
They are malevolent to the core, and totally evil. Odd, isn’t it, how they have never reported JC to the police for racism/hate crimes despite accusing him of antisemitism – and of being an antisemite – on numerous occasions.
I wonder why not!
From JVL:
Letter of protest to the Kent police
The letter below was sent to Kent police in protest at the arrest of a member of Thanet4Palestine for waving a Palestinian flag, saying Free Palestine and protesting peacefully about the genocide in Gaza.
https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk/article/letter-of-protest-to-the-kent-police/
‘Dare not ye for Palestine think critically.
As Lumpen Right Wing Labour it cannot cope.
But analysis makes us human.
Don’t let them take away our best hope.’
Say No To ‘The Ministry of Truth’ (Orwell)!
No wonder Zionists campaigned to get Palestine Action proscribed! I bet Luke Akehurst is wetting his nappy in anticipation