Award-winner targeted by authoritarian policing
Double Palme d’Or winning screenwriter (and lawyer) Paul Laverty was arrested on Monday, a day on which Israel twice bombed a Gaza hospital in order to slaughter journalists and rescue workers, for supposedly supporting Palestine Action, the non-violent direct action group banned as terrorists – at the behest of pro-Israel groups and despite condemnation from UN and human rights legal experts – by the Starmer regime. Laverty was wearing a t-shirt that mentioned “Palestine” and the need to take “Action”, but with other words between them:
Video: The National.
Some officers appeared drunk on their authority and eager to prevent a record of the arrest, with one threatening to seize the mobile phone of a by-stander who was filming it as ‘evidence’.
Genocide in Palestine, time to take action.
The wording on Paul Laverty’s t-shirt.
The recent detention by police of a man wearing a ‘Plasticine Action’ action t-shirt, complete with an image of animated plasticine character Morph, is another recent example of excessive policing and harassment by the state of even suspected pro-Palestine protest:
The police-state repression of protest through the misuse of terrorism legislation has been a regular feature since Yvette Cooper proscribed Palestine Action, with police abusing the proscription to harass, threaten and arrest those making any form of anti-genocide protest, despite a High Court judge twice ruling that such protest is not affected by the ban – and even going as far as to say that criminal damage by anyone else with the aim of preventing or inhibiting Israel’s genocide in Gaza is not ‘aggravated’ by the fact that the one specific group has been proscribed.
Police, challenged by Skwawkbox with the judge’s rulings, said they would continue to act in the same way regardless.
Please remember to support Skwawkbox if you can, to help ensure it can keep running. The site is provided free of charge but depends on the support of its readers to be viable. If you’d like to help it keep revealing the news as it is and not what the Establishment wants you to hear – and can afford to without hardship – please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal or here to set up a monthly donation via GoCardless (Skwawkbox will contact you to confirm the GoCardless amount as it has to be entered by us). Alternatively, if you prefer to make a one-off or recurring donation by simple card payment, please use the form below:
Make a one-time donation
Make a monthly donation
Make a yearly donation
Choose an amount
Or enter a custom amount
Your support is hugely appreciated.
Your support is hugely appreciated.
Your support is hugely appreciated.
DonateDonate monthlyDonate yearlyThanks for your solidarity so Skwawkbox can keep doing its job of inconveniencing the right and helping to build the left!
If you wish to republish this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so, but please include the donor information above – see here for more.
“I’ll seize your phone for evidence”
Then do it, fat lad – and expect your superintendent to give you a good bollocking for costing your force a few grand when it’s sued.
The Starmerites are under total control by Israel. The latest atrocity …. “You can say a few hurty words, but make sure you send us more weapons so we can do it time and again.”
“Right boss. Will do. They won’t be too hurty though. We mustn’t upset you, must we?”
Starmer and his corporatist cabal of ‘centrists’ (‘Labour Together’) are subservient to Israel. It’s incontrovertible. Lefties no longer see this hypothesis as a ‘conspiracy theory’. It is a conspiracy fact.. Can I recommend the book ‘Conspiracy Theories’ by Jamie King? It’s an updated and expanded compendium exploring some of the world’s most startling and bizarre conspiracy theories.
Thing is, seeing how the ruling class/tptb/Establishment use conspiracy theories would validate, even endorse, many of the uncomfortable ideas that the post-Thatcher world is building its dystopia upon.
Paul Laverty has a point when he asks the official thugs manhandling him about article three and Genocide.
However, a far more direct point would be to inform these agents of the Corporate State [N.B. Yes, that term is a definite code for fascism] of their liabilities under Article 25 of the Rome Statute of aiding and abetting that Genocide in their actions in arresting people in this way.
Doing this verbally will probably not be sufficient. A more effective method would be to produce an A6 size card with the relevant text of Article 25 which also advises that the police are not free from legal liability and start handing this out to police during demonstrations and protests.
The flip side could also contain a reminder that it is a responsibility of those employed by the State for this purpose to disobey orders which are illegal under International Law. Evidence of infractions, including the pictures and collar numbers of those making arrests, could be recorded and forwarded to the appropriate bodies with official complaints against those listed.