Defend our Juries!

another defiant protester arrested

By New Worker correspondent

The Met police arrested over a hundred anti-genocide supporters outside Westminster Magistrates Court at the Defend Our Juries Graduation Day which began at midday on 30th July. Sir Jonathon Porritt, advisor to King Charles for 30 years before he was crowned, was one of them. As police escorted him away he said “I am a supporter of Palestine Action. Trying to save lives is not terrorism. Exposing this Governments complicity in genocide is not terrorism”.
They were protesting outside the Court where the hearings relating to 1855 people charged under the Terrorism Act for holding paper signs were proceeding. The court is refusing to explain why these hearings are listed, when many of those to whom the hearings relate have been told that it would be adjourned. 
Two campaigners were arrested while trying to access the court area for the listed hearing, and two others were held under an unspecified charge while they were setting up a small stage for the event. Others were arrested under the terrorism act for “addressing a crowd” and, separately, for declaring their support for Palestine Action.
This is all the result of Labour’s absurd ban on Palestine Action, a direct action group whose only purpose was to dismantle weapons used in Israel’s genocide.

.Courts endorse Palestine Action ban

by New Worker correspondent

On Monday, the Court of Appeal ruled that the Government’s decision to ban Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation was lawful. In February the High Court ruled that the proscription of Palestine Action was unlawful, but the Starmer government decided to appeal. Now, the Court of Appeal has ruled in favour of the Government. This means that the banning order remains in place, making it a criminal offence to belong to or express support for the group.
Liberty, the human rights campaign,  intervened in the case because the UK’s definition of terrorism is so wide-ranging that it captures behaviours most people would never consider terrorism. This case has already had, and will continue to have, a chilling effect on protest and free speech – leaving many people too afraid to protest or say the wrong thing.
Monday’s judgment risks paving the way for current and future governments to use counter-terror powers against groups no one would consider to be terrorists, as we have seen in other countries to silence activists, minorities and opponents.
Last week four Palestine Action activists were jailed after causing £1.2m of damage at a UK site of an Israel-based defence firm. Charlotte Head, 30, Samuel Corner, 23, Leona Kamio, 30, and Fatema Rajwani, 21, were convicted of criminal damage in a retrial after they broke into the Elbit Systems factory near Bristol in August 2024. Corner got seven years and eight months, Charlotte Head and Kamio got five and Rajwani was jailed for four years and eight months.
Left social-democratic Labour MP John McDonnell said the scale of the sentences was "truly shocking" while Green Party leader Zack Polanski said it was "gut-wrenching to see four young people jailed for direct action against an arms supplier to Israel". He added that the sentence was a "truly dangerous attack on the right to protest".
Angry scenes at the Palestine Action trial led to the arrest of 72 protesters outside Woolwich Crown Court. Some 500 demonstrators had gathered outside the south London court for the trial that ended in the conviction and stiff sentencing of the four activists accused of criminal damage and violence against the security guards at the Elbit plant.
The demonstrators chanted “Free Palestine”  and waved Palestinian flags and banners bearing messages such as “Saving lives is not terrorism. Support Palestine Action”. One of them was carried by a middle-aged man who was among the first people to be arrested.

Angry scenes at Wormwood Scrubs

by New Worker correspondent

Police officers shoved protesters to the ground and kettled them outside Wormwood Scrubs jail in London last weekend during a demonstration in support of a Palestine hunger striker. And 86 people were arrested for refusing “to leave the grounds when ordered to do so”. The Palestine campaigners allegedly “blocked prison staff from entering and leaving, threatened police officers and a number managed to get inside a staff entrance area of a prison building”. Those arrested were detained under suspicion of aggravated trespass, the police said.

Remand prisoner Umer Khalid, 22 , was on hunger-strike demanding bail and protesting against British complicity in Israel's genocidal war against the Palestinian Arabs of the Gaza Strip. He had been on hunger strike since November, briefly pausing in December due to severe ill health. Gravely ill he’s now in hospital ending the hunger strike after his health deteriorated rapidly on Sunday with fears he was at high risk of a heart attack.

Khalid told Al Jazeera TV that “the only thing that seems to have any impact, whether that is positive or negative, is drastic action. The strike reflects the severity of this imprisonment. Being in this prison is not living life. Our lives have been paused. The world spins, and we sit in a concrete room. This strike reflects the severity of my demands”.

Umer Khalid is among a group of five activists accused of breaking into the RAF base at Brize Norton in June and spray-painting two Voyager refuelling and transport planes. The group has pleaded not guilty.

The Palestine Action campaign says two of its members were involved and red paint “symbolising Palestinian bloodshed was also sprayed across the runway and a Palestine flag was left on the scene”. Within days Palestine Action was banned under the anti-terrorism laws, adding it to a list that includes ISIS and al-Qaeda. 

Seven other protesters have been involved in rolling hunger strikes since November. But Khalid was the only one still refusing food after three members of the group ended their protests this month. They said one of their demands had been met after a UK-based subsidiary of the Israeli weapons company Elbit Systems was denied a UK government contract.

“Our prisoners’ hunger strike will be remembered as a landmark moment of pure defiance; an embarrassment for the British state,” the Prisoners for Palestine Group said.

The group’s list of demands includes bail, the right to a fair trial and the de-proscription of Palestine Action as well as the closure of all the Elbit plants in the UK. They’re seeking an end to what they call censorship in jail, accusing the prison authorities of withholding mail, calls and books. And they are calling for an inquiry into alleged British involvement in Israeli military operations in Gaza and the release of surveillance footage from RAF spy flights that flew over Gaza on 1st April 2024, when British aid workers were killed in an Israeli attack.

Support the Hunger Strikers!

by New Worker correspondent

Two Palestine Action hunger-strikers on the brink of death have called off their protest but six others are still refusing to eat. The Palestine Action hunger strike began on 2nd November. The prisoners who are refusing food are: Qesser Zuhrah and Amu Gib who are on day 46 of hunger strike, Heba Muraisa who is on day 45, Teuta Hoxha on day 39, Kamran Ahmed on day 38 and Lewie Chiaramello on day 24. They are all refusing food as they await trial for their direct action protests in support of Palestine. 
In Parliament Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the Independent Alliance bloc, was once again ignored by Starmer & Co. He told the media that “the hunger strikers are at risk of death. I asked the minister if he would do the bare minimum and meet their lawyers – a demand shared by over 50 MPs and Peers. His response? “No”. MPs laughed along. They should be ashamed of themselves”. 
Meanwhile another Corbynista MP has staged a protest outside a Surrey prison demanding urgent medical care for a hunger striker there. Coventry South MP Zarah Sultana said Qesser Zuhrah was critically ill with an immediate risk of dying after refusing food for 46 days. The MP called for an ambulance and the prisoner was transferred to hospital. Ms Zuhrah is on remand at Bronzefield jail awaiting trial on charges linked to the activities of the banned Palestine Action direct action group. 
Protesters staged a banner drop in front of the BBC office in Glasgow to call on the Corporation to end its silence regarding the pro-Palestine political prisoners on hunger strike in the UK prisons. The ‘No Pride in Genocide Glasgow’ group said they were calling on the BBC to end its silence about the hunger strikes. In a move as unsurprising as it was shameful, rather than end its silence the BBC chose to quietly remove the banner, without mentioning it or the political prisoners it supported, in its news coverage.
The silence of the BBC and most of the other bourgeois media on the hunger strikes, and the wider issue of the Starmer government’s internationally-condemned political imprisonment without trial of the ‘Filton 24’ anti-genocide activists, is part of an evident campaign of ‘omertà’ on the topic of Starmer’s campaign on activists and journalists who speak out or act against Israel’s slaughter of innocent Palestinians, many of them women and children. Despite the inclusion of many journalists, often Jewish, among his targets, the voices of the ruling class that pose as the “independent” media refuse to cover it.

Stand by the hunger strikers!

 by New Worker correspondent

Demonstrators were outside Downing Street last week in a show of solidarity with the Palestine Action prisoners on hunger-strike in British jails. Eight of the 32 political prisoners for Palestine in the UK are on hunger strike – now in its fifth week. This is the largest hunger
strike since 1981, yet the mainstream media says nothing and the Government says nothing. The protest picket in Whitehall, led by the London Irish Brigade, wants a response from the British Government. They want the hunger-strikers demands met. Palestine Action told Sky News that all eight hunger strikers, who have been denied bail, are accused of offences occurring before the group was banned and will have been in prison for well over a year before they are tried. A judicial review challenge to the proscription has concluded with judges reserving their decision until a later date.
Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the Independent Alliance bloc in Parliament, says that the Deputy Prime Minister and Justice Secretary, David Lammy, has rejected his invitation to meet to resolve the matter by saying "considering the ongoing proceedings, it would not be appropriate for me to meet with you to discuss the situation" while claiming that "the safety of those who live and work in our prisons remains our paramount concern".
Corbyn, who visited one of the hunger-strikers this week, describes Lammy’s refusal as “astonishing… given the extremely serious and time-sensitive nature of the situation”.
Amu Gib, one of Corbyn’s constituents, is being held at Bronzefield jail in Ashford, Surrey.
Corbyn said that Lammy’s response failed to address “the very serious allegations of inconsistent and unequal medical treatment” of the detainees and repeated his request for a meeting.
And in the House of Commons Labour MP John McDonnell criticised the lack of engagement from the government saying that the justice secretary had failed to respond to previous letters on the matter. He said "this is a matter of urgency and I would've expected at least the courtesy of some response even if he's not willing to meet us". Forty-one MPs have
signed an early day motion calling on Lammy to intervene “urgently to ensure the treatment
of the prisoners is humane”.

Prisoners for Palestine!

by New Worker correspondent

Six of the 32 political prisoners for Palestine in the UK are on hunger strike - now in its fourth week. This is the largest hunger strike since 1981, yet the bourgeois media says nothing. 

As their health deteriorates, it is fundamental we escalate with our presence.  On Tuesday campaigners  mobilised outside BBC HQ in London to demand coverage of the hunger strike campaign. BBC content gives 33 times more coverage per Israeli fatality than Palestinian. While 85 per cenrt of Israeli weapons used for genocide comes from Elbit Systems. BBC, where is your so-called non-biased reporting?

We stand with the people of Palestine, the hunger strikers and their demands, including shutting Elbit, Israel’s largest arms manufacturer, down in the UK. Spread the word!

Stop starving Gaza!

 by New Worker correspondent

Whitehall was absolutely crammed last week with Palestinian supporters, thousands of people furious with our government’s complicity and participation in the crimes against humanity we see every day. Protesters sent a message to Starmer banging pots and pans outside Downing Street in London to denounce Gaza’s urgent hunger crisis. The emergency protest followed reports that over 1,000 Palestinians have been shot by the Israelis and their auxiliaries while queuing for food and 154 people in Israeli occupied Gaza have already died of starvation.
Meanwhile the co-founder of a pro-Palestinian direct action campaign has won her bid to legally challenge the British government’s decision to ban it under “anti-terrorism” laws.
Huda Ammori, who helped found Palestine Action in 2020, asked London’s High Court to give the go-ahead for a full challenge to the campaign’s proscription, which was made on the grounds that spray-painting RAF jets and vandalising the offices of arms manufacturers operating in the UK that supply weapons to Israel constituted acts of “terrorism”.
The High Court had originally refused Ms Ammori’s application to pause the ban and after an unsuccessful last-ditch appeal Palestine Action’s proscription came into effect on 5th July. Proscription makes it a crime to be a member of the group, which carries a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison.
However Judge Martin Chamberlain has now granted permission for a judicial review, saying Ms Ammori’s case amounted to a disproportionate interference with her and others’ right to freedom of expression and was “reasonably arguable”.

Say no to Palestine Action Ban!

by New Worker correspondent

A peaceful protest in central London last week ended with clashes with the police in Trafalgar Square following the arrest of demonstrators protesting against the Government’s decision to ban Palestine Action as a “terrorist organisation”.
The draconian move to outlaw the direct action solidarity campaign followed the damage to two military planes at RAF Brize Norton, where flights leave daily for RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus, a base used for military operations in Gaza and across the Middle East. Two Palestine Action activists broke into base using electric scooters to swiftly manoeuvre towards the planes. They used repurposed fire extinguishers to spray red paint into the turbine engines of two Airbus Voyagers and caused further damage using crowbars. Red paint, symbolising Palestinian bloodshed, was also sprayed across the runway and a Palestine flag was left on the scene. Both activists managed to evade security and arrest.
By putting the planes out of service, these activists have interrupted Britain’s direct participation in the commission of genocide and war crimes across the Middle East. From Akrotiri the RAF have flown hundreds of surveillance missions in support of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, and the base is also used for UK and US military cargo transports to the Israeli military.
Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who now heads the Independent Alliance in parliament, called the proscription of Palestine Action “an absurd and authoritarian crackdown on the right to oppose genocide”.
Writing in Tribune the former Labour leader said “the latest proposals to proscribe Palestine Action represent the desperate cries of a draconian government trying to shield itself from accountability. They are as absurd as they are authoritarian – and expose the government’s attempts to disguise what violence really looks like: the mass murder of Palestinians that these protestors have the audacity to oppose...
“Home by home, hospital by hospital and generation by generation, we are not just witnessing a war; we are witnessing a genocide – one being livestreamed all over the world. Today, the death toll in Gaza exceeds 61,000, and at least 110,000 people – one in 20 of the entire population – have been severely injured. It is those who have aided and abetted these crimes who should face justice, not those who have the humanity to try and stop them.
“Crushing dissent is not an act of strength. It is a sign of weakness. In the words of the human rights group Liberty, the Prime Minister’s former workplace, ‘protest isn’t a gift from the State – it’s our fundamental right’. If you believe in women’s suffrage, you believe in the right to protest. If you think our children deserve a liveable future, you believe in the right to protest. If you believe that LGBT+ people deserve to live in freedom, you believe in the right to protest.
“Government ministers may pay lip service to the freedoms we now enjoy, but they should ask themselves whether the protestors of the past would be thrown in jail if they were alive today. They should remind themselves that it was protestors who laid the foundations of our democracy. And, as they throw their support behind this authoritarian assault on the right to protest, they should ask themselves: where would they be today without it?”

BBC trashed!

photo: Martin Pope

by New Worker correspondent

Palestine Action activists smashed windows and splattered the BBC headquarters in Portland Place, London, with red paint last week in protest against the Beeb’s ongoing complicity in the genocide of Palestinians through its entrenched pro-Israel bias. The BBC was covered in blood-red paint to symbolise the Corporation’s responsibility for the blood spilled in Gaza and the state broadcaster’s role in whitewashing Israeli atrocities through its partial and biased coverage. For years, the BBC has consistently minimised Israel’s violence against Palestinians while amplifying the narratives of the Zionist oppressors.
“The BBC’s biased reporting isn’t a simple case of poor journalism – it’s a matter of life and death. By downplaying Israeli war crimes, the BBC is complicit in the genocide unfolding in Gaza,” said a spokesperson for Palestine Action. “This isn’t just about the news – it’s about the role of the media in shaping global complicity. The BBC has blood on its hands, and today’s action is part of a wider campaign to hold them accountable. We will not stand by as the BBC sanitises genocide“.

Blood on their hands!

 By New Worker correspondent

Palestinian solidarity activists sprayed Broadcasting House in central London with red paint last week in protest at the BBC’s consistent and long-term bias towards Israel.
    Palestine Action sprayed the BBC’s Headquarters with blood red paint, in response to its recent coverage of Palestine, which has been complicit in manufacturing consent for the occupation’s genocide of Palestinians. The action occurred before a protest for Palestine was due to begin at the BBC HQ.

     Since 7^th October the BBC has given biased and inaccurate reporting on the Israeli massacre of the Palestinian people. It has only ever invited Palestinians to comment when Israelis are killed, with little regard for Palestinians killed by Israel, such as in the case of Palestinian ambassador Husam Zomlot who was expected to condemn Israeli deaths immediately after informing the BBC he had lost 6 family members.
    The BBC has not reported on the racist lies spouted by international media, including claims of mass rape and decapitated babies, all of which have either gone unconfirmed or been retracted once the damage has been done. Its “guides” to the “conflict” do not mention the 75 year long occupation    and oppression of Palestine by the Zionist entity.
    These guides make Al Nakba (which translates as ‘The Catastrophe’ in English) sound like an unfortunate tribal conflict during the first Arab-Israeli war (1948 to 1949) which accidentally resulted in Palestinians fleeing, and not the deliberate and carefully planned campaign of ethnic cleansing carried out by Zionist militias.
    Words upon words are dedicated to the Zionist settler colony’s declarations of genocide, the support given by imperialists and the feelings of Zionists whilst large scale loss of Palestinian life is treated almost like a footnote. These actions come at a time when Palestine Action has expanded its reach, starting what it calls Palestine Action Underground, which targets any and all partners of Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest arms suppliers.
    Providing a guide and a map of over 50 Elbit sites, Palestine Action asks those who want to do something about the Israeli arms trade to form autonomous groups able to independently strike at the facilitators of Israel’s systemic and military violence. This action follows that principle, holding the media accountable for facilitating Israeli terror. A Palestine Action spokesperson: ‘We at Palestine Action cannot stand by and let Western media justify and manufacture consent for genocide through racist, callous coverage. The media has long been an insidious weapon of Western imperialism against Palestine and other Arab countries, with the use of colonial myths and orientalist tropes laying the ground for millions of people to be murdered. As the Palestinian poet Mohammed El-Kurd said, “This is the Iraq war all over again. The media has the bloodiest hands in all of this”.

Free the Elbit Six!

by New Worker correspondent

Palestinian solidarity activists gathered outside the High Court in London on Saturday to call for the freedom of Palestine Action prisoners, jailed for taking part in direct action protests against British-Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems. People have taken action in the UK, Canada, and France over the jailings. It came after high-profile campaigners, including Roger Waters of Pink Floyd fame, issued a joint statement condemning the British state’s persecution of the six people over their activism against the state of Israel.
Since Palestine Action launched in July 2020, their actions have caused severe disruption to Elbit's business, causing the closure of a factory in Oldham, and the Central London HQ.
The state has increasingly become more heavy-handed, six Palestine Action activists are currently in prison, and over a hundred more may face it. The judiciary is also cracking down, refusing bail in some cases, or accepting long established legal precepts, such a defence of necessity, the argument that a small offence is justified to prevent a greater harm from happening. 

Corbyn says end arms for Israel

By New Worker correspondent

Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn called for the halt to British arms sales to Israel at a rally in central London last weekend. Demonstrating in Whitehall, Palestinian supporters called on the Group of Seven (G7) leaders currently meeting in Cornwall to support Palestinian rights.
    As part of the ‘Resist G-7: Day of Action for International Justice’ rally demonstrators marched past Downing Street on Saturday calling for an end to British complicity in Israel’s war crimes against the Palestinians .
     “At today’s Justice For Palestine demonstration in London, I also called for a halt to arms sales,” Corbyn tweeted. “UK-made weapons are killing civilians – including children – in conflicts abroad. This must stop,” he said.
    The rally came as the informal club of seven leaders of the global imperialist camp – Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States – were meeting in Cornwall face-to-face for the first time in two years to tackle the global health crisis and climate change.
    At the march, Raghad al-Takriti, the president of the Muslim Association of Britain, said the message to the G-7 leaders is clear. “It is to uphold international law. It is adherence to international law…it’s time for these leaders to talk about enforcement, to end the siege on Gaza … and to stop their complicity, their arms deals with Israel,” she said.
    Thousands of protesters took part in the demonstration called by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and the Friends of Al-Aqsa. PSC said: “All governments have an obligation to end their complicity and help dismantle apartheid. Instead of aiding and abetting Israel’s racist rule over the Palestinian people, the G7 must end all military-security cooperation with Israel, and employ targeted sanctions until Israel complies with international law.”
    The protest was the latest in a series of pro-Palestine rallies which have taken place in London since clashes erupted in occupied Arab East Jerusalem over Israel’s planned expulsion of Palestinian families from the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood, the attacks on the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, and Israel’s military assault on Gaza.
    Hundreds of Palestinians have been arrested in Israel and the occupied West Bank for protesting against Israel’s policies. Some have been killed and many more wounded in confrontations with the Israeli police and armed Zionist settler gangs.
    Last week members of the Palestine Action movement took over a Canadian-owned aerospace factory in Cheshire which manufactures military technology for Elbit Systems, an Israeli arms company .They scaled the roof of the APPH complex in Runcorn and daubed the building in red paint. They claim the factory produces landing gear for Elbit drones which were used in the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza last month. Héroux-Devtek, the company which runs the APPH plant, has disputed these claims.
     Palestine Action has been targeting Elbit facilities in Britain for months, demanding their closure and claiming that the parts and weaponry they produce are being tested and used against the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.