Re: <nettime> Support Palestine Action and go to jail ...

[Oliver Gassner via nettime-l <nettime-l@lists.nettime.org>]

Well, the word Hamas (which is rather undoubtedly a terrorist organization
- not only after the October attacs) and also differentiate between Hamas
and 'ordinary Palestinians' would have do the (otherwise very good)
argument, a whole lot of good.
Without that mention, I fear, it is a little less convincing.

Am Mi., 9. Juli 2025 um 15:20 Uhr schrieb Patrice Riemens via nettime-l <
nettime-l@lists.nettime.org>:

>
> ... and never mind the Suffragettes!
>
> Original to:
>
> https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jul/09/palestine-action-britain-support-protest-law
>
>
> This column does not express support for Palestine Action – here’s why
>
> Owen Jones
> The Guardian, 9 Jul 2025
>
> In Britain’s increasingly authoritarian society, any sort of protest can
> find itself at odds with the law. You might even go to jail
>
>
> This piece must be carefully written to avoid my being imprisoned for up
> to 14 years. That’s a curious sentence to say as a newspaper columnist in
> Britain in 2025. But since the government voted to proscribe the direct
> action protest group Palestine Action under the Terrorism Act, any
> statement seen as expressing support could lead to arrest and prosecution.
>
> You may justifiably respond that Guardian journalists are not above the
> law. For example, if I penned a column in support of al-Qaida, you might be
> sympathetic to incarceration: it did, after all, kill nearly 3,000 people
> on 9/11, as well as perpetrate multiple terrorist atrocities such as the
> 2004 Madrid train bombings, and the 7 July London bombings two decades ago.
> Similarly, you may conclude that a polemic in favour of Islamic State
> should be met with a hefty prison sentence.
>
> Personally, I’m not in favour of carceral solutions for political
> problems: I didn’t support having the neo-Nazi football hooligan who
> attacked me six years ago being locked up (his sentence was two years and
> eight months), nor the racists who posted inflammatory hatred during last
> August’s attempted national pogrom. But that is a legitimate political
> disagreement, one that places me in a small minority.
>
> Clearly, I would never write a defence of murderous hijackers, bombers,
> beheaders and indeed génocidaires. But this column concerns a movement
> which is, legally speaking, now equivalent to al-Qaida and IS, and that is
> Palestine Action. Rather than decapitating people, or filling mass graves
> with innocent victims, they were proscribed after throwing red paint at
> military planes in what they say is a protest against Britain’s complicity
> in Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people.
>
> Last week, our home secretary joined other female Labour MPs in a
> photoshoot celebrating the suffragettes, who planted bombs, burned down
> private homes and smashed up art galleries. They then voted to classify a
> movement which positions itself as opposing violence against people as a
> terrorist organisation.
>
> And this weekend, an 83-year-old retired priest, Sue Parfitt, was arrested
> after holding a placard that read: “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine
> Action.” Twenty-eight others were also arrested on those grounds.
> Questioned about her detention, the Metropolitan police commissioner, Mark
> Rowley, responded: “It is not about protest. This is about an organisation
> committing serious criminality.”
>
> Note how even Britain’s top police officer could not bring himself to
> claim Palestine Action was “an organisation committing terrorism”, which is
> what the law proclaims. I suspect he knows that, in doing so, he would have
> exposed the grotesque absurdity of this legislation. Yes, those who have
> helped drown Gaza in blood have turned the world upside down – treating the
> opponents of this mass extermination as dangerous, hateful extremists – but
> words have still not been entirely emptied of their meaning.
>
> Do not expect that to last. An injury to democracy, once inflicted, cannot
> be contained. It becomes immediately infected, and the sickness spreads.
>
> One of the hallmarks of an authoritarian society is that the state
> sanctifies what everybody knows is not true, even if they are legally
> compelled to act otherwise. Britain remains far from totalitarianism, but a
> society that arrests an 83-year-old retired vicar for holding a placard
> supporting non-violent direct action, and opposed to genocide, is firmly on
> an authoritarian pathway.
>
> This has been a long time in the making. When New Labour introduced
> anti-terrorism laws, opponents warned the legislation would be abused to
> persecute peaceful protesters. Indeed, then 83-year-old Holocaust survivor
> Walter Wolfgang was held under the Prevention of Terrorism Act after he
> heckled the then foreign secretary, Jack Straw, over the Iraq war at the
> 2005 Labour party conference.
>
> While many commentators portrayed Boris Johnson as a hands-off
> libertarian, his government introduced legislation that allows police to
> ban virtually any protest, with the Policing Act permitting action against
> demonstrations deemed too noisy. You may well ask what sort of protest is
> not noisy.
>
> Alas, it should always have been obvious that authoritarianism pulses
> through the veins of the Labour faction underpinning Keir Starmer’s
> leadership. As former Labour MP – and indeed adviser to Tony Blair – Jon
> Cruddas once put it, this is “the most rightwing, illiberal faction in the
> party”. As anyone who has ever encountered these factionalists in person
> can testify, they are defined by a raw hatred of the left. Lobby groups
> committed to Israel, or with links to the defence industry, pushed for this
> sort of legislation, and the Labour top brass lapped it up.
>
> Once a movement committed to non-violence has been designated as
> terrorists, then a Rubicon has been crossed. “Terrorism” has been emptied
> of any real meaning, and can be applied far more widely. Indeed, earlier
> this year, more than 70 peaceful protesters were arrested at a
> demonstration organised by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC). None of
> this was direct action: they were deemed to have breached arbitrary
> restrictions by marching down Whitehall clutching flowers commemorating
> Palestine’s dead. The PSC leader, Ben Jamal, is among those being put on
> trial.
>
> Yes, the authoritarian descent predates the slaughter of Gaza. But we have
> certainly learned that the consequences of a state facilitating genocide
> will have profound consequences on society at home. Millions of people are
> aware that their government has facilitated a grave crime, and to protect
> themselves from scrutiny and accountability, the powers that be must
> silence those challenging the crime. Democracy becomes ever more imperilled.
>
> Remember: it is an offence to show support for Palestine Action, which is
> deemed legally equivalent to al-Qaida and IS. If that law is broken, prison
> awaits. The proscribed organisation promotes civil disobedience and
> non-violent direct action in protest at genocide. This column has been
> checked over with that in mind. Ask yourself if this is normal in a
> self-described democracy. Then ask yourself searching questions about where
> this is all headed.
>
> Owen Jones is a Guardian columnist
>
>
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