Are Private Eye jokes now... criminal? PALESTINE Solidarity campaigner Jon Farley was arrested during a silent march in Leeds last weekend. What egregious act had prompted the police to act? He was, er, carrying a Private Eye joke piece as a placard! (1/2)
Fascism in the uk
Ztarmerizm in the UK
I wonder if "Action on Palestine" would be OK. Given what I've seen online of police warning protesters I imagine not. Will you call it fascism? It is but I'm not so hung up on the label as I am on the failure to counter it especially the propaganda spread by the BBC and news media.
Just the word Palestine or their flag is likely to trigger the plod. Bear in mind that the Met’s chief has also met with Mossad representatives on how to deal with protests in our own country. If this isn’t treason, I don’t know what is.
Action in. Action by. Are all prepositions terrorists now?
It’s not worth the risk anymore. Please take this as formal notice I’m cancelling my subscription and replace with The Daily Mail.
You forgot to include the marker clearly declaring that's sarcasm.
That’s a court case I’d like to see ! Come on PE !
Labour govt are an utter disgrace.
If you want to make a real difference, you must secretly fund a Labour Friends of Private Eye.
It mentions Palestine Action, a proscribed group, and was being displayed by Jon in a public space. The law dates back to 2008 I think. I think the law only applies to public physical spaces 🤔
Licking boots is sooo tasty...
There is no excuse for arresting anyone demonstrating peacefully like thid. None. Why is Labour joining the extremist right wing anti-protest club? Not what I voted for.
As an idea, he should have passed copies to the local police before his silent protest. When arrested, he would have a defence that as the police were also carrying copies in attendance to a protest, they would have to arrest themselves and join him in the van to the detention cell. 😉
"A person in a public place commits an offence if he— (a)wears an item of clothing, or (b)wears, carries or displays an article, in such a way or in such circumstances as to arouse reasonable suspicion that he is a member or supporter of a proscribed organisation." They'd not meet the criteria. 😔
Thanks for the clarification!
The cool thing is that anyone in a protest against the genocide being perpetrated in Gaza without a statement saying "I do not support any proscribed organisation" could be deemed as arousing reasonable suspicion that you are a supporter of the proscribed terrorist organisation*. *erm... well... 🤷
Please print this again. Would love to see Ian get arrested and then take the home office apart in court
Watch out the thought police will get you...
Today it seems that The Guardian is “moderating” (aka removing) BTL comments that mention Private Eye. I cannot fathom why this would be, as the words I saw before they vanished (including mine) were truthful and benign. Anyone know the reason?
Guardian moderators are ridiculous. Say something harmless that they arbitrarily decide to remove and then don't dare ask why or discuss the moderation policy because they'll whack that content too. Absolute power over speech allied with a lack of nuance to even understand the subject.
I had one graun profile blocked because I foolishly made a snidely comment about Adrian Chiles column. The lesson is to never criticise the editors partner. Still a new email address = a new profile
I got whacked for making fun of a football article Paul Hayward had written for The Telegraph! I guesd the fact he had worked at the Guardian previously meant he was still considered Guardian family. They're just fucking awful tbh.
Because the Guardian exists to pretend to be on the side of the left so that they can control is if we step out of line.
The Guardian is progressive, but struggles with colonialism. They have a history of dismissive articles about Wales.
Corbyn would have been the example I went with. An article every day, it felt like, attacking him.
They make only an appearance as such. That's not an accident. When things matter, (Blair in Iraq, Corbyn etc), they show their true colours. They distort the debate for those gullible enough to think they are 'progressive'.
🎯🎯🎯
They have no relationship with The Eye at all. Probably because PE highlights all their problems! 😂
Because the Guardian is a shitrag.
This would be funny if it was not for the trauma caused to people who are standing up for truth and justice. But then, they are the people who always seem to fall under the heel of those who prefer silence.
Is holding a placard with this an arrestable offence? Human Rights Article 19 Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion & expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference & to seek, receive & impart information & ideas through ANY MEDIA & regardless of frontiers.
Without the right to peaceful protest, the UK can no longer call itself a democracy.
It should be criminal that a Yorkshire policeman has never heard of a humorous magazine that has been around in Britain for what feels like a century. Yorkshiremen used to be known for wit, no longer apparently.
This is wasting so much public money and police time! Why? What purpose does it serve?
It's obviously your own fault for caring about innocent children being murdered, starved and maimed.
The Police protects The State. It's sheer fortune most of that time that involves us being alive.
Threats and intimidation. Traditional British upper class values.
Silencing political criticism which was shaming the govt. There's a reason Israel is paying Starmer's Cabinet 'donation' money. Either that, or they have some good kompromat on him.
Purpose? It puts us in our place!
Protects their lies.
What has our country turned into …? Where is Yvette Cooper taking us? Jail people who support a movement that acts against a violent racist Zionist regime conducting a genocide ??? Hopping mad!
bsky.app/profile/eatt...
Can't say it loud enough, Fuck the UK government and all their maws!
Ian Hislop logically should be arrested for aiding and abbetting a terrorist group... Surely...
I bloody hope we're not going the same way as America. Arrested for an opinion or colour or nationality or for just being. I've an opinion on Israel's devastating war crimes in Palestine. I've an opinion on Putin bombing a peaceful country. I'll have an opinion till I die.
If I print this front cover out and stand outside Northumbria Water's HQ with it on a banner, the police might arrest me for using journalism to point out facts. Ask me again why I'm no longer a member of the Labour Party
These aren’t the sort of terrorists we’re used to. They’re just not terrifying enough!
They hospitalised a woman attacking her with a sledgehammer, have posed with firearms, and attacked a shop owned by Jews. If you actually want to defend them don't defend a pretend version of them
Utter monsters. The IDF's actions in Gaza look humane by comparison don't they fella.
how did a joke in private eye manage to do all of that?
That's a popular meme. Isn't it something when truth is illegal? Zio-fascists would appear to be in charge, speaking truth can get you trouble.
At some point the cops realised that by charging him they would then be duty bound to knock on the door of Gnome Towers. At which point, they knew they’d be hopelessly, hilariously out of their depth.
Are these pig-ignorant coppers the ones that were recruited in a hurry by the Tories, forced to lower the entry standard, when they were confronted by their slashing of the various forces by 20-odd thousand? www.gmb.org.uk/news/shock-f...
Absolutely disgusting, arrested for carrying a joke.
Fucking outrageous...
Take care Ian! You're too good looking to go to prison. 😉
Free Palestine! 🇵🇸 Free Speech! 📣 Free Protest! 🚶♂️🪧
Mr Farley should, at the very least, submit a formal complaint about his injuries. Cry assault. As should every single person arrested under this ludicrous law who come out with the slightest scratch. Bury them in admin. Might make them think twice about arresting innocent pensioners.
The old saying...... "The police are in the pay of the government".
“I saw it in Private Eye and I thought: ‘That’s really well thought-out. It’s got a bit of nuance about it.’ But I don’t think the cops do nuance.” Mr Jon Farley
11. Thou shalt not criticize Genocide comitted by the Israeli government.
Oh dear. Does this mean that we subscribers received proscribed material in the post two weeks ago?
Oh dear oh dear oh dear! 😟 Do I hear the stomp of the "Arrest A Terrorist Squad" marching towards the door of Private Eye - and ours too! 😧😨😰
Best get the kettle on and biscuits out. Be nice to have company for a change though.
Done!
Has PE been sued recently? The lawyers must be getting bored, I reckon they should refer themselves to the police for this and see if they can get the outcome played out in public.
'Are Private Eye jokes now... criminal?'
Satire has always been accepted in the UK and that has been proven in court
Yes, the problem is that people may still be arrested under anti-terrorism legislation and that will impact foreign travel etc. There is nothing on the poster that warranted an arrest.
Presuming not a sniff of legal action for establishment media calling to bomb 250,000 music fans and also the city of Brighton? Apparently this sort of thing is satire, whereas a punk band saying something on stage warrants a terror investigation and an emergency parliamentary debate 🤷
But if they are charged then they will be found innocent and all details will be deleated. The police should know this and the cps definitely does.
European Court of Human Rights which “state clearly that political expression, including expression on matters of public interest and concern, require a high level of protection”.
Also NOT a terrorist 😔 ….
Although being an elderly cleric does not automatically preclude one from being a terrorist
Fair point, well made 👍 … tbf when the police searched her they found a bag of werther originals and a Tupperware box full of home made biscuits 🍪 #Scary
I am absolutely certain that she has benign intentions and is a genuinely good person However, media does tend to assume that all old people are kind, reasonable & law-abiding Whereas we all know elderly people who are none of those things And can see many others in the media carrying out genocides
The Werthers were tiny bombs and the biscuits were edibles...
I'm always wary of people who believe in magical beings which live in the sky. She has a fanatical look in her eyes.
Burn her 🔥 🔥 🔥
Exodus 22:18 My understanding is that she has zero wiggle room.
I'd love to see them try to prosecute this. Prosecution: "The defendent clearly supports the prescribed group 'Palestine Action'" Defence: "The sign literally states that what 'Palestine Action' does is unacceptable"
Such a clever idea as a placard.
Utterly outrageous, unacceptable and very unBritish. As the man said 'the Police aren't great at nuance'.
Everything is now illegal except bigging up Israeli genocide, mass murder, infanticide, rape, pillage and assorted war crimes etc. British police forces steadfastly defend our right to do this, but very little else I'm afraid-so yes, obviously. Do I need to inform Crimestoppers thought crime branch?
The police have confirmed there will be no further action: however, even when no charges are brought, being arrested under the Terrorism Act leaves a record potentially affecting travel and employment. Read the full story in the latest Private Eye. Or subscribe here: subsonline.co.uk 2/2
Poonami hits the uk
So many of these arrests of pro-Palestinian activists end up as NFA. So clearly, just state harassment to try n deter people.
It's almost they're terrorising people who oppose a genocide.
Glad you said that because that’s how it appears, it’s bizarre to me that Starmer appears to have zero conscience about people in Gaza starving to death. Arms deals are all that’s left at the end of empire.
As he's a professional human rights entity, it's extremely unprofessional of him as well. He's dead of heart and logic.
Now is the time to Remember 2023 when he was asked about Israel's plan to cut off food & water to Gaza & he said " I think they have that right"
And apparently it's over reacting to read into it that he'd be willing to do the same to Wales / Scotland / Northern Ireland if we pissed the UK government off enough.
If I print this front cover out and stand outside Northumbria Water's HQ with it on a banner, the police might arrest me for using journalism to point out facts. Ask me again why I'm no longer a member of the Labour Party.
There is no longer a Labour Party just a Starmer Lobbyist Party. Bought and sold by the corporate bastards and genocidal ethnic-cleansing Zionists.
I cancelled my subscription due to financial reasons (i was not offended! 🤣) , so i will wait until my neighbour posts her copy through my letterbox once she has read it 😀
It seems that the right to peaceful protest has been removed from us . Yvette Cooper , you should be ashamed of yourself . I don’t know what you are but you should no longer be in the Labour Party . We don’t support genocide 😡
Gosh I didn’t know that
So he probably wouldn't be allowed into the US. Not all bad then.
Can the police be sued for wrongful arrest in this case?
I should say can they be successfully sued?
Laws may be wrong, we may quite reasonably object to them, but part of the bargain we make for having a democratic society is that laws should be respected.
We don't have a democratic society though?
He didn’t break the law though, how does that tasty with your side of tasty boot
did a baby write this
He didn't break any law... 🤦🏻♀️
Democratic society? The UK has never been a democracy.
Tell that to the police
Definitely not. Laws such as proscription are not sacrosanct things we must unquestionably bow to, they are the enabling weapons of state sanctioned violence against people it wishes to deem enemies. The government is targeting Palestine campaigns because Starmer is a Zionist and wants them gone.
*Part* of the bargain *we* make, perhaps. What about the part of the bargain our politicians make to not take the absolute piss by passing laws that are worthy of respect?
If a law is immoral or unjust, there's no fucking way I'll respect it. Nor should you.
That involves a completely subjective assessment of what is immoral/unjust. That is the way to chaos. There are many many laws that I think are crazy or unjust, but I believe that I have an obligation to obey them.
He didn't. Break. The. Law.
So here's a hypothetical situation... If the law obligated you to snitch on your neighbours for some spurious reason, which then had them unjustly detained, you'd feel the obligation to obey it? Would you not feel the slightest more of shame? Keep doffing that cap to power...
“I wish I didn’t have to report my neighbour to the gestapo for hiding Jews in the basement, but Hitler was appointed by due process, so…”
That's exactly his reasoning. And at his trial, his defence would have been "I was just obeying orders/laws".
As I’m sure you know, many of the most egregious crimes were considered lawful at the time (Apartheid, Holocaust, Slavery), sometimes resistance really *is* the moral path
EVERY 'assessment of what is immoral/unjust' arises subjectively - including Laws about it. (Famously, the overriding Legal 'test' is 'what a reasonable person would think/do'...) It's not the way to chaos, but rather to EMPATHY...
Seems like it isn't just the law that's an ass.
Ok, but in this case UK politicians are breaking national and international laws relating to war crimes. If the people making the law want people to comply with it, first they have to comply themselves.
Please relinquish your wife's right to vote (and indeed work), your weekend off, the right to health + safety and fair pay at work, etc etc, because all of those things were only obtained by not 'respecting' laws. When you've done all that we'll consider your opinion...
And we should challenge any government misusing the law for their own political purposes, not blindly accept it.
Then get arrested. This isn't going anywhere good.
You think simply challenging the government is an arrestable offence?
If that placard was, who knows how it will pan out?
So, by your reasoning, because it might get worse, we should shut up and let it happen to have an easier life ourselves. No thank you.
Not what I mean, more of a reflection on how grim it is that protesting is still illegal and a Labour govt with a huge majority isn't doing anything about it. There is much to protest.
Indeed. The terrorism laws are there for good reason, but they are too easily used for political reasons as opposed to national safety.
Depends on the type of government. The one we have in US - absolutely. They don’t care about rights and freedoms.
Leeds is in England, though.
Hopefully your government is not that fascist. Besides what law that guy broke? Just for having a sign?
Palestine Action went and put some paint on some fighter jets at an RAF base, they were then declared to be a terrorist group so anyone publicly supporting them can now be arrested under the terrorism act.
Is this supporting them though? It’s obviously a joke and if you take it seriously it says it’s unacceptable to paint planes
Wow. So, during the mid 1930s, if you were living in Nazi Germany, you would have blindly obeyed the law?
Godwin’s Law has made its entrance.
Politically illiterate, liberal goblin, says what.
That's not the fierce sting you thought it was, Mr I-was-only-following-orders: gizmodo.com/godwin-of-go...
... and then they came for me.
Slavery was legal. The Holocaust was legal. There are laws which, by their very nature, must be resisted, must be disrespected at every turn. To not do so is how you lose a Democracy.
Could you be any more submissive?
Eh...No. There is no such bargain. Most of the progress that you get to enjoy was gained by people not respecting unjust laws. Every inch of that progress was earned in the face of people saying.."well actually they should respect the law". People who subsequently benefited from the gains made.
Interesting. What law, in your learned opinion, was he not respecting in this case?
Only respectable laws can be respected. You and (very much) I have rights today only because they were won by persistent and determined lawbreakers of the past. Mistaking law for morality is a terrible English habit that you need to break.
"No further action" suggests the disrespect for the law didn't come from the person with the sign.
Unjust laws should not be respected. They should be flouted until the police and courts are so overwhelmed with cases it's no longer worth the state keeping the law
Can the police be sued? They should purge the record of this nonsense. Lowering the bar on what is considered "terrorism" is escalatory as it lowers the entry threshold for "terrorism" which, to anyone of normal mind, is the threat of many deaths or casualties or destruction likely to cause these.
The legislation needs to be changed, as I believe it is written in such a way to give them these powers. Can’t remember the exact words but their definitions allow a wide interpretation.
I guess this was predictable and predicted at the time. I remember the threat of terrorism against armed forces personnel and we certainly weren't trained to check under cars with mirrors looking for copies of Private Eye.
The actions of the police make sense in the batshit context of proscribing PA. They’re arresting and investigating people on suspicion of supporting a proscribed org. If that group was the Russian Imperial Movement then the bar for “yeah, we should look into this guy” would sensibly be quite low.
It’s ridiculous in this case because the Home Sec’s decision was absurd, and everything built on those foundations is also going to be absurd.
Has Ian had his collar felt yet?
Reform UK rioters in Essex treated differently to Palestine demonstrators ?
