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.