Archive for May, 2026

Please click on either of the ‘Donate’ or ‘Buy’ buttons below (via PayPal or Stripe) to make a donation towards the $2,500 (£2,000) I’m trying to raise to support my work as a reader-funded investigative journalist, commentator and activist over the next three months. To get links to all my work in your inbox, please also consider taking out a free or paid subscription to my new Substack newsletter.

What do we call a legal system that allows a judge to add a terrorism conviction at the sentencing phase of a trial, when the jury, who convicted the defendants of criminal damage, were not even told about it? Rigged, broken and a travesty of justice.

I haven’t published an article about Palestine Action here on my website since July last year, when I posted Why We Are All Palestine Action, and Why Direct Action to Prevent Genocide Is the Opposite of Terrorism, after MPs voted to support the scandalous proscription, by then-home secretary Yvette Cooper, of the direct action group as a terrorist organization.

I have, however, continued to cover developments on my Substack. See Mass arrests in London for opposing genocide last August, as hundreds of concerned citizens were arrested for peacefully holding up placards stating, “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action”, and Palestine Action ban ruled unlawful in February, covering the High Court ruling that is now being contested by the government in the Court of Appeals.

Two weeks ago, I posted Defending direct action to prevent a genocide, at the end of the retrial of the Filton 6, activists who, in August 2024, undertook direct action against a factory in Bristol owned by Elbit Systems, the Israeli arms company that manufactures drones and other weapons used in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza, and which included a powerful closing statement by one of the defendants, Charlotte Head. The first trial of the Filton 6, who had been held on remand (without charge or trial) since August 2024, in punitive conditions that encouraged many of them to engage in hunger strikes, began last November and ended in February with the jury dismissing some charges and unable to reach a verdict on others, but, instead of backing down, the government immediately launched a retrial.

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Please click on either of the ‘Donate’ or ‘Buy’ buttons below (via PayPal or Stripe) to make a donation towards the $2,500 (£2,000) I’m trying to raise to support my work on Guantánamo and on other related topics over the next three months. To get links to all my work in your inbox, please also consider taking out a free or paid subscription to my new Substack newsletter.

The monthly “First Wednesday” vigils for the closure of the “war on terror” prison at Guantánamo Bay, on Wednesday May 6, marked the 40th successive month that campaigners across the US, in Washington, D.C., New York, Detroit and Los Angeles, and around the world, in London, Brussels and Belgrade, have come together to call for freedom or justice for the 15 men still held — down from 34 when our vigils started — and for the prison to be closed.

Campaigners in San Francisco joined us on Friday May 8, and in Cobleskill, NY on Saturday May 9, and Ed Charles in Oakland, and Lizzy in Arizona, also sent photos. Campaigners in Mexico City had to postpone their vigil, while, in Los Angeles, Jon Krampner held an unrecorded solo vigil, and wrote, “Neither Julie nor Kate could make it, so I was by myself and went to the Downtown LA Federal Building from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m., with my jumpsuit, hood and Amnesty ‘Close Guantánamo’ sign. One young man hurrying into the building said he supported me, but, being in a hurry, declined my request for him to photograph me. Not much interaction beyond that; just a few people pausing to look at me and the sign. This is not much of a report, but at least I showed up.”

Please see below for the photos, and read on for my now monthly reflections on what the vigils mean, and why they continue to be important, followed by further photos. Next month’s vigils will take place on Wednesday June 3, when you’re welcome to join us, and I hope will also take part in the latest phase of Close Guantánamo’s ongoing photo campaign, making every 100 days of the prison’s existence, by taking a photo with the poster marking 8,900 days of Guantánamo’s existence on May 24, and sending it here. All this year’s photos can be found on a dedicated page on the Close Guantánamo website here.

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Please click on either of the ‘Donate’ or ‘Buy’ buttons below (via PayPal or Stripe) to make a donation towards the $2,500 (£2,000) I’m trying to raise to support my work as a reader-funded investigative journalist, commentator and activist over the next three months. To get links to all my work in your inbox, please also consider taking out a free or paid subscription to my new Substack newsletter.

For the last 16 months, campaigners around the world have, understandably, been highlighting the case of Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya, the brave director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia, in northern Gaza, who kept the hospital operational for three months, from October to December 2024, when it was besieged and attacked remorselessly by Israeli forces during what was known as “the Generals’ Plan.”

This was the “genocide within a genocide”, when the whole of northern Gaza was placed under a violent siege, and everyone still living there, who had failed to cooperate with previous evacuation orders — either because they were unwilling or unable to leave — was told in no uncertain terms that, if they stayed, they would be regarded as “enemy combatants” who could be summarily executed.

During the siege, Dr. Abu Safiya survived the death of his son, and was wounded himself, and he only finally surrendered on December 27, 2024, when it was no longer possible to keep the hospital running. He subsequently disappeared into Israel’s brutal prisons for Palestinians, where he is held under Israel’s blatantly illegal “Unlawful Combatants Law”, introduced in 2002, around the same time that George W. Bush was setting up his “war on terror” prison at Guantánamo Bay and defining those held there as “unlawful enemy combatants.”

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