How Were the Filton 4 Sentenced for Terrorism When They Weren’t Convicted of Terrorism?
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This is the last of three articles about the recent concerted assault on the direct action group Palestine Action in the UK courts. The first, “Punitive sentencing in the UK for Filton 4 activists on behalf of Israel”, focused on the sentencing of the Filton 4 last Friday, which I posted on Facebook here, where it has had over 330,000 views (although it also attracted an open sewer of deeply unpleasant trolls), and also on Substack, where I also sent it to my subscribers. Feel free to join me. The second, “The Renewed Ban on Palestine Action Confirms Legal Overreach in the Designation of Terrorism”, about the Court of Appeal’s unwise reinstatement of the proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist organization, in which I examined the root problems of “serious damage to property” having been designated as terrorism in the Terrorism Act 2000, was posted here on my website, and this third article revisits the Filton 4 sentencing to provide detailed analysis about how the biased judge, Mr. Justice Johnson, was able to sentence the four activists for terrorism, when they weren’t convicted of terrorism by the jury in their retrial.
POSTSCRIPT: On June 24, I joined Chris Cook for his Gorilla Radio show in western Canada to discuss the fall of Keir Starmer (see my Substack post here), and the devious judicial efforts to secure terrorism-enhanced sentences for the Filton activists. Listen to the one-hour show on Substack here. I’m in the second half; Yves Engler in the first half.
Since the sentencing, last Friday, of the Filton 4 — activists with Palestine Action, who undertook direct action to damage drones intended for use in Gaza at a facility owned by Elbit Systems, Israel’s biggest arms company — observers of justice, in the UK and around the world, have been reeling at the imposition by the judge of punitive sentences.
As I explained in my first article, Charlotte Head and Leona Kamio were given six-year sentences, minus 45 days for time served since the conviction, Fatema Zainab Rajwani was given a sentence of five years and eight months, minus 45 days, while Samuel Corner was given a sentence of eight years and eight months.
The Renewed Ban on Palestine Action Confirms Legal Overreach in the Designation of Terrorism
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.
In a dispiriting ruling yesterday, the Court of Appeal in London overturned a ruling in February, by the High Court, that the government’s proscription of the direct action group Palestine Action as a terrorist organization, which was passed by Parliament last July, was unlawful.
The High Court’s ruling, in response to a judicial review submitted by Huda Ammori, one of Palestine Action’s two co-founders, repudiated the two counts on which the High Court had ruled the proscription unlawful.
Garden Court Chambers, whose barristers represented Huda Ammori at the judicial review in February, explained that these two counts were, firstly, that the Court “upheld the Claimant’s challenge that the Home Secretary failed to comply with her own policy when making the decision to proscribe Palestine Action”, and, secondly, that “proscription breached the rights of Freedom of Expression and Assembly as protected under Articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights.”
The 41st Anniversary of the Battle of the Beanfield: Still No Accountability for a Monstrous Crime of State Violence
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Somewhere south of Savernake Forest, and just to the north of the A303, in Wiltshire, is a crime scene that has never been examined by the British authorities.
It was in a field here that, 41 years ago today, on June 1, 1985, the British state undertook the most savage assault on unarmed civilians in modern British history.
This has become known as the Battle of the Beanfield, although, in reality, it was a one-sided rout of heartbreaking brutality, as riot police from six counties cornered a vastly-outnumbered convoy of vehicles seeking to make their way to establish what would have been the 12th annual Stonehenge Free Festival, in fields around the ancient sun temple on Salisbury Plain, and “decommissioned” them with extreme violence, brutally assaulting the men and women of the convoy, terrorizing their children, destroying their live-in vehicles, and making 537 arrests in total.
The events of that day dealt a crippling blow to a growing counter-cultural movement of modern-day nomads, known as the new travellers, or new age travellers, who travelled around the country in old coaches, buses, vans, trucks and even decommissioned military vehicles.
Broken Justice: Filton 6 Activists to Be Sentenced on Terrorism Charges That Were Not Disclosed to the Jury
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.
The Irresistible Resurgence of Hope, After the Green Party Beat Labour and Reform in Manchester
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.
Although much of the world is now engulfed in chaos after the US and Israel launched an illegal and unprovoked attack on Iran on Saturday morning, I want to turn back the clock to the day before the “war” began, and the resounding victory, in a crucial by-election in Gorton and Denton, in Manchester, of Hannah Spencer, a local working class plumber standing for the Green Party, who secured 14,980 votes (42% of the total votes cast) over Reform’s 10,578 votes, and Labour’s 9,364 votes (halving their vote from when they held the seat at the General Election in 2024), dealing a seismic blow to the domination of British politics by an entire political class — from Labour to the Tories and Reform — that functions solely through negativity, corruption, oppression and division.
At her victory speech, echoing what she stated throughout her campaign, she said:
I am no different to every single person here in this constituency. I work hard. That is what we do. Except things have changed a lot over the last few decades. Because working hard used to get you something. It got you a house, a nice life, holidays. It got you somewhere. But now? Working hard? What does that get you?
Because talk to anyone here and they will tell you, the people who work hard but can’t put food on the table, can’t get their kids school uniforms, can’t put their heating on, can’t live off the pension they worked hard to save for, can’t even begin to dream about ever having a holiday, ever. Because life has changed. Instead of working for a nice life, we’re working to line the pockets of billionaires. We are being bled dry.
Why We Are All Palestine Action, and Why Direct Action to Prevent Genocide Is the Opposite of Terrorism
Please click on either of the ‘Donate’ 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.
UPDATE: Please free free to check out my one-hour interview with Chris Cook of Gorilla Radio, recorded on August 13, in which we discussed the self-inflicted problems created by the British government following its proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist organization, as well as the targeted murder of Anas Al-Sharif and his colleagues, Israel’s war on journalists, and its persistent lies.
Today, July 2, is a truly bleak day for fundamental human rights in the UK, as MPs have voted, by 385 votes to 26, to uphold legislation introduced on Monday by the home secretary, Yvette Cooper, to proscribe Palestine Action, a direct action group, as a terrorist organization, along with two international neo-Nazi groups, the Maniacs Murder Cult (MMC) and the Russian Imperial Movement (RIM). Under the legislation, it is now a criminal offence, punishable by up to 14 years in prison, for anyone to become a member of, or even to support the direct action of Palestine Action.
This article, for example, may get the police knocking on my door, but I’m not going to be deterred, because this is very clearly a cynical and illegitimate piece of legislation that, horrifically, is designed primarily to allow Israeli arms companies — and allied British interests — to continue supporting Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
Dan Jarvis, the Home Office minister tasked with explaining the move, declared, in a presentation dripping with startling hyperbole, that, “By implementing this measure, we will remove Palestine Action’s veil of legitimacy, tackle its financial support and degrade its efforts to recruit and radicalize people into committing terrorist activity in its name.”
Who's still at Guantánamo?
