Defend Our Juries announce the locations of the 20 UK-wide local actions in their Lift The Ban campaign against the ban on Palestine Action and against the UK government’s complicity in genocide.

The actions are intended to restore fundamental rights in relation to protest and freedom of expression in the UK ahead of and during the judicial review of the proscription of Palestine Action (25–27 November).

Local police forces are operationally independent of central government so have to make their own choices about how to react to Lift The Ban protests. Police forces have chosen not to arrest sign-holders at previous actions in Derry, Edinburgh, Totnes, Norwich and Kendal – choosing instead to respect their right to protest and to freedom of expression.

Ordinary members of the public will be taking part in acts of dangerous sign-holding at 1pm in the following locations on Tuesday 18 November:

• Edinburgh, Queen Elizabeth House, 1 Sibbald Walk, EH8 8FT
• Caerdydd (Cardiff), Senedd
• Oxford, Clarendon Building, OX1 3AZ
• Newcastle, Civic Centre
• Leeds, Dortmund Square
• Aberystwyth, location to be announced
• Nottingham, Green Heart (paved area near the new central library)
• Northampton, The steps of Guildhall, St Giles’ Square, Northampton, NN1 1DE
• Gloucester, Cathedral
• Truro, Meet in the square outside front entrance of Truro Cathedral, High Cross

Then again on Saturday 22 in Belfast at The Square between the courts on Chichester Street.

And on Saturday 29 November in these locations:

• Edinburgh, Queen Elizabeth House
• Caerdydd (Cardiff), location to be announced nearer the date
• Manchester, location to be announced
• Birmingham, Chamberlain Square, B3 3DH (opposite Museum and Art Gallery)
• Cambridge, Guildhall, opposite the market: Guildhall Place, Market Hill
• Bristol, College Green, BS1 5TJ
• Sheffield, Cathedral
• Exeter, outside Central Station, Queens Street
• Lancaster, outside Lancaster Castle

And (as announced previously) in London at:

• The Ministry Of Justice (Thursday 20th)
• The Peace Garden in Tavistock Square (Saturday 22nd)
• The Home Office (Monday 24th) and
• The Royal Courts of Justice (Wednesday 26th)

The action in Belfast on Saturday 22nd November will be the first Lift The Ban action in the city. There have been regular independently-organised sign-holding actions in Derry but no arrests or charges have been brought to date in the north of Ireland. Legal experts say that Police Service Northern Ireland need the proscription “like a hole in the head” and they suspect that PSNI were not consulted on the proscription by the Home Secretary.

Police Scotland have so far made no arrests at Lift The Ban actions in Edinburgh, although they have subsequently arrested and charged a seemingly random ten people from the 85 who took action in September. The Scottish Counter-Terrorism Board CONTEST has concluded that Palestine Action “has not been close to meeting the statutory definition of terrorism.” Earlier this month former diplomat Craig Murray filed a legal challenge against the ban in Scotland meaning there is the potential for a constitutional crisis if Scottish and English courts reach different decisions.

In Cardiff when people sit outside the Senedd building they will do so knowing that at the last Lift The Ban action there in July Welsh police arrested sign-holders under section 12 of the Terrorism Act 2000 which carries a maximum penalty of 14 years in prison. They also held people in custody while raiding their houses and testing their food with geiger counters. However the same sitters were subsequently charged only with lesser section 13 offences (maximum penalty of six months in prison).

Leigh Evans, retired Emergency Nurse with extensive experience of working in the West Bank and Gaza, who took part in the Global Flotilla, and who will be taking action in Cardiff said:

“Protest and direct action are prerequisites for democracy in the face of fascism. Direct action is the only thing that has ever been proved to work against oppression and apartheid. Every right we have has been won for us through protest and direct action from the Levellers in the 17th century to the suffragettes in the early 1900s. Direct action and protests give us our human rights.”

Elle Miller, Railway Maintenance Worker, age 43 from Glasgow, explained why she will be taking part in both Edinburgh actions as well as the action in London on 26th:

“In today’s politics, it feels like the only way to influence decisions is to have millions in the bank. Without protest, slavery would still be legal, women couldn’t vote, and same-sex marriage would still be illegal. We know protest works precisely because successive governments are trying to criminalise it. If sitting peacefully with a cardboard sign makes me a terrorist, then I hope my great-grandchildren will be as proud of me as relatives of the suffragettes are today.

“The decision to proscribe Palestine Action was driven by corporate interests profiting from arms sales to those committing atrocities in Palestine and beyond. It is not illegal to challenge those interests or to campaign to change unjust laws. The Scottish Government has recognised the genocide in Palestine – so why are Police Scotland arresting peaceful protesters? Who do they serve: the UK Government, or the people of Scotland who oppose this ban?”

Oliver Baines OBE, 74, a farmer and retired charity CEO from Grampound Road who will be among those holding signs in Truro on the 18th, said:

“Devon and Cornwall Police pride themselves on their community policing, so a group of local residents sitting in silent vigil opposing genocide was always going to create a dilemma for them. When eight were arrested in July, the police were courteous and, in many cases, clearly uncomfortable. Their subsequent change of policy was typified by one officer who described the October protest as ‘lovely and peaceful’.

“Our argument was never with the police but with the UK Government, with its shameful attack on our civil liberties, and with its appalling record of complicity in the ongoing genocide in Gaza and the West Bank. Equating solidarity with Palestine and opposition to genocide with being a terrorist is a gross insult to all peace-loving people.”

LIFT THE BAN CAMPAIGN

So far over 2,000 people have been arrested under terrorism legislation for taking part in these now famous actions in which people sit silently holding handwritten cardboard signs saying “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.” Around 170 of these have so far been charged with section 13 offences under the Terrorism Act 2000, offences which carry a maximum six month prison sentence.

The demands of the Lift The campaign are firstly to lift the ban on Palestine Action and secondly to name the ongoing Israeli assault on the Palestinian people as a genocide and comply with the resulting legal obligations, including by ending all military trade and other military cooperation with Israel.

At the Court Of Appeal ruling on 15 October, Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori won two more grounds for her Judicial Review at the same time as the government lost their attempt to block the legal challenge of the ban, making

Last month the UN issued its draft report Gaza Genocide: A Collective Crime detailing the complicity of states including the UK in the destruction of Gaza. Amongst other things, the UK continued to supply arms including components for F-35 stealth bombers, undertook daily surveillance flights over Gaza for Israel, maintained normal trade relations, and allowed Israel to undertake international crimes with impunity.

The genocide continues to unfold in Gaza. Since October 11, the first full day of the ceasefire, Israel has killed at least 245 Palestinians in Gaza and wounded 627. Israel continues to attack Gaza, with at least three airstrikes on Wednesday. The UN says Israel is blocking vaccines and baby bottles. More than 1,500 buildings beyond the “yellow line” have been destroyed. And in the West Bank yesterday settlers set fire to vehicles, including dairy trucks.

CHORUS OF CRITICISM

This week the government’s proscription of Palestine Action has come under fire yet again from expert bodies both in the UK and internationally with the release of three separate reports. On Tuesday a panel of experts including a former MI6 director said terrorism laws needed rewriting as they had become too broad to keep the country safe, hitting out at the ‘serious property damage’ clause” which has resulted in a nonviolent domestic direct action group being designated as terrorists for the first time.

Later that same day it was revealed that an advisory body had told ministers that banning Palestine Action could backfire by ⁠inadvertently raising the group’s public profile, ⁠becoming “a flashpoint for significant controversy and criticism” of the government, heightening Muslim-Jewish community tensions, and being seen as evidence of bias towards Israel.

On Wednesday morning five UN experts published their letter to the UK government saying the ban is unjustified, unnecessary and a move more associated with authoritarian states.

PRISONERS’ HUNGER STRIKE

28 prisoners are currently being held in UK prisons without trial for allegedly taking part in actions claimed by Palestine action. They are known as the Filton 24 and the Brize Norton Five. Most will be held for two years without trial – exceeding the six month pre-trial custody limit – because the Crown Prosecution Service is claiming there is a “terrorist connection” on the basis of criminal damage. However no charges have been brought under the Terrorism Act against these prisoners and the actions took place before Palestine Action was proscribed by the government.

Six of these prisoners are now on a rolling hunger strike. The hunger strike started on Saturday 2nd November – Balfour Day – with two people after the Home Secretary failed to respond to their demands including immediate bail, access to documents necessary for the right to a fair trial and the de-proscription of Palestine Action. The strike is “rolling” because more people continue to join the strike as their demands remain unmet. The conditions of their detention have been criticised by UN experts in a letter to the UK government.

In August of this year T Hoxa of the Filton 24 went on hunger strike for 28 days, eventually winning most of her demands. According to Prisoners For Palestine, most of the 33 activists are expected to join the strike in coming weeks, in what could become the largest coordinated prisoners’ hunger strike since the 1981 Irish hunger strike led by Bobby Sands. For more information on the hunger strikers see Prisoners for Palestine.