UN Special Rapporteur on Environmental Defenders under the Aarhus Convention Michel Forst attended the trial of five Just Stop Oil supporters at Southwark Crown Court. He attended as an observer because of his serious concerns.
Silencing defendants is the courtroom parallel to the wider attack on protest rights by the last government, including the “public nuisance” offence the Just Stop Oil five have been found guilty of and other measures that allow the police to shut down demonstrations before they have even begun, or haul peaceful citizens off marches for carrying placards or wearing imagery they object to.
Both reveal the collapse of ruling-class confidence in the people they rule. Grasping, after the shocks of Brexit and the Corbyn movement, that people are deeply dissatisfied with the system, their only answer is to ban protest and silence dissidents.
We cannot be silenced. The stakes are too high: as the Just Stop Oil cause illustrates, climate change, in the form of erratic weather, increasingly severe droughts and floods and crop failure, is already upon us. British farms saw a 19 per cent income drop in the last year because of mass flooding. The disruption to our lives from upsets to food production and the water supply will outweigh that from halting traffic on a motorway. The five must be freed.
Labour in power has a chance to change course from the crazy authoritarianism of the Tories. It is committed to restoring workers’ strike rights — but it must be made to restore protest rights too. Like the Tolpuddle Martyrs, we must “raise the watchword, liberty,” defying a state that tramples on our freedoms.
An activist puts up a banner reading “Just Stop Oil” atop an electronic traffic sign along M25 on November 10, 2022 in London, United Kingdom. (Photo: Leon Neal/Getty Images)
“Rulings like today’s set a very dangerous precedent, not just for environmental protest but any form of peaceful protest,” a U.N. official said.
In a decision that one United Nations official called “beyond comprehension,” a U.K. judge on Thursday sentenced five Just Stop Oil activists to a combined 21 years in prison over a Zoom call in which they discussed plans to disrupt London’s orbital M25 highway.
The sentences are believed to be the longest on record for nonviolent protest in U.K. history, The Guardian reported.
“The sentences handed to the five Just Stop Oil campaigners are utterly disproportionate,” environmentalist and author George Monbiot wrote on social media. “Four and five years in prison for peaceful protest? This is what you might expect in Russia or Egypt, not in a supposed democracy.”
“Why are we punishing the people trying to prevent disaster while allowing the oil company giants causing it to reap super profits?”
The five activists—Roger Hallam, Daniel Shaw, Louise Lancaster, Lucia Whittaker De Abreu, and Cressida Gethin—were found guilty last week of conspiring to cause a public nuisance due to a four-day direct action protest on the M25 that Just Stop Oil ultimately held in November 2022. All of the defendants participated in a Zoom call in which they planned to recruit volunteers for the protest, which was intended to pressure the U.K. government to end oil and gas exploration in the North Sea, a policy that the incoming Labour government has now adopted. The Zoom call had been infiltrated by a Sun journalist, who shared its contents with the Metropolitan Police.
On Thursday, Judge Christopher Hehir sentenced Hallam to five years in prison and Shaw, Lancaster, De Abreu, and Gethin to four each.
🧡 The #WholeTruthFive being cheered as they leave court and are taken to prison.
⛓️ They have received 4 and 5 year prison sentences after a zoom call about a nonviolent action being planned in 2022. This is not what a functioning democracy looks like. pic.twitter.com/JKKg2f8gtb
The sentences sparked outrage from humans rights advocates and environmental campaigners.
Michel Forst, U.N. special rapporteur on environmental defenders who also observed part of the trial, said the sentencing “marks a dark day for peaceful environmental protest, the protection of environmental defenders, and indeed anyone concerned with the exercise of their fundamental freedoms in the United Kingdom.”
Forst added: “Rulings like today’s set a very dangerous precedent, not just for environmental protest but any form of peaceful protest that may, at one point or another, not align with the interests of the government of the day.”
Former Green Party leader and Member of Parliament Caroline Lucas called the sentences “obscene.”
“Why are we punishing the people trying to prevent disaster while allowing the oil company giants causing it to reap super profits?” she asked on social media.
Current Deputy Leader of the Green Party Zack Polanski said: “‘Conspiracy to commit a public nuisance’ is a deeply authoritarian description that should send shivers down the spine of all of us who want to live in a free society. Even worse when the real crime is consecutive governments who have played down the climate emergency.”
Campaigners and experts also criticized the trial itself, in which Hehir did not allow the defendants to present evidence about the climate crisis to explain their actions.
“Defendants should be allowed to explain why they have decided to use nonconventional but yet peaceful forms of action, like civil disobedience, when they engage in environmental protest,” Forst told The Guardian after attending part of the trial.
Bill McGuire, emeritus professor of geophysical and climate hazards at University College London—who Hehir did not allow the defendants to call as a witness—called the trial and verdict a “farce.”
“They mark a low point in British justice, and they were an assault on free speech,” McGuire in a statement said Thursday. “The judge’s characterization of climate breakdown as a matter of opinion and belief is completely nonsensical and demonstrates extraordinary ignorance. Similarly to suggest that the climate emergency is irrelevant in relation to whether the defendants had a reasonable case for action is crass stupidity.”
The verdict and sentencing also come amid an increasing crackdown on climate protest, both globally and in the U.K. The previous longest known civil disobedience sentences in the country were also for Just Stop Oil activists.
“The U.K. is a nightmare for climate activists from this point of view, in the sense that the sentences imposed in other countries are neither that harsh, nor that widespread,” Forst said July 12.
Greenpeace U.K.’s program director Amy Cameron said on Thursday: “These sentences are not a one-off anomaly but the culmination of years of repressive legislation, overblown government rhetoric, and a concerted assault on the right of juries to deliberate according to their conscience. It’s part of the mess the Labour government has inherited from its predecessor, and they must fix it by giving back to people the right to protest that’s been slowly being taken away from them.”
Forst also called on the new government to reverse course.
“Given the gravity of the situation, I urge the new United Kingdom government, with absolute urgency and without undo delay, to take all necessary steps to ensure that Mr. Shaw’s sentence is reduced in line with the United Kingdom’s obligations under the Aarhus Convention,” Forst wrote on Thursday.
Thousands of activists will once again travel to Washington DC to protest the US support of Israel’s genocide, and this time, the visit of Benjamin Netanyahu. Photo: Sofia Perez
Israeli PM Netanyahu who faces charges from the ICC, was invited by US lawmakers to speak in front of Congress on July 24
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is set to speak on July 24 in front of the United States Congress following an invitation by leading politicians from both mainstream parties. Netanyahu is considered a war criminal internationally, with the ICC expected to issue a warrant for his arrest within the next two weeks—however, he is completely safe in the United States, which is not a state party to the Rome Statute of the ICC.
Both the Israeli Prime Minister and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant are wanted for “war crimes and crimes against humanity.” In May, Chief ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan applied for arrest warrants for the two officials, which are expected to be issued within the next two weeks. The United States has threatened to sanction the ICC for these arrest warrants. “Together, we’ll find a way to register our displeasure with the ICC, cause if they’ll do this to Israel, we’re next,” said Graham on Tuesday, indicating that US officials have at least a sense of their complicity in the genocide in Gaza. A recent letter published in the Lancet indicates that the true death toll of this genocide could be as high as 186,000.
The mass mobilization, which is set to surround the US Capitol building, is being organized by several grassroots organizations including American Muslims for Palestine, the Palestinian Youth Movement, the People’s Forum, ANSWER Coalition, the Palestinian Feminist Collective, the Arab Resource and Organizing Center, Al-Awda: The Palestine Right to Return Coalition, US Palestinian Community Network, US Campaign for Palestinian Rights, International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, Palestinian American Organizations Network, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, the Palestinian American Women’s Association, CodePink, Jewish Voice for Peace, Palestinian Assembly for Liberation, and Writers Against the War on Gaza.
“July 24th will be remembered as a dark stain on the legacy of the 118th Congress. Inviting a war criminal to speak in our legislative halls while he is committing genocide is a new low for this body,” said Mohamad Habehh, Director of Development at American Muslims for Palestine. “Schools, hospitals, houses of worship, and residential neighborhoods have been leveled by relentless Israeli bombardment. Since the announcement of this speech, we have seen the bombing and killing increase. Congressional leaders have supported this genocide in Gaza in both word and deed. Not only have they excused the atrocities Israel is committing, they have passed billions of dollars in funding to enable them. This has empowered Netanyahu to continue committing these crimes and, by inviting him, Congress is sending a clear message to the American people and the rest of the world, that criminals will be rewarded and red carpets will be rolled out for them.”
“Netanyahu and the members of Congress he will be addressing are partners in crime,” said Hatem Abu Dayyeh, National Coordinator of USPCN.
“Israel’s killing spree in Gaza would not be possible were it not for the constant stream of weapons being provided by the US government,” Abu Dayyeh continued. “These missiles, bullets and bombs are funded through acts of Congress and delivered by the Biden administration. We are gathering to express our outrage not only with Netanyahu, but also with the US political elite who are indispensable to Israel’s ability to massacre Palestinians.”
According to Brian Becker, National Director of the ANSWER Coalition, “The majority of people in this country want a ceasefire. But instead, Netanyahu and his friends in Congress are threatening to expand the war with an invasion of Lebanon.”
“The US corporate media always portrays Israel as the victim, but the reality is that the fighting along the Israel-Lebanon border is a result of the genocide being committed in Gaza.” Becker stated. “The only way to ensure that a devastating regional war does not break out is for Israel to immediately end its attack on Gaza and withdraw its troops.”
Israeli activists protest outside the notorious Sde Teiman prison in the Negev Desert on April 20, 2024. (Photo: Ofer Neiman/X)
The head of the human rights group said Israel’s Unlawful Combatants Law is enabling “rampant torture” of Palestinian detainees and “institutionalizes enforced disappearance.”
Israel is using its dubious Unlawful Combatants Law to arbitrarily detain Palestinians from the Gaza Strip—including women and children—indefinitely without charge and trial, according to an Amnesty International report published Thursday.
All 27 former detainees interviewed by the rights group described being tortured by Israeli forces.
Amnesty documented the cases of 21 men, five women, and one 14-year-old boy taken from Gaza and held in indefinite incommunicado detention in facilities including the notorious Sde Teiman camp in Israel’s Negev Desert for periods of up to four-and-a-half months, without access to lawyers or contact with their families.
“All those interviewed by Amnesty International said that during their incommunicado detention, which in some cases amounted to enforced disappearance, Israeli military, intelligence, and police forces subjected them to torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment,” the report states.
“Israeli authorities are using the Unlawful Combatants Law to arbitrarily round up Palestinian civilians from Gaza and toss them into a virtual black hole.”
Israel’s Unlawful Combatants Law allows the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) to detain anyone from Gaza that they suspect of being engaged in the fight against Israel or posing a threat to its national security indefinitely without charge, trial, or evidence. Last December, the law was amended to allow the IDF to hold suspects for up to 96 hours without a detention order, up to 75 days without being brought before a judge, and up to three months without seeing a lawyer.
“While international humanitarian law allows for the detention of individuals on imperative security grounds in situations of occupation, there must be safeguards to prevent indefinite or arbitrary detention and torture and other ill-treatment,” Amnesty International secretary general AgnèsCallamard said in a statement. “This law blatantly fails to provide these safeguards. It enables rampant torture and, in some circumstances, institutionalizes enforced disappearance.”
“Our documentation illustrates how the Israeli authorities are using the Unlawful Combatants Law to arbitrarily round up Palestinian civilians from Gaza and toss them into a virtual black hole for prolonged periods without producing any evidence that they pose a security threat and without minimum due process,” Callamard added. “Israeli authorities must immediately repeal this law and release those arbitrarily detained under it.”
Israel is using its abusive Unlawful Combatants Law to arbitrarily detain Palestinians from Gaza indefinitely without charge or trial @amnesty gathered harrowing torture testimony from 27 former detainees who were held for up to 4.5 months under the law https://t.co/ABtZE3eXUn
According to the report, “those detained included doctors taken into custody at hospitals for refusing to abandon their patients; mothers separated from their infants while trying to cross the so-called ‘safe corridor’ from northern Gaza to the south; human rights defenders, [United Nations] workers, journalists, and other civilians.”
Former detainees at Sde Teiman said they were blindfolded and handcuffed for their entire imprisonment, forced to remain in painful stress positions for hours on end, and prevented from speaking to other prisoners or even raising their heads.
Said Maarouf, a 57-year-old pediatrician kidnapped by Israeli troops during an attack on al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza City in December 2023, was detained for 45 days at Sde Teiman. He described being constantly blindfolded and handcuffed, beaten, starved, and forced to sit on his knees for long periods.
A 14-year-old boy taken from his home in Jabalia in January was held for 24 days at Sde Teiman. He told Amnesty that he was jailed with more than 100 adults in a single barrack and was kicked, punched in the head, and repeatedly burned with cigarettes. Amnesty observed bruises and burns on the child’s body when it examined him in February. Like other detainees interviewed by the rights group, the boy said he was always blindfolded and handcuffed and was not permitted to see a lawyer or his relatives.
Earlier this year, Israeli medics working at Sde Teiman said amputations of hands and feet due to injuries from constant handcuffing were “a routine event.”
The five women interviewed by Amnesty were initially jailed at a military detention center in an illegal Israeli settler colony in the occupied West Bank, then at Dimon women’s prison in northern Israel. All five said they were beaten during transport.
One woman taken on December 6 said she was separated from her two children—ages 4 and 9 months—and initially held alongside hundreds of male prisoners. She was beaten, forced to remove her veil and photographed without it, and subjected to the mock execution of her husband.
“On the third day of detention, they put us in a ditch and started throwing sand,” she said. “A soldier fired two shots in the air and said they executed my husband and I broke down and begged him to kill me too, to relieve me from the nightmare.”
Another woman said guards threatened: “We will do to you what Hamas did to us. We will kidnap and rape you.”
“They were blindfolded, their headscarves removed .. [soldiers] jeered and laughed at them.”
A former Palestinian prisoner recounts how Israeli soldiers treated women detained as they evacuated from northern Gaza to the south using the so-called safe corridor. pic.twitter.com/hlbIEDprzj
These and other accounts are consistent with the testimonies of Israeli whistleblowers and former prisoners at Sde Teiman and other Israeli detention facilities.
Former detainees and human rights defenders have described Sde Teiman as “Israel’s Guantánamo” and “more horrific than Abu Ghraib“—the notorious U.S. military prison in Iraq where prisoners were tortured and dozens died. Palestinians held at Sde Teiman and at other detention sites described being electrocuted, mauled and even raped by dogs, constantly beaten, starved, and subjected to other torture and abuse. Other former Sde Teiman detainees said they witnessed a prisoner raped to death, possible executions, and other atrocities.
IDF officials told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz last month that the IDF is investigating the in-custody deaths of dozens of detainees, including 36 who died or were killed at Sde Teiman since October, when Israel began its retaliatory war following the attack by Hamas-led militants that left more than 1,100 Israelis and foreign nationals dead—some of whom were killed by Israeli troops.
Over 240 other people, mostly Israelis, were kidnapped and taken to Gaza. A Human Rights Watch report published Wednesday details war crimes and crimes against humanity including murder and rape perpetrated by members of five Palestinian armed groups that took part in the October 7 attacks.
Since October, Israel’s siege, bombardment, and invasion of Gaza has left at least 139,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing, around 90% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people forcibly displaced, and starvation—sometimes deadly—running rampant.
Israel is on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. International Criminal Court Prosecutor Karim Khan has also applied for warrants to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and three Hamas leaders for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including “extermination.”
Al Shifa Hospital after a two-week Israeli siege, April 2024.
Gaza’s hospitals, already overwhelmed, are struggling with an influx of casualties following brutal attacks on refugee camps. Sugary drinks have become the most affordable food as aid delivery obstructions persist
Brutal attacks by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) have, yet again, intensified pressure on the few functional hospitals in the Gaza Strip. Health workers at Nasser Medical Complex reported harrowing scenes following attacks on Khan Younis on July 13, where they received over 100 new casualties despite the hospital already operating over capacity.
“At one point, you had people in the hallway moaning in pain,” said Amy Kit-Mei Low, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) project medical referent. “Even though they had [wound] dressings, the dressings were oozing blood. […] the hospital was trying to cope, but it can barely cope with normal cases.”
UNRWA representative Scott Anderson described the scene at the hospital, stressing the lack of beds, disinfectants, and electricity to run ventilation at Nasser. “I saw toddlers who are double amputees, children paralyzed and unable to receive treatment, and others separated from their parents. I also saw mothers and fathers who were unsure if their children were alive,” Anderson said.
In addition to the relentless IOF attacks, including those targeting healthcare facilities that have killed 2.5% of Gaza’s health workforce since October 7, hospitals are also struggling with aid delivery restrictions imposed by Israel. Since the beginning of the war on Gaza, and especially since the beginning of May, the flow of essential goods to hospitals has been drastically reduced. Hospitals are particularly burdened by the ban on certain medications, including anesthetics, strong painkillers, and even diabetes drugs. Recently, a consortium of organizations providing health care in Gaza warned of a shortage of antibiotics safe for pregnant and breastfeeding women due to the blockade.
Despite having hundreds of kilos of aid ready for dispatch, supplies are blocked from reaching hospitals and health centers. The blockade is reinforcing severe food shortages, exacerbating the health crisis. Reports indicate that Israel prioritizes commercial trucks over humanitarian ones at crossings, leaving people with limited and extremely expensive food options. The same consortium of organizations reported that sugary drinks are currently the most affordable food in Gaza.
Famine is spreading rapidly across all regions of Gaza. Nearly 10,000 pregnant and breastfeeding women are on the verge of famine, and 7,000 are already living in famine conditions, according to the United Nations. As a result, more babies are being born preterm and underweight.
For older children, mental health persists as a critical issue. The Gaza Community Mental Health Program (GCMHP) recently estimated that half a million children in Gaza require mental health support. Displaced families report that children are struggling with bedwetting, continuous shaking, violent outbursts, and likely PTSD due to living under constant attack.
GCMHP warns that mental health is also deteriorating among adults, as needs in Gaza far exceed available services. Many people are becoming emotionally numb as a consequence of not being able to receive any mental health support, and are disillusioned by the international community’s failure to halt the genocide perpetrated by Israel. GCMHP teams have encountered people in a state of emotional stagnation, recounting the loss of entire families as if it were a routine event. While scaling up mental health services is crucial for addressing this, GCMHP and other organizations insist that this will not be enough without a ceasefire.
People’s Health Dispatch is a fortnightly bulletin published by thePeople’s Health Movement and Peoples Dispatch. For more articles and to subscribe to People’s Health Dispatch, clickhere.
