Yvette Cooper
The Home Secretary
We are writing to express our deep concern over the recent arrests and prosecution of pro-Palestine journalists and activists.
They appear to us to signal the beginning of a targeted campaign of intimidation, harassment and persecution by your government aimed at silencing the anti-genocide movement in the UK.
The arrests/charging of Craig Murray, Richard Barnard, a co-founder of Palestine Action, Sarah Wilkinson, and fellow journalist cum activist Richard Medhurst among others represent a chilling escalation of the previous government’s policy of appeasing and enabling genocide.
The arrest or charging of these very prominent pro-Palestine advocates for allegedly supporting the right of resistance to occupation is clearly intended to draw a line for freedom of expression that is inconsistent with international law.
International law is clear that an occupied people have the right to defend themselves against an occupying force, by arms if necessary.
By arresting those who are reporting on the horrors of the genocide and holding a spotlight to the perpetrators and their allies, your government seems to be seeking to hide the slaughter from public view so that it can continue apace and unopposed.
The terrifying manner of some of the arrests, in which large numbers of mask-clad police broke into homes, ransacked them, and even desecrated the ashes of a deceased family member, smacks of Nazism and the very Israeli abuses that journalists/activists are protesting.
The restrictions that have been imposed on their ability to communicate are draconian and are clearly intended to prevent them from exposing official crimes and to intimidate other pro-Palestine activists from continuing their legitimate activities. This is not the purpose of anti-terror laws.
However, you should know that rather than cow and scare pro-Palestine activists by targeting the leading figures in the movement, your actions will only reinforce the widespread belief that the British state supports the Israeli genocide in Gaza and is complicit in it.
We are accustomed to the weaponisation of anti-terrorism laws against the Muslim community for the purposes of defending UK state atrocities overseas. In fact, along with other organisations we have regularly warned against the discriminatory way that powers like Schedule 7 are routinely used by law enforcement officials.
The fact that police are now arresting activists under the Terrorism Act 2000, as happened recently with the Palestine Actions activists dubbed the Filton 10, but then charging them with lesser offences, is a disturbing escalation in the misuse of this legislation.
We demand that you immediately acquit all pro-Palestine activists and journalists arrested and/or charged and allow them the fundamental freedom to continue their work without any further state interference.
Yours faithfully
Massoud Shadjareh
Chair
Islamlc Human Rights Commission
