Retired British diplomat and journalist, Craig Murray has written the following important article regarding ongoing dodgy legal machinations by the Starmer government via the British judiciary in relation to charges against people for holding signs in silence which had the name of the relatively recently proscribed organisation, Palestine Action on them.
Those charged with terrorism for supporting Palestine Action will have no jury in trials limited to 36 minutes each, with prison sentences up to six months. These are the plans for Starmer Courts for mass trials of anti-Genocide protestors.
The plans are devised by Justice Michael Snow. He is the epitome of judicial prejudice. When Julian Assange appeared before Snow in the first hearing after being dragged from the Embassy, Snow called Assange a “narcissist” even though Assange had said nothing but to confirm his name, and no evidence had been led.
Snow has now decreed that those 2,000 people charged under Section 13 of the Terrorism Act with supporting Palestine Action, will be tried in batches of five at the rate of ten people a day - giving 36 court minutes for each defendant. This is a farce, a spectacle of mass show trial. The 36 minutes includes both prosecution and defence cases and cross-examination.
At a scheduling hearing on Wednesday, one of the accused, 72 year old Deborah Wilde, objected that these trials would be far too short to present a proper defence.
Snow snapped back “I’m satisfied that the time is sufficient. I am not going to give more time. Your only remedy is the High Court”.
As I am sure Snow realises, ordinary people cannot afford to go to the High Court. The worrying thing is that the trials will be held before judges including the appalling Snow, with no jury.
Here is the relevant part of Section 13 of the Terrorism Act.
Perhaps the most astonishing thing about this draconian legislation is that arousing suspicion is actually the offence. It does not matter if the suspicion turns out to be well-grounded or not. The suspicion could be totally wrong, but if you aroused the suspicion on “reasonable grounds” in a policeman’s head, you are guilty.
It is an offence of strict liability. Your intent is not considered; you may have been most concerned to stop a Genocide, or to oppose the destruction of free speech. Judge Snow and his ilk will not care. They only want to know if some half educated cop suspected you of supporting a terrorist organisation. There is no jury to whom you can explain your actions - and which would be highly likely to sympathise.
I have seen it, as an offence of strict liability, likened to possession of Class A drugs. But actually it isn’t. The correct analogy would be a crime where the offence was arousing a suspicion you possessed Class A drugs, whether you actually had any or not.
The experience of watching 2,000 upstanding citizens, most of them elderly and many of them infirm, hustled through this slaughterhouse queue of mass justice and into prison, with little opportunity to defend themselves, will be a defining moment in the UK’s headlong slide into fascism.
The best available way to fight this ridiculously unjust process which has been directly opposed by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, by Amnesty International and by Liberty, is through the legal challenge to an absurd and oppressive law. This is being done in both England and Scotland, which are separate jurisdictions. I am the “petitioner” in the Scottish case.
There are precedents for different decisions in the different jurisdictions. The Scottish courts found Boris Johnson’s prorogation of parliament illegal; the English courts, legal. Ultimately the Supreme Court decided in favour of the Scottish courts. It is also possible that Palestine Action should simply operate legally in one jurisdiction and not the other - the law is frequently different in the two countries. The rationale of the legal case is explained here.
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I recall the Southport stabbings. I recall Blackstone's "Commentaries On The English Law" in which he discusses the sacrifice of some of the freedoms of the jungle, jungle law, to gain the safety and surety of the civil law. One would have thought surely such surety would be that your daughters could attend a dance studio and not be stabbed in broad daylight three dead? One would have thought such a garish stabbing would surely fit the description of the civil law being stabbed in broad daylight; the very law of civilisation itself violently assaulted? Apparently, some social media comment suggested the assailant was a then recent illegal of Islamic background. The facts were that the assailant was of Haitian origin, by then in England some considerable number of years and a Christian. First, one is no longer a Christian if such an act is performed; that right disappeared when the knife came out. Second, does it matter when or where the assailant was from? With the civil law itself being savaged that day one would have thought Starmer would have demanded the assailant face the full force of the law. Instead Starmer chose to gaslight Britain about 'Nazis' making 'racist' social media comments that would indeed feel the full force of the law. The dead got a few flowers in a quick photo op. I was later informed that Starmer is a hard longstanding 68er. Understood.
Why on earth is the west going full facist just to support Israel?
I recall the Southport stabbings. I recall Blackstone's "Commentaries On The English Law" in which he discusses the sacrifice of some of the freedoms of the jungle, jungle law, to gain the safety and surety of the civil law. One would have thought surely such surety would be that your daughters could attend a dance studio and not be stabbed in broad daylight three dead? One would have thought such a garish stabbing would surely fit the description of the civil law being stabbed in broad daylight; the very law of civilisation itself violently assaulted? Apparently, some social media comment suggested the assailant was a then recent illegal of Islamic background. The facts were that the assailant was of Haitian origin, by then in England some considerable number of years and a Christian. First, one is no longer a Christian if such an act is performed; that right disappeared when the knife came out. Second, does it matter when or where the assailant was from? With the civil law itself being savaged that day one would have thought Starmer would have demanded the assailant face the full force of the law. Instead Starmer chose to gaslight Britain about 'Nazis' making 'racist' social media comments that would indeed feel the full force of the law. The dead got a few flowers in a quick photo op. I was later informed that Starmer is a hard longstanding 68er. Understood.