Jersey police admitted wrongly attributing messages to anti-genocide activist Natalie Strecker during their gathering of ‘terrorism’ ‘evidence’ against her, the Royal Court on the island heard during her trial on charges of supporting a banned proscribed organisation.

After trawling through some fifty thousand messages, the police identified ‘around 35’ it considered problematic. The vast quantity of available messages versus small yield are strongly reminiscent of the ‘fishing expedition’ modus operandi of Israel lobby groups. Inevitably, this has also been the case in other actions against pro-Palestine activists on the English mainland.

Strecker stands firm

Strecker, a peace activist who has worked with Jersey’s Palestine Solidarity Campaign, faced two charges related to inviting support for a proscribed organisation. These charges are believed to relate to comments about the right of Palestinians to armed resistance against the Israeli occupation and of Lebanese militia to oppose Israel’s attacks on Lebanon. That right is guaranteed under international law, which the two ‘jurats’ deciding the case have been told to ignore, raising fears that the government is determined to fix the outcome.

Strecker denies both charges. Giving evidence, Jersey cop Luke Freeman told the court that the local force had downloaded posts and messages from Strecker’s devices and scoured them for anything it thought it could use, but admitted that a ‘bug’ had caused the police to wrongly attribute ‘many’ messages to Strecker.

The verdict in the case is scheduled to be delivered tomorrow morning at 10am.

Featured image via the Canary

By Skwawkbox

This post was originally published on Canary.