Thanks in no small part to recent laws criminalising peaceful protest in the UK, and the proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation, a record number of non-violent protesters are currently in prison or on remand.
Victimless crimes
This has been possible due to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts (PCSC) Act of 2022, along with the Public Order Act 2023. They have made it an offence to obstruct traffic, or even just to ‘lock on’ (padlock oneself to a public railing). UN special rapporteur Michel Forst commented on these laws while visiting the UK in 2024:
It had been almost unheard of since the 1930s for members of the public to be imprisoned for peaceful protest in the UK.
On 27 September 2024, Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland were sentenced to 24 and 20 months in prison, respectively. Their crime is now well known — they’re the Just Stop Oil (JSO) activists who threw soup at Van Gogh’s Sunflowers. The painting was unharmed, protected by a thick plate of glass, and the cleanup cost the museum £150. Nevertheless, Plummer and Holland were sentenced for causing criminal damage.
They weren’t the only individuals sentenced for their part in environmental activism, either. The number of JSO prisoners hit a high of 26 in August 2024. These included Roger Hallam, the founder of Just Stop Oil, sentenced to five years in prison for participating in a Zoom call that planned to block the M25 for a protest.
Criminalising solidarity for Palestine
Beyond ecological protestors, a great many of the other imprisoned non-violent demonstrators in the UK are linked to Palestinian solidarity. Naila Ahmed, CAGE International’s head of campaigns, stated that:
there are 32 political prisoners in Britain accused of disrupting the supply of weapons to be used in the genocide in Gaza.
Among these 32 are the Filton 24. They were arrested for their part in a direct action on Elbit Systems, a weapons firm based in Filton, Gloustershire. Elbit is notorious for arming Israel’s genocide, supplying around 85% of the country’s drones. The Filton action included driving a vehicle through the factory doors, and causing £1m in property damage.
There are another 4 individuals jailed for property damage at Wolverhampton’s Moog Inc, another defense manufacturer. Add to that five people who allegedly took part in spray-painting the planes at RAF Brize Norton. This is the incident which directly preceded the proscription of Palestine Action (PA), branding it a terrorist organisation.
Notably, these people were arrested before PA’s proscription. Nevertheless, under Prevent counter-terror laws, the justice system has still doled out heavy punishments for the Filton 24. The Face explained that:
Many arrestees have been placed in incommunicado detention – refused contact with legal counsel or loved ones and intensely interrogated for up to 36 hours – something that UN Special Rapporteurs have described as constituting “enforced disappearance”. Their prison rights have been heavily curtailed. The majority are expected to be incarcerated for close to two years on remand before ever seeing their case go to trial.[…] The standard legal limit on being held without trial is six months.
CAGE’s Naila Ahmed also listed just some of the issues facing the prisoners in jail:
They have had visits cancelled, letters from loved ones withheld and are denied jobs within the prison due to Prevent involvement. Muslim prisoners face institutional Islamophobia by being denied religious books, blocked from attending Friday prayers and facing taunts and abuse from guards.
Palestine Action prisoners on hunger strike
Among the Filton 24, eight are now participating in a hunger strike. They’re demanding the reinstatement of their basic rights as prisoners, many of which are being denied under Prevent.
One of the hunger strikers is Qesser Zuhrah. At just 20 years old, she was previously the youngest of the Filton 24. However, her brother Salaam, 19, was later arrested in July. Qesser told the Face:
When you’re a prisoner for your cause, there’s an added layer of grief to your entire experience of imprisonment. A genocide rages on and all we can do is sit in our cells and watch.
She spoke about the moment that police burst into her home to arrest her:
I still think about the moment they burst into my room tasked with catching a terrorist and saw this 19-year-old girl in her spinny chair. I wonder if they thought at that moment, ‘we’re doing something wrong.’
Another of the hunger strikers is Kamran Ahmed, 27. Describing his first night in prison, he said:
You know when you’re younger and you go on a school trip? You’re on the coach back to school and you suddenly feel a bit empty. You just wanna be home.
However, he also spoke to the Face about trying to accept his situation:
Islam teaches you patience. I’m here now, innit. Only God knows what’s good for you. You might actually hate something, but God loves it. You might love something, but God hates it. This situation – I might come out with a lot more than I’ve lost.
Now, the hunger strike has entered its second month for many of the protesters. At this critical stage, many of the body’s functions begin to shut down. Responding to reports of the worsening condition of members of the Filton 24, Kerry Moscogiuri — Amnesty International’s director of campaigns and communications — said:
Amnesty International is seriously concerned at reports of the worsening condition of members of the Filton 24 who are on hunger strike. Amnesty has consistently opposed the use of anti-terrorism powers in these cases. They have been used to justify excessively lengthy pre-trial detention and draconian prison conditions.
The UK’s anti-terrorism laws are excessively broad and open to misuse, as has been demonstrated in the Filton 24 case where prosecutors have sought to escalate ordinary criminal prosecutions of direct-action protesters into terrorism cases. The use of terrorism laws to circumvent due process and impose harsher punishments on direct action protesters is a threat to expression and assembly rights for everyone.
Prosecutors must drop the allegations of a ‘terrorism connection’ in these cases and end any excessively lengthy pre-trial detention.
The Filton 24’s offences were non-violent. They harmed nobody, and destroyed weapons that were destined for use in carrying out genocide.
We in the UK have watched as our freedoms erode before our eyes. Non-violent protest is our right as citizens. Beyond that, resisting complicity in genocide is not just a but a duty.
The fact that the Kamran, Qesser and their compatriots are being held without trial, and with even basic rights denied to them, is nothing short of an utter failure of the UK as a state.
Featured image via Progressive International
By The Canary
This post was originally published on Canary.