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Category: Protest

  • 40 years on, an astonishing new archive documents the Battle of the Beanfield

    1 June 2025 sees the 40th anniversary of the ‘Battle of the Beanfield’ – one of the darkest days in contemporary British history, when a convoy of 150 vehicles heading to the people’s free festival at Stonehenge was ambushed in a quiet corner of Wiltshire, contained in a field for several hours, and then brutally attacked by over 1,000 riot police.

    Remembering the Battle of the Beanfield 40 years on

    Traveller homes were systematically wrecked, and most of the over 500 people present were assaulted, many with blows to the head, and arrested. It was the largest mass arrest in British legal history. One young mother carrying her baby, was dragged out of her home by her hair. Some of the police, clearly intent on causing serious damage to both people and homes, were masked up to protect their anonymity. Many didn’t wear numbers. Traumatised children were taken into care, and in some cases held for a few days. Seven dogs were put down.

    ITN were on the field and filmed what its journalist, Kim Sabido, would later describe in a piece to camera as:

    the worst police treatment of people that I’ve witnessed in my entire career as journalist.

    Additionally, Observer journalist Nick Davies described an attack on one particular bus:

    They just crawled all over that vehicle truncheons flailing, hitting anyone they could reach. It was very violent and very sickening. And it was at that point that my photographer, who was trying to take pictures of it, got arrested, and I myself got threatened and told to leave.

    Battle of the Beanfield
    Copyright Ben Gibson
    Copyright Ben Gibson

    The event became known as the ‘Battle of the Beanfield’, although it was more like a massacre: the Thatcher government’s final solution to the traveller ‘issue’. Like the miners, the travellers were portrayed as an ‘enemy within’, anathema to everything Thatcherism stood for. It was estimated that at the time of the Beanfield there were some 12,000 travellers living on the road throughout the UK. And the numbers were steadily growing, taking advantage of the thriving free festival circuit throughout the UK at the time.

    The Peace Convoy at Nostell Priory: a taste of the violent repression to come

    Moreover, also like the miners, Thatcher used an increasingly para-militarised police force to smash the Peace Convoy. Travellers in Yorkshire reported seeing a coach load of riot police heading to the picket line, holding up a sign saying, “YOU’RE NEXT”. In August 1984, police at the Nostell Priory festival in Wakefield, Yorkshire, just a few miles down the road from Orgreave, gave people a taste of things to come. Police assaulted them, held them in custody, and systematically wrecked their homes.

    Thatcher herself eventually said that she was:

    only too delighted to do anything we can to make life difficult for such things as hippy convoys.

    As traveller Mo Lodge told us:

    Stonehenge was just an excuse. The real reason was the threat to the State. The numbers of people at Stonehenge was doubling every year for four years. Well, that was a huge number of people that were suddenly flocking into buses or whatever and living on the road. It was anarchy in action and it was working, and it was seen to be working by so many people that they wanted to be a part of it.

    Five years later, 26 people sued the Wiltshire Police for damages at Winchester Crown Court, in what became known as the ‘Beanfield Trial’. It was the closest anyone came to a public inquiry. As film students, we went down to cover it.

    Everyone we hoped to interview appeared at that trial, such as the Earl of Cardigan, who witnessed a heavily pregnant woman with “a silhouette like a zeppelin” being “clubbed with a truncheon”. ITN journalist Kim Sabido was also there, and told the court that, ‘the nastier more controversial shots that were taken’ disappeared from the ITN library.

    So, the Battle of the Beanfield trial revealed every piece of video and photographic evidence we might need, the official police report, and their radio log. It would all go into the final documentary ‘Operation Solstice’, broadcast by Channel 4 in November 1991, despite the police’s best efforts to get it pulled. We had had to condense 20 plus hours of rushes down to a meagre 26-minute slot.

    So, we ended up with this sizeable archive, mostly unseen, on an array of now defunct video formats, each potentially threatened by dust, heat, and moisture. And it had lain for 33 summers and winters in a mum’s loft. Until now.

    Dale Vince at the Beanfield

    We had learnt that Dale Vince, the CEO of Ecotricity, social commentator, and one-time backer of Just Stop Oil, was on the Beanfield.

    He had been a motorcycle outrider on the trip down to Stonehenge, passing messages up and down the line, discovering the police’s sneaky roadblock trap up ahead, for which he got a mention in the police radio log:

    we have a motorcycle outrider now approaching, if he gets anywhere near our ground unit they suggest they may attempt to take him out.

    We asked him to help fund the saving of this archive, which he did, and he also agreed to do an interview.

    So, I have spent the past four months going through and editing the interviews, conducted just five or six years after the Beanfield. These were therefore some very fresh recollections. I have brought out the best of each story, really getting under the skin of what happened and why, and placing it all on a website in time for the 40th anniversary. Alongside this, with access to all the rushes again, I reedited ‘Operation Solstice’, so that it explains and contains a lot more.

    The Battle of the Beanfield to today: an increasingly authoritarian police state

    One of the lasting legacies of the Battle of the Beanfield, and subsequent police operations surrounding travellers and the summer solstice, would be to tighten an increasingly authoritarian police state belt. In 1986, ushered in on a wave of news-managed moral panic, it was the Public Order Act. Supposedly the government aimed it at a minority, but, as with every legal knee jerk since, it bound everyone. In one section, it limits the number of vehicles that could park up together to twelve – because they really didn’t like people meeting up.

    This would soon become six thanks to the Criminal Justice Act 1994, another tightened notch, only this time with two new convenient groups – ravers and road protestors – in the crosshairs. More recently, we’ve seen anti-protest laws, controlling everybody, not just Just Stop Oil. None of these increasingly draconian police powers get repealed, you notice. They just get built upon.

    In the coming weeks there will be a screening and exhibition at Glastonbury, and highly likely a gathering at the site itself on 1 June, as there is pretty much every year. This will be hosted at Parkhouse Roundabout, Wiltshire, where someone has placed on one of the fence posts a commemorative plaque. It says:

    This marks the spot of THE BATTLE OF THE BEANFIELD June 1st 1985.

    An inscription adds:

    You can’t kill the spirit.

    And despite their best efforts, after nearly 40 years of the Public Order Act 1986, with hundreds of people now taking up van life in laybys, carparks, and in fields all over the country, they still clearly haven’t. Because no matter how hard they push down with that thumb, the spirit, like water, will always find a way:

    Battle of the Bean field
    Copyright Alan Lodge

    Featured image via Ben Gibson and additional images via Ben Gibson and Alan Lodge

    By Neil Goodwin

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Palestine Action Scotland hit another company complicit with Israel’s genocide

    An autonomous group acting under the banner of Palestine Action Scotland targeted another contractor complicit in the arms supply chain to genocidal Israel.

    Company supplying services to arms company Leonardo gets the Palestine Action Scotland treatment

    Early on 25 May, activists damaged the front facade of the facility housing Castle Precision Engineering in Glasgow Southside.

    They used the group’s signature red paint symbolising complicity, spraying it extensively across the exterior of the building:

    The group said they targeted the facility because it is a link in the supply chain of Scottish companies supplying arms parts to Israel:

    Palestine Action

    A spokesperson for Palestine Action Scotland stated:

    Israel’s overt goal of exterminating and displacing Palestinian life is made possible by facilities like this one. Vital parts are distributed to assembly lines in Scotland to make the planes, drones and weapons that are slaughtering children as you read this.

    Castle Precision Engineering: contracting for genocide

    Castle Precision Engineering works directly with Leonardo, one of the worlds largest arms manufacturers. Leonardo has close ties to the Israeli State and to the Israeli-based Elbit Systems, a major supplier of the Israeli Army. Its Edinburgh site manufactures the laser-targeting systems for F-35 fighter jets. Israel has used the model to bomb Gaza.

    Arms manufacturers such as Leonardo require a network of contractors to function.

    The spokesperson further stated:

    By targeting one of their suppliers, Castle Precision Engineering, we are directly responding to calls from Palestine to disrupt the chain of arms from Scotland to Israel.

    We’re ordinary local residents taking direct action against the bloody supply chain enabling Israel’s genocide of Palestinians. Anyone as horrified by the atrocities Israel is committing could do exactly as we have done. As long as complicit companies try to operate from within our communities in Glasgow, they will remain a target.

    The spokesperson continued:

    While our governments attempts to publicly decry Israel’s actions and shift the blame in the face of mounting public and legal pressure, it actively supplies the flow of arms that makes these crimes possible. Marches and petitions are not sufficient. It is our collective responsibility to cut off at its source.

    In July 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) set out clear obligations for UN states. This includes: not supporting Israel’s unlawful acts and the unlawful situation it has created in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and ensuring Israel’s compliance with international humanitarian law, or the laws of war.

    Featured image

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Jury quashes charges for three Palestine Action activists – but a judge overrules them

    After a two-week trial, a jury at Bradford Crown Court has acquitted members of the Bradford 4 Palestine Action activists of trumped-up burglary charges. However, due to the judge ruling out all legal defences, activists have still left the court with convictions for ‘criminal damage’.

    Palestine Action Bradford 4: Teledyne weapons factory shut down on Nakba Day 2024

    Activists had occupied the roof of the Teledyne weapons factory at Shipley near Bradford, on 15 May 2024 for several hours. They timed to action to commemorate Nakba Day. The group successfully scaled the roof of the weapons plant, and painted it with anti-Genocide slogans, breaking windows, and causing damage to the structure, including making a hole in the roof. The cost of damage to the factory, which they successfully shut down for the day, was put at £60,000.

    The court began the trial a year after the action.

    Activists have repeatedly targeted Teledyne because the company manufactures components that the Israeli military have used to genocidal effect against the Palestinian population of Gaza. Teledyne is known to have made shipments to Israel in November and December 2023. The company has received 28 weapons export licenses to Israel since 2021.

    Products that Teledyne has manufactured include filters for Israeli-user missiles AGM-Harpoon, AIM 120 AMRAAM, and AGM-114 Hellfire missiles. They also produce components for Israel’s killer drone fleet, and for F35 jets. A Teledyne manager testified that it was “probable” the Israeli military were using Teledyne components in Gaza. However, he caveated this, saying that exports to Israel represented only 5% of Teledyne’s total.

    Activists acquitted for burglary, but convicted for criminal damage

    The jury acquitted three of the Palestine Action Bradford 4 activists of burglary, but convicted them of criminal damage. They convicted a fourth activist named Ricky on both counts.

    Describing herself as a “Proud Bradfordian”, Serena Fenton was the first of the activists to give evidence. She told the Jury:

    It’s terrifying to think that export licenses are being granted to export these missiles right here in Bradford.

    Next to give evidence was Francesca Nadin, who refused to accept that they had broken the law by stopping production at Teledyne. She told the court:

    Innocent people are being murdered every day, and that is thanks, in part, to the components made by Teledyne.

    The final Defendant was Amareen, who stated in court that:

    When the state fails to uphold international law, when the regulatory bodies look away, what are ordinary people supposed to do?

    After the jury had heard all the evidence however, Judge Smith ruled out all defences in the case. These included defences like Necessity, Prevention of Intentional Cruelty, Preventing Crime Abroad, and Consent. Because of this, the defendants took a collective decision to discharge three of the four barristers.

    Instead, they decided to address the jury themselves. By the time the court reached a verdict on Thursday, Israel had already killed 51 Palestinians in Gaza on that day
    alone.

    A spokesperson for Palestine Action stated:

    The Bradford Four risked their liberties to attempt to prevent the flow of arms and the facilitation of genocide. Despite being stripped of these defences by the judge, they know that those aiding and abetting the massacres in Gaza should have been the ones in the dock. As the government continues to make record arms sales to Israel, direct action remains a necessary tool to resist this complicity.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By The Canary

  • Another four Just Stop Oil activists jailed as the UK justice system proves its complicity in the climate crisis

    Four Just Stop Oil supporters have been sentenced in relation to an attempted action at Manchester Airport in August 2024. The four took action as part of the ‘Oil Kills’ international uprising, which occurred across 31 airports around the world, in order to demand a fossil fuel treaty to end the extraction and burning of oil, gas and coal by 2030.

    Just Stop Oil sees four more supporters locked up

    Daniel Knorr (23), Margaret Reid (54), Indigo Rumbelow (31) and Ella Ward (22) appeared before Judge MacAdam this morning at Manchester Crown Court on Minshull Street. Indigo Rumbelow received a 30 month custodial sentence. Daniel Knorr received a 24 month custodial sentence. Ella Ward and Margaret Reid each received an 18 month custodial sentence. Each were ordered to pay £2000 in costs.

    As they were sentenced, some of the defendants shouted, ‘billions will die without action, this court is complicit!’

    In February, all four Just Stop Oil defendants were found guilty by majority verdict of ‘conspiracy to commit a public nuisance’. They were arrested in the early hours of 5 August 2024, as they left a BnB in Gatley Close to head to Manchester Airport.

    They have been held on remand since that time, briefly being granted bail during the duration of the trial, however were immediately sent back to prison at the end of proceedings.

    During the trial, the defendants freely admitted planning to access the airport via the perimeter fence and then, if possible, three would glue on to the taxiway. They made the case that they were seeking to prevent harm and inform the public of the huge risks now unfolding due to the collapsing climate.

    During the course of proceedings, Judge MacAdam stated that he was ‘neutral’ on the topic of climate breakdown, elaborating that he ‘didn’t have time’ to read scientific reports on the topic, despite overseeing a climate trial.

    “Billions will suffer and die”

    One of those sentenced this morning was Daniel Knorr, who prior to sentencing said:

    Since my imprisonment began, things have continued to get worse. The world still sleepwalks towards hell. Current estimates tell us the world will reach three degrees of warming. This means abject terror for ordinary people, it means billions made refugees and billions killed. It means hundreds more floods like storm Daniel, where over 10,000 people were washed out to sea.

    People are taking action because they are terrified of what rising temperatures and food shortages will mean for them and for their kids. So as long as the climate crisis keeps getting worse, people will keep taking action, prison or not.

    Prior to sentencing Just Stop Oil supporter Ella Ward said:

    I’m not worried about my sentence, I’m worried about living in a world where crop failure means I can’t put food on the table. I’m worried about living in a world where billions suffer and die for a small number of rich people to get richer. I acted because doing nothing is unthinkable and because the science is clear. We have no other option: we have to just stop oil.

    Also speaking before sentencing Indigo said:

    Each day I have sat in prison, the ice melts faster, the fires burn wilder and the extinction rate climbs steeper. If the courts want law and order they need to start prosecuting those who extract and burn oil and gas while knowing that it will lead to the deaths of billions of people.

    Reading from her mitigation statement Margaret said:

    I am here because I don’t want to sit back and watch billions of people suffer and die.

    I will accept whatever conditions the court imposes on me… but it breaks my heart that whatever sentence you impose will make no difference at all to the existential threat that is hanging over every single one of us in this court, and over everyone we love.

    Outrageous treatment of Just Stop Oil

    Commenting ahead of the sentencing, Tzeporah Berman, Chair of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative said:

    The citizens standing up to raise awareness of how fossil fuels are causing lethal heat waves, floods and droughts and threatening our children and our health are not criminals – history will remember them as heroes. Our laws have been distorted by the wealth and influence of the oil and gas companies that continue to call the shots to protect their obscene profits over the public good.

    Calum Macintyre, 32, from Folk Mot Fossilmakta, who also joined the campaign last summer said:

    I took action as part of the Oil Kills campaign last summer in Norway. We broke through the fence at Oslo airport and glued ourselves to the taxiway. Afterwards the police took our details and drove us to the train station in order to get home. No night in the cells, no months on remand, no threat of years long prison sentences. Two of us have just been to court and were fined.

    Compared to the treatment of our friends in the UK – many of whom have been sitting on remand since last summer – the difference could not be more stark. It is terrifying to see the erosion of people’s civil liberties in the UK.

    In 2024 Just Stop Oil successfully won its original demand of ‘no new oil and gas’ and on 27 March 2025 announced an end to the campaign of action. However, its supporters will, the group says, “continue to tell the truth in court, to speak out for our political prisoners and to help build what comes next”.

    During the group’s three-year history Just Stop Oil supporters have been arrested 3,300 times and imprisoned 180 times, for having broken laws that were drafted by the fossil fuel industry.

    After today’s sentencing there will be seven people in prison as a result of taking action with Just Stop Oil.

    Featured image supplied

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Rally outside Scotland Yard calls on police to “stop harassing” anti-genocide protesters

    A rally took place outside the headquarters of the Metropolitan Police in London on 21 May to “defend the right to protest”. Protesters, including Jeremy Corbyn, took to Scotland Yard to call for an end to police persecution of people who oppose Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

    Corbyn, Nineham under “a serious and deeply political attack”

    Stop the War Coalition co-founder and vice chair Chris Nineham insisted at the protest that:

    This movement has faced unprecedented harassment from the police from the start. Every single one of our national marches has had control orders placed on it – something never seen on peaceful protests before.

    He added that:

    Journalists have had their homes raided in the morning. Young activists are languishing in prison for the crime of putting graffiti on arms factories. And on January the 18th, in a major escalation, as you know myself and Ben Jamal and 13 other leading figures in the movement were arrested, charged, or have been called in for police interview.

    And he stressed:

    We should be under no doubt. This is a serious and deeply political attack on the right to protest and on free expression in this country. It constitutes a real moment of danger for anyone who dissents to the direction the government is trying to take this country in. And it is essential that we respond.

    Jeremy Corbyn was present at the rally. And signs in the crowd included ones saying “Jews against ethnic cleansing”, “Jews against the occupation”, and calling for the UK to expel its highly controversial Israeli ambassador Tzipi Hotovely:

    Emergency protest at Downing Street on Friday 23 May

    An emergency protest, meanwhile, will take place outside Downing Street to call on the government to go beyond words and finally stop all arms sales to Israel.

    https://xtwitter.com/STWuk/status/1925197435980087771

    This follows a slight increase of Labour’s criticism of Israel as its ongoing blockade of Gaza threatens the lives of thousands of babies in the occupied territory.

    Featured image via screengrab

    By Ed Sykes

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Unpaid Chinese workers protest over unpaid wages as economic woes persist

    Protests by Chinese construction workers, teachers, and factory employees demanding unpaid wages have erupted across China in recent days amid rising public anger over the impacts of tightening local government finances, according to affected workers and videos posted on social media.

    From China’s northern province of Hebei to the southern autonomous region of Guanxi, bordering Vietnam, and its neighboring coastal province of Guangdong to the east – Chinese workers are facing the full impact of cash-strapped institutions grasping for ways to survive the economic downturn.

    In an example of measures by local governments to raise funds, the village committee of Pingtang in Gushan Town, in the eastern province of Zhejiang, issued a notice stating that “sanitation management fees” and “parking fees” would be collected from all residents from May 10.

    Those failing to pay on time would be subjected to additional fees and vehicles being clamped, starting from June 1. Speaking to Radio Free Asia, some locals and rights activists called the move a “blatant extortion” and “illegal.” The local government said it was investigating the matter.

    Last November, China’s Ministry of Finance announced 10 trillion yuan (US$1.38 trillion) of new measures to help cash-strapped local governments struggling with mounting debt levels spurred by a property market slump that has crushed land transaction sales, one of their main sources of fiscal revenue.

    “High local debt and tightening central policies have seriously affected grassroots fiscal operations. The most direct victims are front-line workers and contract workers,” Zhang, a retired teacher from Guizhou University in Guizhou province’s Guiyang city, told RFA. He wanted to be identified by a single name for security reasons.

    On May 19, workers of the No. 10 section of the Yangxin expressway civil engineering project under China Railway Seventh Group Co. Ltd. gathered in front of the Branch of the Management Department and demanded they be paid their back wages, according to a video posted by a prominent citizen journalist who manages the X account @whyyoutouzhele, also known as “Mr Li is not your teacher.”

    “We live in a boarding house and wait every day. They have said several times that they will pay our wages, but they didn’t even give a date,” said one worker in the video posted on X.

    In Nanning city in Guangxi, 32 construction workers have been camped outside Guangxi Power Transmission and Transformation Construction Co., Ltd. since May 16, demanding their wages.

    A video posted by X user ‘@YesterdayBigCat,’ a prominent source of information about protests in China, showed the protestors making a fire and cooking meals in large woks at the entrance of the company, suggesting they were in it for the long haul.

    “Our work is hard and tiring … but our money has been delayed. Some workers have sick family members and are urgently waiting for money to save their lives,” one worker, who was among the protesters at a project site of China Communications Construction Group in Hebei province’s capital Shijiazhuang, told RFA.

    On May 18, the protesters held up banners to demand the long-term wage arrears due to them. The same worker told RFA that the company had repeatedly promised to pay them their wages but has failed to do so.

    Workers at the Qianlima Embroidery Factory in Haimen city in the coastal province of Jiangsu resorted to protesting outside their boss’s home for two consecutive days this week, but still haven’t been paid, according to a video posted by @YesterdayBigCat.

    Stability unraveling?

    While worker protests and labor disputes are not uncommon in China, social media posts point to an uptick in protests among sectors such as education, healthcare and sanitation.

    This adds to broader dissatisfaction with the economic situation. Retail sales growth and industrial production slowed in April. U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods took effect in March and increased to 145% in April, weighing on shipments and export activity. Respite came in May, after the two governments agreed to a sharp tariff reduction for 90 days to allow time for talks.

    Fu Linghui, a spokesperson for the National Bureau of Statistics said this week that the reduction in tariffs between China and the U.S. will be beneficial for bilateral trade and the global economy. He said despite external uncertainties, the “fundamental aspects of China’s improving economy remain unchanged.”

    But the foundation for a sustained economic recovery needs to be “further consolidated” in China with the implementation of various macro policies, Fu said.

    “They (the protesters) are the most vulnerable group,” said Zhang, the retired teacher. “Once they speak out, they will be suppressed as ‘troublemakers’, but in fact they just want to survive.”

    “In the past, it was migrant workers and laborers who demanded wages, but now it is teachers, doctors, and sanitation workers. This shows that China’s ‘stable structure’ is beginning to unravel,” he said.

    Several teachers who were employed on a contractual basis in Zaozhuang prefecture-level city in the southern Chinese province of Shandong said their salaries were six months in arrears.

    “Our monthly salary is only around 3,000 yuan (or $416), and we have been living on borrowed money for the past six months,” one primary school teacher said.

    Another teacher in Shanxi province in northern China said her school was demanding the return of year-end bonuses previously paid out to staff since 2021, along with a part of the pay they received for after-school activities.

    These moves have caused widespread dissatisfaction, the teacher said in a post on social networking platform Xiaohongshu, known as RedNote.

    Healthcare and sanitation workers face similar issues.

    A nurse at a public hospital in northwestern Gansu province said her monthly salary is only 1,300 yuan (or US$180) and that her performance bonus had not been paid for four months.

    Edited by Tenzin Pema and Mat Pennington.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Qian Lang for RFA Mandarin.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • King’s College Cambridge divests from arms and apartheid after major student campaign

    King’s College, Cambridge has become the first Oxbridge institution to commit to wholly divest millions from the arms industry as well as companies complicit in the illegal occupation of Palestine by the end of the calendar year.

    King’s College Cambridge: finally divesting

    The announcement was made in an email to all students by Provost Dr Gillian Tett after a vote by the Governing Body last night. It follows almost a year of sustained campaigning from student activist group King’s Cambridge 4 Palestine (KC4P), alongside the broader Palestinian solidarity movement.

    The college has voted to adopt a “responsible investment” policy which excludes companies involved in activities that are “generally recognised as illegal… such as occupation” and production of military weapons. The college has committed to implementing these changes in their investment portfolio this year.

    While this announcement has come far too late for the tens of thousands of Palestinians who have already been murdered by the Israeli state, KC4P has welcomed the commitment to divestment and hope that this sets a precedent for educational institutions globally. They stand in solidarity with the Cambridge for Palestine coalition and urge Cambridge University to follow the example now set by one of its most renowned colleges.

    King’s Cambridge 4 Palestine said:

    Israel has destroyed every university in Gaza; instead of investing in this destruction, our university should be supporting the rebuild of Gaza’s decimated education system.

    At present, King’s College is the first Oxbridge institution to bring its investments in line with international law and recognise the barbarity of Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people. This barbarity is enabled and enacted by companies such as BAE Systems and Lockheed Martin, two of the companies in which King’s will no longer invest. However, KC4P expects the college to also apply these principles to the speakers and companies they choose to platform and affiliate themselves with, beyond addressing their financial ties.

    Israel’s current escalations in Gaza are beyond horrifying. No aid has entered Gaza in almost three months, with this blockade enforcing widespread famine with starvation being used as a weapon of genocide. King’s College’s decision must trigger global condemnation of Israel’s actions against the Palestinian people. KC4P stands with the Palestinian people in their fight for liberation.

    A “massive victory”

    Stella Swain, Youth and Student Officer at the Palestine Solidarity Campaign said:

    This is a massive victory, and speaks to the incredible power and commitment of student campaigning, at King’s College and across the country.

    If King’s College, at the heart of Cambridge, can finally listen to its students and divest from the arms industry and companies complicit in the illegal occupation of Palestine, then every university can act to ensure they are on the right side of history.

    We are almost 20 months into a genocide, people in Gaza are starving: there is no excuse for our universities to be investing in war crimes. PSC research has found that UK universities collectively invest nearly £460 million in companies complicit in Israel’s genocide, military occupation and apartheid. But more and more universities are listening to their students and cutting all investments, proving that universities can stand up for justice for Palestine.

    Featured image supplied

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Mother of jailed British-Egyptian activist resumes full hunger strike

    Laila Soueif announces life-endangering action in protest over continued detention of Alaa Abd el-Fattah in Cairo

    The mother of the imprisoned British-Egyptian human rights activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah has announced she has resumed a near-total hunger strike, stopping taking the 300-calorie supplements she had been consuming on her partial hunger strike for the past three months.

    Since the start of her hunger strike 233 days ago, Laila Soueif, 69, has lost 36kg, about 42% of her original body weight, and now weighs 49kg. She is taking the life-endangering step in protest at the continued detention of her son in Cairo beyond his five-year sentence.

    Continue reading…

    This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

  • A new podcast asks: Are ‘radical’ climate activists really that radical?

    In October 2022, two protesters with the group Just Stop Oil shocked the world by tossing tomato soup at Vincent van Gogh’s iconic “Sunflowers” in London’s National Gallery. “Are you more concerned about the protection of a painting or the protection of our planet and people?” said one of them, Phoebe Plummer, moments after the two soup-throwers glued their hands to the wall.

    The painting, safely behind glass, was unharmed. But the soup-throwers were ridiculed. Piers Morgan, the British media personality, called it an act of “childish, petty, pathetic vandalism.” Journalists and scientists warned that stunts like this would alienate people and undermine support for climate action. Just Stop Oil, however, didn’t change course. They spray-painted Stonehenge with orange powder, zip-tied themselves to soccer goalposts, and blocked rush-hour traffic in London, with hundreds getting arrested.

    A new podcast series digs into what drove these activists to pull these shocking stunts — and whether they actually work. In 2023, Alessandra Ram and Samantha Oltman, two journalists who met at Wired over a decade ago, quit their jobs to investigate every aspect of this story, from the street blockades and court drama to the money trail that supports disruptive climate activism. After they gained trust with activists, they embedded with Just Stop Oil, at one point observing how its members get trained for police confrontations (they “go floppy,” with their limp weight making it harder to get dragged out of the street). The podcast, “Sabotage,” landed in Apple’s top 40 podcasts and just wrapped up with its series finale last week. 

    “Sabotage” raises a key question: Are “radical” climate activists really that radical? After all, the suffragettes actually slashed famous paintings, and “Sunflowers,” despite all the uproar over the soup incident, still sits untarnished in the National Gallery. All kinds of people have gotten arrested in order to bring attention to climate change, as the podcast documents, including climate scientists and a doctor motivated by how a warmer world spreads infectious diseases. If you take a clear-eyed look at what climate change means for life on this planet, Ram and Oltman ask, what’s the sane thing to do? 

    The pair launched their production company, Good Luck Media, to “tell stories you won’t be able to stop talking about” — ones that just happen to concern climate change. As they developed the podcast, they used a litmus test to see if a particular story was worth telling: If they shared it while getting a haircut, would the stylist be into it?

    Ram and Oltman stand beside “Sunflowers” at the National Gallery in London.
    Andy Fallon for Good Luck Media

    Their podcast goes in unexpected directions — one episode follows a love story disrupted by a prison sentence, while others explore the wealthy heirs, like Aileen Getty of the Getty oil fortune, who are giving their inheritance away to controversial climate activist groups. The podcast was co-produced by Adam McKay (the director of Don’t Look Up and Succession) and Staci Roberts-Steele of Yellow Dot Studios.

    Convincing Just Stop Oil activists to talk wasn’t easy. “There are so many misconceptions around this group, even though they have been, especially in the U.K., covered all the time,” Ram said. “People really just like to troll them.” The journalists slowly gained trust by approaching interviews with curiosity instead of judgment. 

    “What we found really fascinating as we embedded with them was understanding they’re incredibly strategic, despite how almost goofy some of their stunts are,” Oltman said. The soup-throwing protest in London’s National Gallery, for instance, was critiqued as nonsensical — what does attacking art have to do with climate change? — but it turns out that the absurdity was the point. Recent research by the Social Change Lab in London shows that Just Stop Oil’s illogical protests get more media attention than those with a clear rationale and also lead to an increase in donations. It’s part of a growing body of research that shows climate protests achieve results, even unpopular ones.

    Just Stop Oil’s stunts appeared to work. Just two and a half years after the infamous soup-launching — and despite the United Kingdom cracking down on peaceful protests with years-long jail sentences and raiding activists’ homes — Just Stop Oil has already achieved its central goal. This spring, the U.K. confirmed it was banning new drilling licenses for oil and gas. Just Stop Oil announced in March that it would be “hanging up the hi vis,” boasting that its movement kept 4.4 billion barrels of oil in the ground and was “one of the most successful civil resistance campaigns in recent history.” Hundreds of protesters marched through Westminster at the end of April for the group’s final action — though there’s been plenty of speculation that their disruptive stunts will continue under a new name.

    A crowd of people march in a road, holding a sign saying "resistance works"
    Just Stop Oil activists march on Waterloo Bridge in London as they staged their final protest on April 26. Vuk Valcic / SOPA Images / LightRocket via Getty Images

    Given Just Stop Oil’s over-the-top actions, you might expect the activists to have big personalities. But Ram and Oltman found that many of the protesters they met were shy, quiet, and anxious. “I was startled by the gulf between who these people seemed to be in their actual personality and the risks they were willing to take, particularly in the public shame and outrage front, to try to move the needle on climate change,” Oltman said. 

    “Sabotage” paints their stories with nuance, managing to avoid the usual media caricatures to reveal the real people behind the movement through small, vivid details. The infamous soup-throwers, for instance? The night before their demonstration, they practiced the Campbell’s toss in a tiny bathroom, making a mess as they hurled tomato soup at the glass in the shower.

    “I haven’t been acting in a radical way by joining Just Stop Oil,” Anna Holland, one of the soup-throwers, says in the podcast. “We’re facing the extinction of everything we know and love. And the only radical thing a person could be doing right now is ignoring it.”

    This story was originally published by Grist with the headline A new podcast asks: Are ‘radical’ climate activists really that radical? on May 20, 2025.

    This post was originally published on Grist.

  • Palestine Action just grounded a US military plane supplying arms to Israel

    On Saturday 17 May, three Palestine Action activists breached the runway at Ireland’s Shannon Airport, and sprayed a US military aircraft with red paint. One of the women held an Irish flag reading “US MILITARY OUT OF NEUTRAL IRELAND” in front of the war-plane, before authorities apprehended them.

    Palestine Action Éire disrupt the US military industrial complex at Shannon Airport

    Palestine Action Éire coordinated the action, in which activists rendered the plane inoperable with red paint across the cockpit windows:

    The three activists allege that the a plane that landed at Shannon Airport is supplying troops and munitions to active warzones in the Middle East. This includes Israel and Yemen. They claim that this is in direct violation of Ireland’s constitutional commitment to neutrality, and in breach of international law.

    The war-plane that they targeted is N351ax calling CMB564. It refuelled at Shannon on 15 May, and flew on to Kuwait. Then, it proceeded to US and British occupied Diego Garcia Islands in the Indian ocean on 16 May. It returned to Shannon on 17 May, with a refuelling stop at Kuwait.

    The same week as Nakba Day

    Activists carried out the action the week in which Palestinians marked Nakba Day on 15 May. Dhikra an-Nakba remembers the violent, permanent displacement of the Palestinian people from their lands and communities. In the 1948 Nakba (meaning “the catastrophe”), Zionist paramilitaries and, later, the Israeli military violently expelled over 700,000 Palestinians from their homeland.

    Since October 2023, Israel has massively escalated its campaign against Palestinians, especially in Gaza. It has resumed its mass-killing of Palestinian civilians since the breakdown of the ceasefire on the 18 March, 2025.

    A recent ruling from the International Court of Justice (ICJ), as well as a recent report by Amnesty International, concluded that it is plausible that a genocide is taking place against the Palestinian people. One of the markers of genocide used in the ICJ ruling is the deliberate starvation of civilians. In June 2024 the Lancet estimated that Israel has killed over 186,000 civilians in Palestine since October 2023. Since the breakdown of the ceasefire on the 18 March, Israel has blocked all humanitarian aid to Gaza. Many humanitarian organisations on the ground are now reporting that if the international community does not act urgently and demand that Israel stop halting aid from entering Gaza, widespread famine will soon break out, due to shortages of food and water.

    Arms destined for Israel going through Irish airports

    The three women’s claims are contextualised by the Ditch’s investigative reporting.

    The outlet confirmed that US weapons and military personnel regularly travel though Shannon Airport to the Middle East, including directly to Israel. This is in direct breach of Ireland’s constitutional commitment to neutrality, which specifies that Ireland shall not participate in any war. Additionally, they demand that the Department of Foreign Affairs stops permitting flights carrying weapons and military equipment through Irish Airspace. They argue this is another flagrant breach of Neutrality and the ICJ ruling.

    According to the Irish Examiner, in 2024 alone, the Irish government permitted 1,267 times. A recent opinion poll in the Irish Examiner showed that 75% of Irish people across the political spectrum support Ireland’s position of neutrality. The Irish government is thereby acting against the will of the people of Ireland.

    Edward Horgan, who has spent decades documenting activity with ShannonWatch, confirmed that:

    the number of US Military planes coming through Shannon has increased significantly in the last few months as the killing and destruction on the ground in Palestine has ramped up.

    The women who took action today join the legacy of over 40 activists who have taken action against the US Military at Shannon Airport in the last 20 years. A statement from the three women given to Palestine Action Éire said the following:

    Nothing makes me more cynical than to hear Micheál Martin and Simon Harris feign ignorance of the illegal arms being transported through Shannon by the US Military. It’s insulting – verified reports conclude these arms are destined for Israel for the purpose of genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people.

    Featured image via screengrab

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Amazon is selling books saying bleach enemas can ‘cure’ autistic people – so, a protest will call them out

    Amazon is once again at the centre of controversy – this time for selling a book that promotes a pseudoscientific and abusive “treatment” for autism involving bleach enemas. A petition on change.org from Autistic Inclusive Meets (AIM) is calling on the company to remove the book from its marketplace, and the outcry is more than justified.

    It is shocking that in 2025, we still need to say this: autism is not a disease, it is not something that needs curing, and subjecting children to chemical abuse is both morally indefensible and medically dangerous.

    The pseudoscience of bleach “therapy”

    One of the autism books in question on Amazon, Spectrum Harmony Planner 5 Month Organiser, encourages parents to use chlorine dioxide—an industrial bleach—as an enema or oral solution to “treat” autism.

    This so-called “Miracle Mineral Solution” (MMS) has been condemned by numerous health authorities, including the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which states that ingesting it can cause “severe vomiting, severe diarrhea, life-threatening low blood pressure caused by dehydration, and acute liver failure.”

    It is horrifying that Amazon, one of the world’s largest and most profitable corporations, continues to sell a book promoting these methods, despite years of warnings and widespread condemnation. By doing so, Amazon not only profits from abuse but also lends legitimacy to pseudoscience that harms autistic children.

    AIM previously managed to get several books taken down.

    But at the core of this controversy lies a fundamental lie about autism.

    Autism is NOT a ‘disease’

    Autism is not a disease (paging Amazon, here). It is a neurodevelopmental condition – a natural variation in how people think, perceive, and interact with the world. It is not a disease, nor a tragedy, nor something that needs to be “fixed.” In fact, many autistic people are proud of their identity and reject the notion that they should be “cured.”

    Scientific consensus supports this. There is no cure for autism, and importantly, no need for one. The concept of “curing” autism is not only scientifically unfounded but rooted in ableist thinking that views neurodivergency as inherently inferior.

    The majority of autistic people are clear—they do not want to be cured. They need acceptance, support, and accommodations that allow them to thrive on their own terms.

    Trying to “cure” autism sends a harmful message: that autistic people are broken. But they are not. What is broken is a society that refuses to accept difference and a corporation like Amazon that enables dangerous practices for profit.

    Amazon and its ethical failure on autism

    Amazon’s decision to continue selling Rivera’s shocking book on autism is a dereliction of its ethical and moral responsibility.

    It is unconscionable that a company with such immense resources and reach chooses to ignore the pleas of medical professionals and autistic people. However, it is just the tip of the iceberg.

    As Emma Dalmayne from AIM highlights, there are over 30 other books that claim to ‘cure’ autism, or present it as something that needs to be cured:

    @autisticinclusive

    Please come with me to serve my petition to Amazon offices in Shoreditch next Tuesday at 1pm to demand they remove not only Spectrum Harmony Planner but 30 other curist books.

    ♬ original sound – AutisticInclusiveM

    By hosting and profiting from books that promote child abuse, Amazon becomes complicit. So, on Tuesday 20 May at 1pm, AIM and its supporters will deliver their petition to the company’s offices in Shoreditch, London. The Canary will be there supporting them:

     

    View this post on Instagram

     

    A post shared by Nicola Jeffery (@nicolacjeffery)

    If Amazon wants to be seen as a socially responsible company (a challenge regardless of this one story), it must act immediately to remove the book and issue an apology to autistic communities.

    Autism doesn’t need a cure. But Amazon certainly needs a conscience.

    Featured image via screengrab

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • It was Youth Demand who tried to disrupt genocidal Israel’s Eurovision performance

    Three Youth Demand supporters exposed the sham that is Eurovision’s values of supposed “universality”, “inclusivity”, and “celebrating diversity through music”. The song contest platformed contestant Yuval Raphael from Israel – all as the settler colonial state has launched its latest genocidal assault on Palestinians in Gaza. Unsurprisingly, Swiss law enforcement leapt to Raphael’s aid – swiftly detaining the three activists. Needless to say, the contest’s values clearly doesn’t include colonised and illegally occupied peoples outside its white Western Eurocentric ‘vision’.

    Youth Demand at Eurovision: Israel performs as it rains bombs down on Gaza

    At approximately 9:30pm CEST/8:30pm BST, security forcibly removed three Youth Demand supporters from the St Jakobshalle arena in Basel, Switzerland, during Yuval Raphael’s performance of ‘New Day Will Rise’:

     

    View this post on Instagram

     

    A post shared by Humanti Project (@humantiproject)

    Security removing Youth Demand supporter.

    The three were then placed behind a screen outside the venue by security. They remained in detention held by armed police:

    Youth Demand supporters behind a Eurovision screen, guarded by two armed police.

    Polizei car and multiple police in surrounding Youth Demand supporters.

    One of those arrested was David Curry, 22, from Manchester, who said:

    After dropping the equivalent of six Hiroshima’s’ worth of bombs on Gaza, Israel has been blockading all food, water and key medical aid from entering Gaza for over three months now. Israel is being armed and aided by UK and European governments, whilst they murder a child every 45 minutes. To top it off, here we are having a party with them on the biggest stage of them all! Help us resist by signing up at YouthDemand.org.

    Since December 2023, the British army has flown over 500 spy flights over Gaza, raising fears of complicity in Israeli war crimes. It continued these flights during and after the ceasefire, despite Israel’s bombing campaign killing over 17,400 children. Youth Demand highlighted that the genocidal state has killed many more than the 6,500 in the St Jakobshalle arena. The UK government has refused to deny the Israeli F-35 fighter jets bombing Gaza have access to the Akrotiri RAF bases in Cyprus.

    The House of the People: a democratic way forward

    The House of the People highlighted by the action takers is a citizens’ assembly being held in July 2025. Any person in the UK is invited to sign up, with it selecting the 100 participants by a Democratic Lottery. Experts will offer them their advice throughout the process, which will culminate in five concrete proposals for the UK government. Part of the campaign’s demand is for the UK to abolish the House of Lords in favour of a House of the People.

    Swiss police also arrested 27-year-old Meaghan Leon from London. She said:

    I cannot not sit back and watch Europe throw a party with the genocidal state of Israel in attendance, especially after Russia was rightfully kicked out for their aggression towards the Ukrainian people. Do Palestinians not deserve the same consideration?

    We need to end all arms sales to Israel. Across the continent and in the UK, all polls show this is what the people want, yet our leaders ignore us. We need to upgrade our democracies and we need a House of the People.

    Featured image and additional images supplied

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Israel’s Eurovision appearance has turned into a PR disaster for the war criminals

    Israel’s inclusion in the Eurovision song contest has always been controversial. The geographers among you may recognise that Israel isn’t even part of Europe (much like Australia). Beyond that, the nation of Israel has been repressing and murdering the Palestinian people for decades, and as such there’s a movement to boycott their cultural outputs.

    The Israeli government has likely been very happy with its inclusion in Eurovision. Now, however, it looks like the competition is just another area in which they’re suffering one PR nightmare after another:

    The turning tide against Israel – even at Eurovision

    As pictured above, protesters unveiled Palestinian flags during the performance by Israeli singer Yuval Raphael. Protesters also threw paint, as a spokesperson from the hosting Swiss Broadcasting Corporation reported:

    At the end of the Israeli performance, a man and a woman tried to get over a barrier onto the stage.

    They were stopped. One of the two agitators threw paint and a crew member was hit. The crew member is fine and nobody was injured. The man and the woman were taken out of the venue and handed over to the police.

    Raphael, who attended the Nova Festival which was attacked by Hamas in October 2023, sang a ballad titled New Day Will Rise. As those who support the boycott have pointed out, Palestine is facing one new day after another in which more of Gaza is reduced to rubble while Israel carries on as if that’s all normal:

     

    Back to Europe, another PR nightmare for Israel were the broadcasters who used the opportunity to highlight Israel’s ongoing atrocities:

    As the Mirror reported:

    Belgium’s broadcaster VRT appeared to make a U-turn during Saturday evening’s Eurovision final after their choice to air an anti-Israel, pro-Palestine VT during the semi-finals.

    It comes after Spain risked a huge Eurovision fine by displaying a statement ahead before the show, showing a black screen with white text in both Spanish and an English translation about “justice for Palestine”.

    Prior to the final, the Eurovision Broadcasting Union (EBU) had warned Spain’s broadcaster RTVE of “punitive fines” if their commentators repeated references of the Gaza conflict, as they had done during the semi-final on Thursday.

    Another controversy comes from Israel allegedly running targeted ads for its own entry during the official stream – something which is pissing off people who take Eurovision seriously and people who take genocide seriously:

     

    #With Israel’s entry achieving second place, some are also accusing the nation’s far-right supporters of abusing the voting system:

     

    Another point of interest was the accusation that Eurovision obscured the reaction to the Israeli performance:

    This was allegedly confirmed by Irish host Graham Norton:

     

    ‘Children burnt to death in tents’

    Let’s not forget that Israel is generating far worse headlines than those related to Eurovision. The following is the front page of Al Jazeera’s hub for Israel-Palestine news stories:

    As Al Jazeera reported:

    The Israeli military has killed at least 125 Palestinians, including children sleeping in tents, as it unleashed a wave of air strikes across the Gaza Strip in the early hours of Sunday.

    At least 36 people were killed and more than 100 wounded after Israeli warplanes bombed a tent camp sheltering displaced Palestinians in the al-Mawasi area of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, medical sources told Al Jazeera.

    Horrific verified videos from the scene showed many bodies, including some on fire. The dead and wounded were taken to a nearby field hospital and the Nasser Medical Complex.

    At least 125 people were killed on Sunday morning, including 42 in the heavily-bombarded northern parts of Gaza, medical sources told Al Jazeera Arabic. Three journalists were also among the victims.

    The death toll has been rising sharply in the past four days, with hundreds massacred as the Israeli military prepares to significantly intensify its ground invasion of the Palestinian territory despite international criticism.

    The Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement provides a clear argument for why it’s important that the world boycotts Israel’s cultural endeavours:

    Israel overtly uses culture as a form of propaganda to whitewash, or artwash, its genocide in Gaza and underlying regime of settler-colonialism, apartheid, and military occupation over the Indigenous Palestinian people. Israel’s genocide has included a deliberate obliteration of archeological sites and cultural heritage across Gaza.

    Just as South African anti-apartheid movements had called on international artists, writers and cultural institutions to culturally boycott South Africa, the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) urges international cultural workers and cultural organizations, including unions and associations, to boycott and/or work towards the cancellation of events, activities, agreements, or projects involving Israel, its lobby groups or its complicit cultural institutions.

    International venues and festivals are asked to reject funding and any form of sponsorship from the Israeli government or complicit entities. Since Israel’s cultural institutions are implicated in genocide, apartheid and military occupation, international artists and arts organizations have a profound ethical duty to do no harm to the Palestinian struggle by working to end links of complicity with those institutions. Accountability for Israel’s oppression against Palestinians is more urgent than ever.

    Tens of thousands of artists across the world and a rapidly growing number of arts organizations have publicly endorsed the cultural boycott of apartheid Israel.

    Why?

    The case for a cultural boycott of Israel

    Israeli government officials have summed up how Israel instrumentalizes culture to cover up its grave violations of international law. “We are seeing culture as a hasbara [propaganda] tool of the first rank,” one official admitted, “and I do not differentiate between hasbara and culture.”

    Israel’s cultural institutions are part and parcel of the ideological and institutional scaffolding of Israel’s regime of settler-colonialism, apartheid and military occupation against the Palestinian people. These institutions are clearly implicated, through their silence or active participation in supporting, justifying and whitewashing Israel’s systematic oppression and denial of Palestinian rights.

    According to the BDS movement’s Guidelines for the International Cultural Boycott of Israel, in order for Israeli cultural institutions to end their collusion in Israel’s regime of oppression and become non-boycottable, they must fulfill two basic conditions:

    1. Publicly recognize the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people as enshrined in international law (including the three basic rights in the 2005 BDS Call) and
    2. End all forms of complicity in violating Palestinian rights as stipulated in international law,including discriminatory policies and practices as well as diverse roles in whitewashing or justifying Israel’s violations of international law and Palestinian human rights.

    When international artists perform at complicit Israeli cultural venues and institutions or at events sponsored by Israel, its lobby groups or its complicit institutions, they help to create the false impression that apartheid Israel is a “normal” state. The absolute majority of Palestinian writers, artists and cultural centers have endorsed the cultural boycott of Israel, and there is a growing number of anti-colonial Israelis who support BDS, including the cultural boycott of Israel.

    Israel losing the culture war even at Eurovision

    We’re at a point now where Israel has completely destroyed its reputation internationally. While it still enjoys the support of world government’s and institutions, those relationships are increasingly in peril, with even the United States showing some signs that it’s growing tired:

    It’s clear that history will not look kindly on those who turned a blind eye in this moment.

    Hopefully Eurovision will come to understand this and get back to its original mission of spotlighting the worst music that Europe has to offer – not genocidal Israel

    Featured image via Eurovision Song Contest (YouTube) / The Independent (YouTube)

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Mass protest by parents prompts reversal of private school closure in China | Radio Free Asia (RFA)


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Radio Free Asia.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Palestine Action just smashed JP Morgan’s genocidal complicity wide open

    In the early hours of Wednesday 14 May, activists from Palestine Action targeted Edwards Accountants in Birmingham, and JP Morgan at Victoria Embankment in London. The action drew attention to the two companies dripping in complicity with Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

    JP Morgan and Edwards Accounting get the Palestine Action treatment

    Activists covered both firms were covered in red paint. The dripping paint splatters were symbolic of the companies’ bloodstained complicity in Israel’s ongoing genocide:

    Pillars and entrance to JP Morgan spattered with red paint.

    Red paint dripping down a window.

    They also completely shattered the front glass doors of JP Morgan:

    JP Morgan front doors completely shattered with glass everywhere.

    Activists sprayed messages to Edwards Accountants across its walls:

    Red graffiti reading: "Accounting for Apartheid"

    Red graffiti on the floor that reads: "Edwards is guilty"

    Financiers and accountants complicit in genocide

    Both firms directly enable the operations of Israel’s biggest weapons producer, Elbit Systems. Edwards Accountants are the listed accountants for Elbit Systems UK and its subsidiaries. Meanwhile, JP Morgan hold Elbit shares worth over $22m.

    On 12 May, financial reports showed JP Morgan had reduced their investment in Elbit Systems by over 53%. However, they still remain a major investor in the company which is a major supplier of weapons for the Israeli military, which is committing genocide in Gaza.

    Elbit supplies over 85% of Israel’s military drone fleet and land based equipment, as well as missiles, bullets, targeting gear, digital warfare and surveillance technology. The Israeli weapons maker also market their weaponry as “battle-tested” on Palestinians, as they are first developed during attacks on Gaza.

    Commenting on both actions, a Palestine Action spokesperson said:

    Palestine Action is committed to the liberation of the Palestinian people. As part of our commitment, it is crucial to disable the operations of Elbit Systems, which involves targeting all those who profit from and enable the Israeli weapons maker. Our actions will cease against JP Morgan and Edwards Accountants once they end their ties to Elbit Systems.

    Featured image and additional image supplied

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Extinction Rebellion sink a Lamborghini in front of a fossil fuel/insurance company love-in

    On Wednesday 14 May, environmental groups including Extinction Rebellion met delegates at Europe’s largest insurance brokers conference in Manchester Central with a colourful and dramatic protest. They were there to demand the industry stops backing fossil fuel projects.

    And what better way to call out flush fossil fuel financiers than to put a sinking Lamborghini at the event’s front door?

    BIBA insurance meeting: Europe’s fossil fuel financiers gather

    BIBA is an annual meeting that brings together insurance professionals from across Europe. It describes itself as:

    Europe’s largest insurance broking event

    The conference’s theme for 2025 is ‘A New Era’.

    Amongst the guest speakers was the former manager of the England men’s football team, Gareth Southgate.

    Activists have targeted the event for three consecutive years to call out the role that insurance plays in enabling large fossil fuel projects.

    A new report by Boycott Bloody Insurance shows that there are 33 British insurance companies active in large fossil fuel projects. Just five companies had invested $6.5bn. In April, campaigners in Manchester celebrated the decision by Chubb to rule out backing the controversial East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP). They had targeted Chubb’s offices in Manchester on several occasions. In 2023, Patience Nabukalu, a young activist from Uganda, joined them. Marsh McLennan, who are the insurance brokers for EACOP despite a backlash from their staff, attended BIBA.

    Extinction Rebellion stage creative actions against the insurance industry

    Extinction Rebellion organised the day of action as part of its Insure Our Survival campaign. It saw a collaboration with Friends of the Earth, Manchester Greenpeace, and other groups. The day featured a programme of dramatic and impactful visual activities, which they invited the delegates to engage with:

    Two men hold and read mock newspapers The Sin and the Daily Fail. Headlines read: "Floody Hell UK!" and "Crisis? What crisis? Insurers cozy up to Co2 clients" Other text on them reads: "Even 'A' lister's can't fly from flooding" and "Not good enough" next to a flood sign.

    Extreme weather and intense rainfall hazard signs. A banner in the background reads: "Insurers capitalise, while floodwaters rise"

    The creative disruption kicked off outside Manchester Central just after 8am with the arrival of a life-sized model of a Lamborghini sports car:

    Vivid green model of a Lamborghini sports car, with three activists sat inside. One drives, another holds a 'Daily Fail' newspaper, and the last is holding a speech bubble placard reading: "Floody hell!! Flood waters are rising!!" Behind, activist hold a banner reading "insure our futures, not fossil fuels" and "Insure survival". A hazard sign with "Intense Rainfall" has been placed behind. A dog wearing a coat reading "steward" sits on the bonnet. Extinction Rebellion

    This was made to look as though it sinking in flood waters to highlight the danger of extreme weather events caused by the climate crisis:

    Vivid green Lamborghini with two activists inside rowing through flood waters. A bright pink banner behind reads: "Only fools insure fossil fuels"

    Vivid green Lamborghini with two activists inside. One drives while rowing, and the other holds speech bubble placards reading "Floody hell!! Flood waters are rising!!" and "So are our insurance premiums" Extinction Rebellion

    The car had been converted into a James Corden style Karaoke booth where activists sung pop songs about extreme weather and encouraged delegates to join them, and to do the right thing and abandon ties with insurance companies enabling fossil fuel projects.

    ‘A New Era’? Not for fossil fuels, flooding, fires, and climate breakdown

    Across the day, there were multiple creative demonstrations. There was a climate choir, samba drummers, street theatre, synchronised dance known as Discobedience, and testimonies by people affected by extreme weather.

    The Oil Slicks, an Extinction Rebellion performance group, made an appearance. The group highlighted the fact that fossil fuels must be kept in the ground, and that urgent action is required to address the climate crisis locally and across the globe.

    Activists chalked the pavements with the dates of major flooding events, and representations of flood victims:

    Chalked pavement with a body shape outline and words reading: Flood victims, Pakistan, Malaysia, Vietnam, Nepal, Pontypridd, Brazil.

    Martin Porter, a spokesperson for the coalition who organised the disobedient reception party, said ahead of the event:

    We look forward to welcoming the delegates back to Manchester and hope we will inspire them to take action. The insurance industry is well aware of the risk from climate change and cannot continue to ignore the issue. ‘Business as usual’ is not an option.

    BIBA needs to decide if ‘A New Era’ means floods, fires, heatwaves and climate chaos, or one where brokers refuse to enable carbon bomb projects. We call on each and every one of the delegates to become climate heroes themselves and to help change their industry.

    Featured image and additional images supplied

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Mass protest by parents prompts reversal of private school closure in China

    A mass protest by parents this week against the planned closure of a private school in northern China prompted a rare reversal by authorities, officials and parents said.

    Video posted on social media showed hundreds of parents outside the Nangong municipal government building in Hebei province on Sunday, demanding Fengyi Elementary School stay open after learning it was set to close its doors.

    The planned closure appeared to be part of a broader government effort that began several years ago to scale back private education and boost state-run schools.

    In the video, posted on X by Yesterday, a project that documents mass protests in China, the demonstrators could be heard shouting “Disagree!” and “Leaders come out!”

    Video: Mass protest by parents prompts reversal of private school closure in China

    Witnesses told RFA that the protest continued into the night, and police were dispatched to maintain order.

    A parent who did not want to be named for safety reasons told Radio Free Asia on Thursday that the school was well-regarded and parents would compete for placements for their children through a public lottery.

    With the school’s closure, children were going to be sent instead to public schools with a reputation for chaotic management and high turnover of teachers, he said.

    “They (the government) saw that the school had high educational quality and that parents with financial means sent their children to Fengyi Elementary School, so they wanted to close it down,” the parent said.

    As well as being told the school would close, parents were told to choose a public school for their children. The video posted on X showed a form for them to fill out to list the priority of their school choices.

    But following the protest, authorities reversed course.

    An official from the Nangong City government office confirmed a “protest by thousands of parents a few days ago,” but said that “the problem has been resolved” and that “Fengyi Elementary School will not be closed.” The official said he wasn’t able to provide further details and the matter was being addressed by the Education Bureau.

    In recent years, the Chinese Communist Party has sought to scale back private education and bring private schools under state control with the justification that it would promote fairness in education and reduce costs for parents. However, it has more recently eased restrictions on private tutoring.

    According to statistics released by the Ministry of Education last October, the total number of private schools in the country has decreased by more than 20,000 in the past four years, and by more than 11,000 in 2023 alone. The data also showed that the current number of students enrolled in private schools stood at less than 50 million, down more than 3 million from 2023. In total, that represents nearly 17% of the total student population nationwide.

    But private schools remain a first choice for many parents in China even as local governments have implemented policies to restrict the private education and narrow the gap in the quality with education offered in the public sector.

    Jia Lingmin, a retired teacher from Zhengzhou, Henan, told RFA that as birth rates in China continue to decline, the number of children entering school is also decreasing year by year, and many public schools are facing the problem of insufficient enrollment and closure.

    “Private schools have high education quality and a good teaching environment, and many parents are willing to send their children to private schools,” she said.

    Yao Li, a parent in Handan, Hebei, said that although public schools offer free tuition for ages at which education is compulsory – from age 6 to 15 – parents still generally prefer private schools in terms of education, teacher quality and management methods.

    The Nangong City Education Bureau Office did not respond to RFA’s call seeking comment.

    Edited by Mat Pennington.


    This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by Qian Lang for RFA Mandarin.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Jewish anti-Zionists IJAN respond to police ban on protest against Israeli ambassador

    Police have banned a regular protest by the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN) from gathering near genocide–supporting Israeli ambassador Tzipi Hotovely’s residence in London. A letter from the group and a comment from a holocaust survivor have responded to the ban and the misinformation surrounding it.

    IJAN: peaceful anti-genocide protests vs aggressive agitation from genocide-supporters

    IJAN insisted that:

    In almost 20 months of peaceful protesting, the International Jewish Antizionist Network has never “intimidated” anyone, Jewish or not, attending prayer services. As a Jewish organisation we would never do that. But the police have caved in to pressure from the Board of Deputies of British Jews who are well connected with Parliament and the Prime Minister. Any “hate speech” came from them.

    It explained that:

    As our outspoken, well-informed Jewish-led opposition to genocide grew in numbers, the Zionist establishment orchestrated provocative and threatening counter-demonstrations to shut us down. The Board of Deputies [BoD] called on Zionists to turn up and they did, shouting and dancing to loud music with banners claiming “There is no genocide in Gaza”! Holocaust denial would likely be prosecuted, but denying today’s genocide against Palestinians seems to be entirely acceptable. They are responsible for the police having to close the Finchley Road to move them away.

    It accused the police of consulting with local people who objected to the protest while ignoring those who supported it. And it added:

    The claim that Swiss Cottage is a Jewish area is also false. The most recent census shows: 27.7% Christian, 28.6% no religion, 16.4% Muslim and 8.5% Jewish.

    ‘Criminalising pro-Palestinian protest on behalf of the Zionist establishment’

    Criticising prime minister Keir Starmer’s regime for its genocide apologism, IJAN stressed that:

    This government, like the previous Tories, refuses to recognise the genocide in Gaza despite international pressure and court rulings so it can continue its lucrative arms sales and other support for Israel. They are determined to criminalise pro-Palestinian protest on behalf of the Zionist establishment. The BoD is even “investigating” dissent within its own ranks – 36 members objected to Israel’s slaughter of Palestinian children (after 18 months!) Financial Times (LINK).

    And it insisted:

    As Jews who remember the genocide against us, and like millions around the world, we will never be silenced about the genocide of Palestinians. Never.

    Holocaust survivor says BoD agitation “made me anti-Zionist”

    Jewish holocaust survivor Dr Agnes Kory, meanwhile, released a statement saying:

    Prior to the Friday 2nd May 2025 protest, the Board of Deputies [of British Jews] issued a call to their members, allegedly asserting that these IJAN protests were anti-semitic. As a result of the Board of Deputies call, the twenty or so IJAN protesters were confronted by about sixty or more BOD protesters who shouted abuse at the small IJAN gathering, blocked Finchley Road and played amplified loud music to drown out IJAN speeches.

    She argued that:

    The undue influence of the Board of Deputies over the British police is likely to increase antisemitism.

    And she said:

    As a Jewish Holocaust survivor, by default I have been a life-long Zionist although critical of some of Israel’s policies. The abusive behaviour of the 2nd May 2025 BOD counter-protesters tipped the balance and made me anti-Zionist.

    Featured image supplied

    By Ed Sykes

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • People are coming together on 7 June to oppose Labour’s DWP benefit cuts

    Leading trade unionists, MPs, and campaigners will take the Labour Party government to task over its austerity-riven budget and vicious Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) cuts to disabled people’s benefits. The People’s Assembly is coordinating a major ‘Welfare not Warfare’ and ‘No To Austerity 2.0’ demonstration for 7 June.

    No to austerity 2.0: groups gear up for another DWP Welfare not Warfare demo in June

    Pressure is mounting on the government over its austerity 2 budget, and after it blamed migrants for the state of broken Britain on Monday.

    Campaigners, activists, MPs, and trade unions are coming together. They will host what they are calling the first anti-austerity demo under a Labour government. In particular, they are gearing up to counter the latest attack on chronically ill and disabled people’s welfare entitlements. Starmerite Labour has firmly couched these plans in its rampant neoliberalist austerity ideology.

    The protest is partly in response to the plans DWP boss Liz Kendall laid out in March to ‘reform’, that is – cut – chronically ill and disabled people’s benefits. It set this out in its Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working green paper.

    Notably, the paper included a suite of regressive reforms to make it harder for people to claim disability benefits like Personal Independence Payment (PIP). The changes it’s proposing target neurodivergent, learning disabled, and those with mental health disorders. Moreover, disabled people who need help with things like cutting up food, supervision, prompting, or assistance to wash, dress, or monitor their health condition, will no longer be eligible.

    And revelations from a Freedom of Information (FOI) request has also shown that the changes will disproportionately hit PIP claimants over 50 as well. Specifically, the criteria goalpost shifts will deny 1.09 million (nearly 70% of those who could lose out) the Daily Living component of PIP. Part of this cohort is obviously also people Labour is already hammering with the Winter Fuel Payment cuts.

    Labour lies: time to call it out

    Overall, Labour and the DWP have already lied about the number of people its Green Paper plans will affect. Research keeps exposing the devastating scale of the governments planned cuts. While its impact assessment calculated 370,000 current claimants, and 420,000 future ones would lose their DWP PIP entitlement, it’s likely to be much higher than this.

    Another FOI made by a member of the public unearthed that around 209,000 people getting enhanced rate DWP PIP Daily Living will lose it. On top of this, around 1.1 million people getting the standard rate will lose it.

    In total then, nearly 1.4 million people could, on reassessment, lose their Daily Living element of DWP PIP. However, as the Canary’s Steve Topple previously noted, this doesn’t tell us how many could lose their full PIP altogether. This is because the data does not show how many of these people get standard or enhanced Mobility Element of DWP PIP.

    Nonetheless, it’s evident that the plans will be enormously detrimental for chronically ill and disabled people. And in early June, parliament is expected to vote on these plans.

    It’s why the People’s Assembly ‘No To Austerity 2.0’ demo for Welfare not Warfare will bring together a wave of opposition. Together, they’ll call out the Labour’s cuts to disability benefits, Winter Fuel Payments, and proposed cuts to public services to fund increased arms spending. On 7 June, the People’s Assembly and its supporters will be uniting to demand Welfare not Warfare and No To Austerity 2.0.

    Coming together to oppose the DWP cuts

    Major trade unions, including NEU, PCS, RMT, UNISON, UNITE and others, along with NHS campaigners and disabled activists, have pledged to support the action.

    Diane Abbott MP, who recently hosted a debate in parliament over the cuts, will speak out against the government’s plans. Trade union leaders from Unite the Union, PCS, NEU, RMT, alongside veteran campaigners from the anti-austerity movement, will speak about the need to defend welfare and public services and invest in education and good jobs.

    Increased votes for Reform UK in local elections in England in May 2025 show Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves’ Austerity 2.0 is fuelling a right-wing backlash.

    The People’s Assembly demo will hold Labour ministers’ feet to the fire over their shameless, careerist lurch to the right. They’ll make known that this Labour government can get away with its brutal scapegoating of marginalised communities no more.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Disability doesn’t discriminate, so why are disabled people’s organisations?

    As a disabled and chronically ill person, there is nothing worse than ableism: the blatant mix of classism, discrimination, and a basic belief that non-disabled people are superior to disabled people. But disablism – a more conscious and direct act of blatant discrimination or abuse directly aimed at a disabled person based on prejudice around disability and ideas of inferiority (often being more overt and intentional) – is potentially worse.

    It is even worse when it’s being committed by another disabled person, especially when this is being committed by so-called disabled activists, organisations, and charities that are supposed to be protecting and supporting the disabled people that they claim to represent. You may think this doesn’t happen – but it does, and the number of people affected by it appears to be on the rise.

    Ableism or disablism?

    As a long time campaigner and activist, I was completely disgusted when I recently experienced this behaviour myself from a disabled people’s campaign group. This experience left me feeling upset, used, and incredibly insulted. It was very clear that the group had absolutely no consideration of the chronic conditions I lived with and that their method of organising wasn’t accessible for everyone who wanted to support them in both direct actions and online.

    Along with the fact that there is so much of an assault on disabled and chronically ill people right now, under this Tory – sorry Labour – government, the last thing we need is for us to be attacking each other. So, I began to ask myself if this experience has happened to me, am I the only one that has been treated like this? And if so, what is going on here?

    Disablism at its worst

    I wanted to know if this was just a one-off experience for me. So, I decided to reach out on X to see if anyone else had experienced this type of behaviour within disabled and chronic illness communities. I was completely shocked at the number of responses I received both openly and via private message.

    There was clearly a huge issue here, and it wasn’t just me:

    Along with many other disabled and chronically ill activists, campaigners, and organisers there was sadly a wave of responses. From disabled people’s campaign groups to established charities, the disablism was rife.

    One of the people who responded to my post was journalist Melissa K. Parker. Melissa explained to me that:

    When I started the online campaigning against assisted dying it was because, to me, there was a gap. There was no focus on online campaigning, and I couldn’t understand the lack of it because it felt like common sense.

    When I reached out to certain organisations they would say “we have a plan, wait for that…” but it just never happened.

    Let me be clear, I believed and still believe we are fighting for our lives. When I asked for help, a simple share, I was most often told ‘no’ by some of the most prominent organisations. I look back on that time – and I was going through it, a right state, wrecked – and just thinking that if I could get certain organisations behind it, I could do something. I think and believe this is backed by others experiences, and these organisations are disorganised, too concerned with upsetting those in power, hostile to new ideas, and slow to any kind of meaningful action.

    It’s a shame because we need more hand-made protests like that. Why wouldn’t a disability rights organisation want that…? To me, it’s the kind of thing that Barbara Lisicki and others did. It’s become too polished and pristine, done just right. Who does that serve…?

    Disability activist or careerist?

    It was becoming quite clear that the same people who had mistreated me also had form. But it wasn’t just the campaign groups. This problem stretched deep into charities too:

    Many chronically ill and disabled people were being let down, ignored, or removed because their needs don’t fit the narrative being offered. It was telling that there was an almost narcissistic need for some activists to be in total control of organisations. This even extended to people being removed from safe spaces and groups, with no apparent cause or reason. Controlling moderators were not sharing important articles and information to chronically ill and disabled people, due to their choice of disassociation.

    This really has gone too far.

    I asked disabled campaigner Chronically Vexed what they had experienced as a disabled activist trying to start a petition. They told me:

    When I started my petition against the government over their proposed disability benefit cuts, I didn’t think the biggest gatekeepers would be from my own community.

    I didn’t expect unconditional support, but I didn’t think I would be excluded from spaces by other activists. I thought we all had the common aim of getting these proposals stopped – but obviously for some organisations, optics and keeping the status quo are more important.

    It’s exhausting fighting the government – and that should be using all my energy. But sadly it’s more exhausting dealing with this childish pettiness, bullying, and passive aggression from organisations and activists who should know better.

    There’s space for everyone in this fight back against these cuts, let’s not exclude people.

    And this is just one example of one person trying to share a petition (which you can sign here). How many more chronically ill and disabled people are being pushed out of disabled activism by other disabled activists?

    Fighting back against disabled disablism

    There was clearly a major problem with how many disabled and chronically ill people were being treated like this. I remembered trying to get other organisations to support the campaign group the Chronic Collaboration I set up.

    Repeatedly, I told other activists about the fact that there are so many people at home who cannot make a protest in person but want to be included yet are being ignored.

    I was repeatedly ignored myself.

    So, when I saw that there had been a “Disability Rebellion” recently set up for this very reason, I got in touch to ask the organiser, Atlanta, what her experience of discrimination and exclusion by other disabled people was. Atlanta told me:

    So in setting up Disability Rebellion, I have tried to reach out to other movements/charities and have found that some have been unwilling to engage with me. One group in particular doesn’t seem keen on working with newer activists and on the few occasions they’ve interacted with me, it was to be critical over trivialities.

    They showed no interest in working with Disability Rebellion. I didn’t realise until recently that other people faced the same issues and some have told me that they have encountered outright hostility from them.

    Disability Rebellion is working with movements because we can make a bigger impact working together and I believe that gatekeeping fosters the very division that the government can use against us.

    We do not believe in gatekeeping and we believe that we are stronger together. We also believe in organising protests online because many organisations are not utilising the power of online activism, which leaves out the disabled activists who cannot leave their home or get to protest in person.

    A lot of disabled people have told me that they don’t feel represented because they can’t go and protest in person. We want activism to be accessible to all.

    Calling out the disablism

    There is clear gaslighting, gatekeeping, bullying, and discrimination against younger and newer activists – who are clearly being targeted by older, set-in-their-ways activists who also believe they have full ownership of disability activism and full control of what we can and can’t campaign about.

    Shockingly, this is literally going on right now.

    As I was writing this article, new campaign group Crips Against Cuts put out this statement over one of the organiser’s use of accessibility aids:

    This, along with my own experiences, has been incredibly difficult for me to write about and go through – as it has for the others that have been affected by this behaviour.

    Disability doesn’t discriminate – and yet we do

    The last thing I want to do is to criticise the community I come from; the community I want to continue to support – especially at a time when we are already being targetted so much by our current government. But I cannot accept this behaviour from my community either.

    This needs to be called out for what it is. Furthermore, we all need to look at our own behaviour. If this was an employee-employer situation, many of the cases I’ve mentioned here would constitute legal proceedings.

    We know that disability doesn’t discriminate – so, neither should we. Otherwise we are letting the same rhetoric we are fighting divide and conquer us.

    If this doesn’t change it will quite literally set back the fight and potentially change the progression of disability rights campaigning in this country.

    As Canary columnist Rachel Charlton-Dailey has documented in her brilliant new book Ramping Up Rights, the history of fighting for the rights of chronically ill and disabled people has been hard enough as it is. Yet some people in our own communities seem determined to make it even harder.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Nicola Jeffery

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Courts are set to sentence 19 Just Stop Oil supporters this May

    Throughout May, courts will sentence 19 Just Stop Oil supporters for their planning of and participation in protests calling for a faster transition away from fossil fuels. All of them could face years in prison if previous sentencings are anything to go by.

    Between them, they have already spent 91 months in prison on remand for these charges, an equivalent of 7 years and 7 months. This is despite the fact that courts have handed not a single one of them a custodial sentence yet.

    Just Stop Oil: 19 supporters facing sentencing in May for peaceful protests

    The 19 Just Stop Oil supporters will attend the following sentencing hearings:

    • M25 Gantry Conspiracy: Two separate trial groups will be sentenced for planning the climbing of gantries on the M25 in 2022. 9 May in Southwark Crown Court: Abigail Percy-Ratcliffe (25), Ian Bates (65). 15 May in Southwark Crown Court: Phoebe Plummer (24), David Mann (53).
    • M25 Gantry Climbing: One group will be sentenced for climbing gantries on the M25 in 2022. 9 May in Southwark Crown Court: Amy-Rose Friel O’Donnell (22), anonymous.
    • Heathrow Airport Conspiracy: One group will be sentenced for a conspiracy to cause disruption at Heathrow Airport. 16 May in Isleworth Crown Court: Hannah Schafer (61), Rosa Hicks (29), Sally Davidson (37), Luke Elson (32), William Goldring (27), Sean O’Callaghan (30), Luke Watson (35), Rory Wilson (25), Adam Beard (56).</li>
    • Manchester Airport Conspiracy: One group will be sentenced for a conspiracy to cause disruption at Manchester Airport. 23 May in Minshull Crown Court: Margaret Reid (54), Indigo Rumbelow (31), Ella Ward (22), Daniel Knorr (23).

    These sentencing hearings will be among the first to take place since Just Stop Oil hung up the high vis in March.

    Lord Walney effect: jail sentences for peaceful protest

    Judges have previously argued that high sentences were required to deter others from taking similar action with Just Stop Oil. However, it is now unclear who this would deterred – and from what action – in the group’s absence.

    Courts will hand the 19 defendants sentences for taking entirely nonviolent actions to demand that the government accelerate their transition away from fossil fuels. In the cases of the airport conspiracies, activists didn’t even carry out the planned actions.

    All 19 were convicted in the months after the disgraced ‘Lord’ Walney, the paid oil and arms industry lobbyist, called for groups such as Just Stop Oil and Palestine Action, who oppose his clients’ interests, to be silenced and jailed. Prior to Lord Walney’s report in May 2024, jail sentences for peaceful protest in Britain remained extremely unusual.

    Courts are carrying out the sentencings within the wider context of a prison overcrowding crisis. Prisons are releasing thousands of inmates early to avoid catastrophic prison conditions. Currently, 31 supporters of Just Stop Oil, Palestine Action, and HS2 Rebellion find themselves in UK prisons. The UN has previously described the excessive sentencing of UK protesters as ‘not acceptable in a democracy’.

    M25 Gantry Conspiracy & Climbing

    The charges against the M25 Gantry Conspiracy defendants are the same as those that led to courts handing down the unprecedented custodial sentences to the Whole Truth Five in 2024.

    On 7 March, the Court of Appeal ruled that those sentences were “manifestly excessive”. It reduced them to three to four years. It suggested that treating earlier Just Stop Oil cases as a precedent for sentencing risked “undesirable and unwarranted sentence inflation”.

    These sentencing hearings will show what this High Court ruling means for future protest cases.

    Defendants include 24-year-old Phoebe Plummer. Plummer previously received a two-year sentence for throwing soup at the glass covering Van Gogh’s Sunflowers.

    Previous climbers of gantries received custodial sentences of up to two years.

    Heathrow Airport and Just Stop Oil

    Three of the nine defendants in the Heathrow Airport case have been in prison on remand since July 2024.

    They are now potentially facing retrial after evidence emerged that jurors engaged in jury misconduct, making their guilty verdicts manifestly unsafe. Their judge also implied that the existence of a climate emergency is a matter of opinion. This provides further grounds for appeal.

    However, the sentencing hearing of the Heathrow 9 will proceed despite the validity of their convictions being seriously called into question.

    Manchester Airport

    The four defendants in the Manchester Airport case have been held on remand since August 2024. Noah Crane (20), who spent half a year on remand on the basis of allegedly buying phones for fellow protesters, joined them during their trial. His jury unanimously found him not guilty.

    The defendants include Indigo Rumbelow (31), one of the co-founders of Just Stop Oil.

    Defend Our Juries spokesperson Tim Crosland said:

    Labour is cutting corners wherever you look, from winter fuel payments to pensioners to disability benefits to flood protection. And yet, they somehow find the funding to imprison 19 peaceful climate protesters for almost eight years between them before they have even been sentenced. We are dreading seeing how many years will be added on top of that now that the days of their sentencing hearings have finally arrived. The courts of this country are serving the interests of the fossil fuel industry, not the interests of ordinary people who are scrambling to get by.

    Featured image supplied

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • ‘Our Position on Palestine Is Not Fringe’:CounterSpin interview with Danaka Katovich on attacks on activists

     

    Janine Jackson interviewed CODEPINK’s Danaka Katovich about attacks on activists for the May 2, 2025, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

     

    Arrest of Code Pink's Medea Benjamin

    CODEPINK’s Medea Benjamin

    Janine Jackson: It is misleading to portray public protest simply in photos of people being dragged off the street by law enforcement, because protest and dissent take many forms, some less visible than others. Still, the people in those photos have meaning for us, about being vocal and visible in frightening times. If standing up and speaking out loud in oppressive times were easy, well, there’d be less oppressive times, wouldn’t there? Whatever one’s imaginings about what they woulda, coulda done, the reality is that it is not a walk in the park to protest in person, knowing that you may face a lethally armed officer, tasked with grabbing you and throwing you in a cell, with the weight of the state behind them.

    The state also has many forms of attacks on protesters and protest, and those are not always so visible, either. All of that is in play right now, and here to talk about it is Danaka Katovich, national co-director of the group CODEPINK. She joins us now by phone. Welcome to CounterSpin, Danaka Katovich.

    Danaka Katovich: Thank you so much for having me, Janine.

    JJ: I know that you see what’s happening to CODEPINK as just a piece of a bigger issue, but maybe first tell us a little about what’s been happening to CODEPINK in the last few months.

    Common Dreams: Push Back Against Sen. Cotton’s McCarthyite Lies About CODEPINK: Women for Peace

    Common Dreams (3/27/25)

    DK: Yeah. I think this new wave started with Sen. Tom Cotton, who’s the head of the Senate Intelligence Committee. When he was at a hearing, during a CODEPINK disruption of the hearing, he stated, like it was a fact, that CODEPINK is funded by the Chinese Communist Party. We’re not, but someone in such a high position of power saying that is difficult to navigate, scary; you wonder what they’re going to do next.

    And the very next day or two days later, Sen. Jim Banks, in a different Senate hearing, repeated and regurgitated the same lies about us, and asked Pam Bondi to investigate CODEPINK for these fake and not real ties to the Chinese Communist Party.

    And they’re doing that to—you know, we’re very in their face. We’re in Congress every single day, challenging them on the genocide in Gaza, and their support for the genocide in Gaza, and their constant willingness to ignore the American public. It’s their job to listen to the American public and represent us, but they don’t do that. And we’re very in their face, and they’re trying to intimidate us, and scare us into being quiet.

    JJ: MAGA couldn’t hate CODEPINK any more than they do, to the extent that they know you exist. So is the hope to isolate CODEPINK, even among other pro-Palestinian groups?

    DK: I don’t think so, to be honest. In my honest assessment, I think they are going after us because we’re a well-known group—online, at least—and we post everything that happens to us, and all the interactions that we have, to educate the public on what’s really going on in Congress. So I don’t think it’s to isolate us from the Palestine movement. If it is, it’s absolutely not working.

    Code Pink: I Have 2.1 Million Reasons

    CODEPINK (4/30/25)

    JJ: I sense that CODEPINK, along with other groups, understands that you have to talk around dominant media narratives. I just saw a message today talking about how simple it is to want a child born in Gaza to live. I think people can get explained away from that basic human understanding, told that politics is over your head and let smarter folks decide. But folks who don’t do organizing think maybe you just come up with a magic message, but it’s much more human to human than that, isn’t it?

    DK: Oh, absolutely. And that’s what’s really rooted me in this work, is our position on this is not fringe. A poll came out last week that said 70% of Democratic voters do not support sending weapons to Israel. That is so vastly different than what that poll would’ve been two years ago, or was two years ago.

    I’ve not had to read a million books—I mean, I have, but a lot of people haven’t read a million books—to have the opinion that Palestinians in Gaza, and children in Gaza, deserve every single right to dignity and life that any person on this Earth has.

    Because we’re seeing their faces, we’re hearing their voices. We see what they’re going through on our phones every single day. There’s no shortage of content coming out of Gaza that Palestinians have demonstrated their humanity in the worst situations of their life. And I think people don’t have to be even politically aware to not support what’s going on in Palestine.

    JJ: The expansive and transparently intimidating effort, the work that’s being applied against CODEPINK, to say you’re funded by Communist China, that’s meant to keep folks from listening to you, or thinking about what you have to say. But that intimidation could be applied to anyone that they designate they don’t want us to hear from. So it’s not like they’ve set themselves any guardrails. This is a bigger thing.

    CNBC: White House Blasts Amazon Over Tariff Cost Report: 'Hostile and Political Act'

    CNBC (4/29/25)

    DK: Yeah. What’s funny is this morning, before we did this interview, the Trump administration was doing a press conference about Amazon. Amazon said that they were going to post the prices for how the tariffs are affecting consumers, and the Trump administration and the press secretary, I can’t remember her name, said Amazon is partnering with a Communist China propaganda arm.

    JJ: Right. So it’s a go-to.

    DK: It’s literally whoever they disagree with, which is probably great for us, because they’re completely making their propaganda seem so pathetic and deluded.

    JJ: Right. But following from that, because it’s fascinating to me, in the way that MAGA and the right will just throw charges out there. And then when they’re disproven, they’ll say, Yeah, but they’re really still true.

    It reminds me of the way prosecutors will never accept a wrongful conviction: If he didn’t do what we sent him to prison for, he did something else. So we were still right to send him to prison.

    FAIR: NYT Reveals That a Tech Mogul Likes China—and That McCarthyism Is Alive and Well

    FAIR.org (8/17/23)

    And I think, at a certain point, an observer has to acknowledge that truth is not the point. It’s just us versus them. And I think a lot of folks lose the plot right there, because we don’t know how to operate in a system where truth doesn’t matter. So in the face of just blatantly false charges against you, how do you keep going forward, and help other folks go forward themselves?

    DK: I think one way we’ve done it is help people realize just how ridiculous it is, because they can say whatever they want, and they will continue to say whatever they want. They’re saying it as if it’s a fact. Even though, if any of this were true, they would’ve shut us down years ago, when they started bringing up these allegations. I think that is one way we approach it, is just making it as ridiculous as it is, and unserious as it is.

    JJ: Finally, we need a brave independent press corps right now, that could push back on these scurrilous attacks—scratch ’em, you can see their falsehood, but they’re part of attacks on democracy and on human rights. Corporate media—spotty, good things here and there. But in the main, I don’t see it.

    But of course, corporate media are not the only media. I wonder what your thoughts are, overall, on the state of journalism and protest, and just what you would like to see from reporters in this moment.

    DK: When Mahmoud was arrested by ICE agents, I think there was a different sort of pushback than there were on groups that are being attacked in such ways, like these vague and false claims about supporting terrorism, or supporting Hamas, or being funded by these foreign agencies or whatever. I think there was some pushback from even mainstream media. They were asking critical-thinking questions that I feel like they’ve been completely not doing for years and years.

    But when it’s a group, when it’s CODEPINK or all these other Palestine organizations, they don’t ask these critical-thinking questions that they’ve asked when it happens to individuals. So, when someone accuses a feminist organization in the US of being funded by a foreign government, I would like to hear them challenge that, because it’s a direct attack on civil society. We are a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit, and they’re trying to take us down a peg, and even mainstream media who claim to support women’s rights and all of these things don’t even question it at all. So I’d love to hear them actually be critical of the Trump administration in a way that’s not just benefiting their specific neoliberal values.

    Danaka Katovich

    Danaka Katovich: “Their goal here is to make people afraid of expressing a very normal human opinion.”

    JJ: And then, any final thoughts for activists who might be kind of afraid to go out in the street or to join an organization, because they feel targeted and fearful? What do you have to say to folks?

    DK: I would say the fear is the point of all of this. I fluctuated between being scared that they want to shut down CODEPINK… The thing that I come back to is, their goal here is to make people afraid of expressing a very normal human opinion. The point is fear. And I think if they’ve instilled fear, then they’re winning. And I think it’s OK to be afraid. I think it’s normal and human. But in this trajectory that we’re on, it will only get scarier to resist what is happening.

    JJ: And we’ll do it in community, yeah?

    DK: Absolutely.

    JJ: We’ve been speaking with Danaka Katovich. She’s national co-director at the group CODEPINK. Thank you so much, Danaka Katovich, for joining us this week on CounterSpin.

    DK: Thank you so much for having me on.

    This post was originally published on FAIR.

  • Police ban Jewish anti-genocide protests outside Israeli ambassador’s home in London

    The International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN) has been committing time every week to protesting against far-right ambassador Tzipi Hotovely, who has previously egged on the genocide in Gaza. But the Metropolitan Police have once again banned IJAN from gathering near Hotovely’s residence in Swiss Cottage, London, where the group had promised to protest until the UK followed the example of other countries by expelling its Israeli ambassador.

    Swiss Cottage protests banned

    The Met released a statement on 7 May saying it:

    has intervened to block a protest group gathering in Swiss Cottage this Friday in an effort to prevent further serious disruption to the life of the community.

    By “the life of the community”, the police are apparently referring to the ambassador of a country currently being investigated for genocide and whose prime minister is a wanted war criminal.

    The Met has placed “Public Order Act conditions” on the IJAN protest, stating that:

    It may now not take place in Swiss Cottage or anywhere in the shaded area on the map below.

    Because of the wide area the police designated as a no-go zone, the ban seriously limits the protest from having any significant impact on Hotovely. But IJAN’s commitment to pushing for Hotovely’s expulsion is clear:

    Previous ban and relocation

    As the Met explained:

    In February, conditions were imposed requiring the protest to relocate outside the Swiss Cottage area. After an eight-week period where protests were held outside New Scotland Yard, the protest returned to Swiss Cottage last week, prompting a further assessment of its impact.

    Chief Superintendent Jason Stewart suggested that “confrontation between this protest and counter protest groups” has played a part in encouraging the police to “use our powers to require the protest to take place elsewhere”. Counter protests have involved particularly aggressive scenes from genocide apologists:

    https://twitter.com/IJAN_Network/status/1918215031264625122/video/2

    Before the previous ban, the Swiss Cottage protest had been growing in size, and increasing police discomfort was clear. Police cracked down on activists – Jewish and non-Jewish alike – who were opposing Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

    One was Haim Bresheeth, a 79-year-old Jewish peace activist and an “advanced cancer patient with a serious heart condition”. His parents survived the Holocaust. He grew up in Israel, and fighting in two wars for the country turned him into a pacifist. Police arrested him in early November because of his opposition to Israel’s war crimes in Gaza and its decades-long oppression of Palestinian people.

    Last week, around 200 people turned up at the protest:

    Pro-genocide agitators also attended, but “failed to disrupt” the event:

    Featured image via the Canary

    By Ed Sykes

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • After decades, everything is #StillTheSaME on this year’s ME Awareness Day

    Monday 12 May is ME Awareness Day – for myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME/CFS). Historically, it has been marked with patients sharing stories online, and campaigning for improved treatment and research. However, this year one group is taking the fight for patients directly to Westminster, and the Canary is proudly supporting it. Us and the group want to show that in decades, nothing has changed for people with ME – thanks to government, the medical profession, and not least the media.

    #StillTheSaME

    On Monday 12 May, the Canary and Not Recovered UK will be at Westminster. We will be protesting outside both the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and parliament, starting at 12pm at Old Palace Yard (opposite parliament) and lasting until around 2pm. It is over what Not Recovered UK has branded things being #StillTheSaME.

    We’ll be there with banners and placards like this:

    ME Awareness Day ME/CFS

    However, the most important part of the protest is for people house-or bed-bound to be able to get involved online. So, we’ll be livestreaming what we’re doing onto our X (Twitter) account. And, we want people with ME, their families, and advocates to get involved too.

    The campaign is centred around newspaper headlines from decades ago; ones like this:

    In 2025, ‘top experts’ are still probing the disease – yet patients lives are no better. So, this is why Not Recovered UK is using #StillTheSaME – because so little has changed. And the group and the Canary will be asking politicians why.

    If you’re following the protest at home, we want you to tag your MP and ask them why things are #StillTheSaME. We also want you to make some noise about why nothing has changed for people with ME in so many decades. You can tell your stories if you wish. Ultimately, we want to get both #MEAwarenessDay and #StillTheSaME trending. Not Recovered UK will be providing a resource pack with images and comments for people to be able to easily put together social media posts.

    Where’s the funding?

    Part of the problem is research funding. For example, a 2016 report highlighted that ME research represented approximately 0.02% of all active awards from major UK funding agencies. Additionally, the research spend per patient for ME/CFS was just £40 between 2006 and 2015, compared to £320 for rheumatoid arthritis and £800 for multiple sclerosis.

    So, Not Recovered UK and the Canary will be trying to speak to politician and civil servants – particularly from the DHSC – to ask why the new ME Delivery Plan contains no money for research funding:

    ME/CFS

    But overall, ME is a controversial disease – if you believe what you read in some of the media and listen to some medical professionals – although it really shouldn’t be.

    ME/CFS: complex, or made complicated?

    Myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME/CFS) is a complex and debilitating chronic illness characterised by extreme fatigue that is not relieved by rest and is worsened by physical or mental exertion. The exact cause of ME remains unknown, and it is believed to result from a combination of factors, including infections, immune system abnormalities, hormonal imbalances, and genetic predisposition.

    A hallmark of ME is post-exertional malaise (PEM), where even minor physical or cognitive activity leads to a dramatic worsening of symptoms, often lasting days or longer and all too often with a permanent worsening for the patient.

    Other major symptoms include profound fatigue, unrefreshing sleep, cognitive impairments (commonly described as “brain fog”), orthostatic intolerance (difficulty standing upright, often resulting in lightheadedness or fainting), muscle and joint pain, severe gastrological disruption, and sore throat or tender lymph nodes without clear infection. Symptoms vary in severity and can fluctuate unpredictably.

    The illness significantly impairs quality of life, with many patients unable to maintain employment, education, or social activities. In severe cases, individuals may become housebound or bedbound. At its worst, ME has killed people.

    Despite decades of research, there is no definitive cure for ME, and treatment focuses primarily on symptom management. Common strategies include pacing (to avoid overexertion), medications for pain and sleep disturbances, and supportive therapies such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) or graded exercise therapy (GET)—though the latter is controversial and rejected by patients and doctors due to evidence that it worsens symptoms.

    Patients and advocates often express frustration and distress at the lack of progress in understanding or treating ME. Several reasons contribute to this perception:

    • Historical stigma and disbelief: ME has long been dismissed as psychosomatic, leading to underfunding and a lack of scientific inquiry.
    • Biological complexity: The illness affects multiple systems—neurological, immune, metabolic—making it hard to study and diagnose.
    • Diagnostic challenges: There is no single biomarker for ME, and diagnosis relies on clinical criteria, which can vary.
    • Limited funding: Research into ME has historically received significantly less funding than diseases of similar prevalence and impact.

    The same old trickery

    Spoiler alert: the entire section above was written by AI. We did this to make a point: that a bot can write something more robust and accurate on ME/CFS than a lot of the media and some medical professionals can.

    A good example of this is a Mirror article from 1998 – where notorious quackery-peddler ‘Sir’ Simon Wessely was about to release a new book. It and him were seemingly claiming that exercise/activity could cure ME – with the Mirror peddling it unquestioningly:

    Of course, this was as much of a lie then as it is now – yet some medical professionals still push this. Moreover, the corporate media is a fair-weather friend when it comes to ME, too:

    And of course, this applies to chronically ill and disabled people more broadly. For example, the Times is up for an award for its coverage of ME – largely due to the death of Maeve Boothby O’Neill, journalist Sean O’Neill’s daughter. Sadly, the Times would throw chronically ill and disabled people under the bus for anything else – unless they’re middle class and don’t claim benefits (obviously):

    But ultimately, the corporate media is just a mirror on the real problem: a system that refuses to give people with ME (and chronically ill and disabled people more broadly) the dignity and respect they deserve.

    ME/CFS: cruel

    So, Not Recovered UK and the Canary will be outside the DHSC and parliament asking why nothing has changed in decades – and what the UK government is going to do about it.

    We want you to join us in person if you can. You can DM the Canary or Not Recovered on X for details – or just show up at Old Palace Yard at 12pm. Alternatively, get involved on X from 12pm with the livestream with a view to getting the hashtags trending.

    The cruel treatment of people with ME, and the terrible state governments, medical professionals, and the media have left them to live in, is utterly unacceptable and always has been. It should not be #StillTheSaME – and its time to remind the world of this.

    Featured image and additional images via Not Recovered UK

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • New York unions protest Trump administration this May Day


    This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Tanya Clay House on Freedom to Learn, Danaka Katovich on Attacks on Activists

     

    Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”).

     

    Ruby Bridges. the first Black child to attend an all-white school in New Orleans.

    Ruby Bridges challenged US segregation in 1960.

    This week on CounterSpin: You can say someone ‘supports the rights’ of people of color to vote, or to have our experience and history recognized—as though that were a passive descriptor; she ‘supports the rights’ of people of color to be seen and heard. The website of the Kairos Democracy Project has a quote from John Lewis, reminding us: “Democracy is not a state. It is an act.”

    Tanya Clay House is board chair at Kairos and a longtime advocate for the multiracial democracy that the Trump White House seeks to denounce and derail—in part by erasing the history of Black people in this country. As part of that, she’s part of an ongoing project called Freedom to Learn and its present campaign, called #HandsOffOurHistory. We hear from Tanya Clay House about that work this week.

     

    Arrest of Code Pink's Medea Benjamin

    Code Pink’s Medea Benjamin

    Also on the show:  Corporate news media evince lofty principles about the First Amendment, but when people actually use it, the response is more telling. When USA Today covered activism in Seattle around the WTO, it reported: “Little noticed by the public, the upcoming World Trade Organization summit has energized protesters around the world.” You see how that works: If you’re the little-noticing “public,” you’re cool; but if you band together with other people and speak out, well, now you’re a “protester,” and that’s different—and marginal. Whatever they say in their Martin Luther King Day editorials, elite media’s day-to-day message is: ‘Normal people don’t protest.’ In 2025, there’s an ominous addendum: ‘Or else.’

    Danaka Katovich is co-director of the feminist grassroots anti-war organization CODEPINK, currently but not for the first time at the sharp end of state efforts to silence activists and activism. We hear from her this week.

     

    This post was originally published on FAIR.

  • Police raid Axe Drax supporters home for writing on a whiteboard and windows with a marker pen

    At 1am on Saturday 26 April, cops raided an Axe Drax supporter’s house. Police have now released them under investigation for burglary. This was all over an action where activists had written on some windows and a whiteboard with dry wipe pen in a private office.

    Axe Drax: police raid activist’s house

    Police seized their phone and laptop and denied them a phone call for 13 hours. While inside, police arrested and released arrestee supporter waiting at the station.

    This follows Axe Drax and Reclaim the Power occupying the European headquarters of one of Drax’s biggest suppliers, Enviva, on Friday 25 April:

    The arrest was over the action targeting Enviva, the world’s biggest wood pellet exporter. Despite this, the majority of the bail conditions are focused on Drax.

    They include banning them from Drax’s AGM on 1 May and from Drax sites across the UK. Additionally, these also bar them and from Enviva’s European headquarters in York. Further to this, their bail conditions prohibit them from speaking about the arrest and raid over the internet.

    Drax and Enviva: partners in deforestation

    Drax Power Station, located near Selby in Yorkshire, is the world’s biggest woody biomass power station and the UK’s single largest carbon emitter.

    The company sources from around the world, primarily the US, Canada, and the Baltic States. In many of these places, the company is responsible for razing high-risk forests, including old growth, ancient trees.

    What’s more, Drax’s has situated its wood pellet production sites, predominantly in environmental justice communities. There, its operations emit large amounts of pollutants, such as PM10, PM2.5 and VOCs. Notably, these are linked to respiratory and pulmonary health impacts.

    The UK government counts woody biomass as carbon neutral, allowing Drax to claim renewable energy subsidies.

    Meanwhile, Enviva is the world’s largest producer of biomass wood pellets. Enviva is one of Drax’s main suppliers, providing about 15% of the wood pellets that Drax burns at is power station.

    Its operations destroy 175,000 acres of Southern forests every year and it exports approximately 6.2 million metric tons of pellets per year.

    Enviva’s plants are located in predominantly Black and brown, and low-income neighborhoods, where its facilities expose residents to tonnes of air pollution each year.

    Whistleblowers have accused Enviva of sourcing almost exclusively whole trees and failing to replant forests. Scientific studies have concluded what on the ground research has been showing for years: that Enviva is contributing to deforestation in the US Southeast.

    Police acting as Drax’s ‘private security’

    Axe Drax spokesperson Rosie Gloster said:

    What we are seeing here is yet another example of Drax treating the Police like their own private security. It’s beyond clear the raid and arrest were an attempt from Drax to crush dissent once again. Why else would the bail conditions focus on Drax – when it was an action targeting Enviva? Drax and Enviva are both companies who make their money from poisoning communities in the Southern US and destroying vital forests. We will not stop disrupting their destruction, this response alone shows we are having an impact.

    A spokesperson from Reclaim the Power said:

    Just like last summer, when Police spent over £3 million shutting down our peaceful climate camp, Drax have once again treated the Police like their own private security. It is clear that Drax and Enviva will do anything they can to avoid a light being shone on their poisonous pollution and destruction. Using Police as a tool to repress dissent is an age old technique by polluters like Drax – we will not let them intimate us.

    Featured image supplied

    By The Canary

  • Campaigners just disrupted a Heathrow panel appearance – to expose protest injunctions protecting fossil fuel major Shell’s AGM

    Climate campaigners from Fossil Free London have disrupted Heathrow Airport’s panel appearance at the Innovation Zero conference at Olympia London. It was to call out the airport’s injunctions. These are set to prevent campaigners from protesting at fossil fuel major Shell’s upcoming AGM.

    Heathrow protest injunction to stop campaigners at upcoming Shell AGM

    On Wednesday 30 April, Activists turned up to challenge Heathrow’s director of carbon strategy Matthew Gorman:

    In particular, they railed against the airport’s anti-protest injunction. It currently prevents them from attending Shell’s annual general meeting. This is because the fossil fuel major will be holding on airport grounds in May.

    Heathrow airport took out a court injunction covering the premises last year. Notably, it did so in response to Just Stop Oil’s plan to ‘disrupt’ airports that summer. This bans any person associated with any environmental group from entering the airport’s grounds. In doing so, it means that they would risk up to two years in prison, fines and/or seizure of assets.

    Legal experts and human rights organisations have expressed concern over the increasing private use of sweeping protest injunctions to suppress peaceful climate demonstrations.

    Big polluter bedfellows

    Fossil Free London has consistently held Shell’s feet to the fire. In recent years, it has crashed Shell AGM over its role in environmental damage and human rights violations in the Niger Delta, as well as their fossil fuel expansion.

    Director of Fossil Free London Robin Wells said:

    Heathrow’s not only locking in devastation for all British people by expanding the airport, they’re now getting into bed with the climate criminals at Shell, letting them hide behind this anti-protest injunction.

    Corporate polluters are scratching each other’s backs and laughing all the way to the bank while our rights to survive and advocate for our survival are being washed away in the rising tide of repression they’re funding.

    Heathrow is actively contributing to the oppression of communities in the Niger Delta, shielding Shell from accountability. They must scrap this injunction.

    Featured image via screengrab

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Gallery: Doctors, health workers challenge NZ government over national crisis

    Asia Pacific Report

    Thousands of senior hospital doctors and specialists walked off the job today for an unprecedented 24-hour strike in protest over stalled contract negotiations and thousands of other health workers protested across Aotearoa New Zealand against the coalition government’s cutbacks to the public health service Te Whatu Ora.

    In spite of the disruptive bad weather across the country, protesters were out in force expressing their concerns over a national health service in crisis.

    Among speakers criticising the government’s management of public health at a rally at the entrance to The Domain, near Auckland Hospital, many warned that the cutbacks were a prelude to “creeping privatisation”.

    “Health cuts hurt services, the patients who rely on them, and the workers who deliver them,” said health worker Jason Brooke.

    “Under this coalition government we’ve seen departments restructured, roles disestablished, change proposals enacted, and hiring freezes implemented.

    “Make no mistake. This is austerity. This is managed decline.

    “The coalition can talk all they like about spending more on healthcare, the reality for ‘those-of-us-on-the-ground’ is that we know that money is not being spent where it’s needed.”

    Placards said “Fight back together for the workers”, “Proud to be union”, “We’re fighting back for workers rights”, and one poster declared: “Don’t bite the hand that wipes your bum — safe staffing now”.

    Palestine supporters also carried a May Day message of solidarity from Palestinian Confederation of Trade Unions.

    Fighting back for NZ’s public health system
    1 of 18
    Fight back together for health workers
    TWO 1: Fight back together for health workers. Image: David Robie/APR
    TWO 2: Proud to be union. Image: David Robie/APR
    TWO 3: Support public health workers. Image: David Robie/APR
    TWO 4: Health worker Jason Brooke speaking. Image: David Robie/APR
    TWO 5: Fight back “together” is the theme. Image: David Robie/APR
    TWO 6: PSA “standing together for public health”. Image: David Robie/APR
    TWO 7: “Don’t bite the hand . . .” Image: David Robie/APR
    TWO 8: An AUT student nurse speaking on the realities. Image: David Robie/APR
    TWO 9: “I’m fighting back for workers’ rights.” Image: David Robie/APR
    TWO 10: A health aide speaking. Image: David Robie/APR
    TWO 11: Environmental filmmaker and storyteller Juan Parada at the rally. Image: David Robie/APR
    TWO 12: Fight back posters. Image: David Robie/APR
    TWO 13: Health = wealth. Image: David Robie/APR
    TWO 14: “Invest in health.” Image: David Robie/APR
    TWO 15: “Tikanga mahi.” Image: David Robie/APR
    TWO 16: “Free Dr Abu Safiya” – Kathy Ross. Image: David Robie
    TWO 17: Palestinian May Day solidarity pamphlets – Del Abcede. Image: David Robie/APR
    TWO 18: Palestinian May Day trade unions solidarity message. Image: David Robie/APR

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • UK government colluded with the Israeli embassy over Palestine Action ‘Filton 18’ cases

    New documents have further exposed the UK government’s collusion with the Israeli embassy in the arrest and imprisonment of the ‘Filton 18‘ Palestine Action activists.

    Filton 18: government collusion with the Israeli embassy

    As the Guardian reported on Tuesday 29 April:

    The UK government shared contact details of counter-terrorism police and prosecutors with the Israeli embassy during an investigation into protests at an arms factory, official documents suggest, raising concerns about foreign interference.

    The documents suggest political interference in the ongoing case and policing operations. Throughout, state authorities have repeatedly used counter-terror powers to repress activists taking direct action against the Israeli weapons industry in Britain.

    Specifically, a series of Freedom of Information Act (FOI) disclosures show the Attorney General’s Office (AGO) directly facilitating Israeli interference in ongoing cases against activists. In the weeks following the first arrests of Filton 18 activists, the AGO shared contact details for the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), and the ‘SO15’ Counter-Terrorism Command overseeing the investigation, with the Israeli embassy.

    In August 2024, the first ten activists of the ‘Filton 18’ were imprisoned after a raid on an Elbit Systems weapons plant in Filton, Bristol. There, they had destroyed Israeli quadcopter drones. Police arrested, imprisoned, and detained them under ‘Counter Terror’ powers. During their pre-charge and pre-trial detention, the courts used this to deny their basic rights. Four UN special rapporteurs have condemned the use of counter-terrorism powers in this case.

    Attorney General’s Office: emails to deputy Israeli ambassador to the UK

    In the weeks after their arrest, correspondence demonstrates the extent of communications the AGO held with the Israeli embassy. Although the contents is almost entirely redacted, the subject heading of one email shows the AGO’s head of international law and national security Nicola Smith sharing information “to Israelis re CPS/SO15 contact details” on 9 September 2024.

    The AGO sent the email to Daniela Ekstein, the deputy Israeli ambassador to the UK. It appears to be a follow-up to a meeting that Smith, Ekstein, the embassy’s counsellor of political affairs Yosef Zilberman, and AGO director Douglas Wilson held on 28 August.

    Previously, Palestine Action obtained documents showing that Wilson, who the AGO copied into the email, had discussed ongoing cases of Palestine Action activists with the Israeli embassy. He had shared details relating to SO15, the Counter Terrorism Command. In an unprecedented move, the CPS, as the body prosecuting the case, has submitted to the court that the Filton18’s alleged offences have a ‘terrorism-connection’.

    Logically, after the AGO facilitated contact, subsequent correspondence would have presumably taken place between the embassy, CPS, and SO15. Just over two months after the email, terrorism police raided an additional ten activists’ homes. They and arrested them under those same powers. Following this, they charged eight of the activists and remanded them to prison.

    Filton 18 charges must be dropped amid political interference

    Any improper influence by the Israeli embassy would result in a violation of the Crown Prosecution Service’s General Principle 2.1 that:

    The independence of the prosecutor is central to the criminal justice system of a democratic society. Prosecutors are independent from persons or agencies that are not part of the prosecution decision-making process. CPS prosecutors are also independent from the police and other investigators. Prosecutors must be free to carry out their professional duties without political interference and must not be affected by improper or undue pressure or influence from any source.

    With the possibility of diplomatic involvement in the Crown’s case, Palestine Action has called for the CPS to drop the charges. This evidence is the latest in a series of documents detailing apparent interference in Palestine Action cases. These have shown deep collusion between the CPS, Home Office, AGO, senior police officials, and representatives of Elbit Systems and the Israeli embassy.

    The correspondence raises questions of embassy interference in all manner of policing operations relating to Palestine in Britain. This is particularly pertinent in the context of the state liberally deploying counter-terror powers against activists, journalists, and academics supportive of Palestinian liberation.

    A Palestine Action spokesperson stated:

    The Israeli Embassy has attempted to interfere in our cases for years. For the first time, our activists are detained for direct action under counter terror powers, the CPS pursuing ‘terrorism-connected’ charges. As this unprecedented escalation of state repression happens, the Israeli Embassy has secured direct communication with the CPS and the ‘counter-terror’ police responsible. Political interference is forbidden in our legal system, and in the Filton 18 case its resulted in the most draconian laws being wielded against them. In light of the information uncovered, continuing the prosecution against them is a serious miscarriage of justice. They must be released and all compromised prosecutions of activists and journalists must be stopped.

    Clare Rogers, mother of Filton 18 Political Prisoner Zoe Rogers, said:

    My 21-year-old daughter Zoe has been in prison for 8 months without trial and counting. She took action against Elbit because she couldn’t sit on her hands and do nothing while her government committed war crimes by supplying arms to Israel. It’s sickening to learn that the brutal repression she & the Filton18 are experiencing may have been planned in secret conversations between our government and the Israeli embassy. In a just nation, the Filton18 case would be thrown out as soon as this political interference came to light.

    Featured image via Martin Pope

    By The Canary