Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) and its coalition partners have condemned attempts by the Met Police to prevent a pro-Palestine march in central London on Saturday 6 July, and called upon the police to accept the compromise route which has been suggested. Organisers say cops are doing this to ‘protect the new Labour Party government from embarrassment’.
Pro-Palestine march on 6 July
The pro-Palestine march on 6 July will be the 16th major demonstration in London since Israel began its genocidal attack on Gaza in October 2023.
However, despite following all the normal protocols in coordinating with the police, the march organisers have not been offered any central London start or end point for the demonstration, in contrast to every other occasion.
No persuasive reason has been given by the police and the organisers believe it reflects a political consideration not to have a new government, which all the polls indicate will be led by Sir Keir Starmer, overshadowed by hundreds of thousands of demonstrators seeking to end UK complicity with Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
The Coalition behind the marches had notified the police of the intention to hold a demonstration over a month ago, and have had meetings to discuss several routes which have become well established over the last nine months.
In a meeting with the Gold Commander on 21 June, no objections were raised about the proposal to rally in Whitehall at the end of the march, and it was agreed that the police would confirm acceptance on 24 June.
Despite the coalition organisers chasing the police for confirmation that day, no communication was received until 26 June when the police indicated that they would not allow a march which ended on Whitehall or Parliament Square, citing the need for businesses, tourists, the media, and politicians to have access to that area all day.
Met Police protecting the new Labour government?
The marches have been overwhelmingly peaceful by the police’s own admission and with few arrests – just two out of 175,000 people at the last demonstration. Despite this the police have sought to reject these proposals without providing any convincing justification.
The coalition has written to the police suggesting a compromise route beginning on the Embankment, marching via Parliament Square to the Israeli Embassy. This would occupy one side of the square for a maximum of two hours as protestors marched though and leave Whitehall completely free.
The police have been asked to respond positively to this compromise to allow the march to proceed without hindrance.
Stop The War Coalition said in a statement:
We believe the [Met Police’s] aim is to ensure an incoming (Keir Starmer) Government is not confronted with the views of hundreds of thousands of people demanding an end to the genocide.
Ben Jamal, PSC director, said:
Keir Starmer is facing his first test on the willingness of his government to support the right to peaceful protest, including for protest to take place near Westminster.
The Met Police are threatening to use repressive powers under pernicious legislation passed by the Tory government to stop a protest near Parliament. It has been legitimate for nine months for hundreds of thousands of people to bring their demands for justice for Palestine to the seat of Government, but suddenly it is not.
There is no sensible or persuasive reason for this, other than the new government might be embarrassed to have pictures beamed around the world with people in Whitehall demanding justice for Palestine. This is the first big test of the incoming government – will they robustly uphold the democratic right to protest?
The Committee to Protect Journalists is responding to the needs of journalists in the United States as they face a range of challenges, from confrontations with law enforcement at demonstrations to raids on newspaper offices, and learn to navigate what has become an increasingly hostile environment for many in the media.
The following advice and recommendations are intended to give the reader a high-level understanding of the rights of a journalist when confronted by law enforcement officers while covering a protest or other political event. Given that these incidents often quickly escalate and that some—both protestors and police—do not always conform to legal strictures, it is generally prudent to comply with an officer’s commands, even if they are not lawful, and to protect one’s safety.
Carry your press credentials at all times and ensure credentials are visible to law enforcement.
When covering demonstrations, protests, and campaign or political events, make sure you know in advance what restrictions are in place regarding the public’s right to access, and whether there are any curfew or other restrictions in place.
Do not trespass on private property to gather news; do not cross police lines at crime scenes; comply with location restrictions and barriers, absent exigent circumstances.
You may record video or audio of public events, including of law enforcement activities at such events, as long as you are not interfering with or obstructing law enforcement activity.
Maintain neutrality when covering events. For example, do not join crowd chants or wear clothing with slogans related to the events you are covering.
Comply with dispersal orders or other directives issued by law enforcement. If engaged in an encounter with law enforcement, explain that you are a journalist covering the event and show your credentials. You may continue to record interactions with law enforcement.
If law enforcement requests your audio or video recordings, camera, recording devices, equipment or notes, you may refuse and request that the official contact your media outlet or its lawyers.
During a stop-and-frisk or arrest make it clear to law enforcement that any equipment, memory cards, notebooks, etc. contain journalistic materials or notes.
Police break up a pro-Palestinian encampment at DePaul University in Chicago. (Photo: Jim Vondruska / Reuters)
First Amendment rights of journalists
Right to gather news
The First Amendment protects both the freedom of speech and the freedom of the press. Journalists have a right to access public places to gather and disseminate news. Public places include sidewalks and public parks, but not private property. In addition, for government owned property, even those that allow for limited access to the public, members of the public, protestors, and reporters may be barred if the location is not itself public (for instance, private areas of a courthouse or jail) and hours of access for journalists are generally limited to those when the general public is permitted access.
Private property, such as convention centers or stadiums, may be used by public entities and public property may be used for private political party conventions. In either case, journalists may be provided access similar to the general public. For example, a judge ruled that a state Democratic organization holding a convention in the city’s civic center could not discriminate among journalists by admitting some and not others. The judge said that a private body leasing a government facility had the same constitutional obligations as the government. This will vary by jurisdiction. If you expect to be covering a convention or political party gathering, the journalist should attempt to get access/credentials in advance to allow for an opportunity for resolution of any disagreements in advance.
Time, place, and manner restrictions on demonstrations
The government is permitted to impose time, place and manner restrictions on speech as long as those requirements:
are content neutral (e.g., justified without reference to the content of the regulated speech);
are narrowly tailored to serve a significant governmental interest; and
leave open ample alternative channels for communication of the information.
These restrictions could include noise restriction ordinances, as well as a zone system in anticipation of a demonstration, such as demonstration zones, no demonstration zones, journalist-only zones, and areas for pedestrian traffic. In addition, restrictions may prohibit protestors from bringing camping material or staying overnight in public spaces. Localities typically have rules requiring protestors to obtain a permit for a protest, or for specific kinds of protesting (for instance marching in the street or using a loudspeaker). As long as the standards for granting a permit and the scope of the permit satisfy the time, place and manner restrictions, such processes are constitutionally permitted. Where those permit-related restrictions are not followed by a member of the public or a journalist, public officials may lawfully deny access.
Dispersal orders and curfews
Even where protestors have a valid permit, or where no permit is required under local rules, police may order protestors and reporters to disperse from an area if the time, place and manner restrictions test is met. This may occur where protestors are on a sidewalk blocking access to a building, or on a street blocking traffic. Similarly, if a reporter is in an unsafe area, for instance, stopped on a highway to record an accident, or standing on a phone booth to record a protest, police could order the reporter to leave the highway or come down from the phone booth. Police are generally required to issue warnings ordering protestors and reporters to disperse before making arrests, and courts may consider whether protestors and reporters could in fact hear the warnings in determining whether the arrests were proper.
In recent years, in response to various political protests, a number of municipalities issued curfew orders. Many of these curfew orders have exemptions for journalists, either explicitly or by permitting essential workers. Journalists should get as much information as possible about any applicable curfew order before reporting in an area, and should wear large, visible media credentials so that they are clearly identifiable as members of the press.
Right to record
Most courts have determined that the First Amendment protects the right to make video recordings of police officers when they are in public, although this right can be subject to the time, place and manner restrictions described above and recording or covering the demonstrations or law enforcement activity should be conducted in a manner that is not obstructing or threatening the safety of others or physically interfering with law enforcement. This right has been recognized by over half of the nation’s Courts of Appeals, including those in the First, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Seventh, Ninth, Tenth, and Eleventh Circuits. The Supreme Court and all other appellate courts have not affirmatively ruled for or against the right. Some states have recently passed legislation prohibiting recording or approaching within a short distance of a police officer regardless of whether such conduct actually interferes with the officer’s law enforcement activities. For example, Indiana passed a law in 2023 prohibiting individuals from approaching within 25 feet of an officer after being ordered not to approach. A journalist challenged the constitutionality of the law because of its potential to limit his right to record, but a federal district court held that the law is constitutional—as of spring 2024, the ruling is under appeal in the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. In Arizona, a 2022 law prohibiting recording within 8 feet of a police officer was held to be unconstitutional. Journalists should be cognizant of local legislation that may impact the manner in which they may record the police.
The right to record also exists at the U.S. border, and in 2020, the U.S. government entered into a binding settlement that prohibits customs and border patrol agents from infringing on the right to record law enforcement activity from publicly accessible outdoor areas as long as the recording does not interfere with the lawful law enforcement activity.
Many states have eavesdropping or wiretapping statutes that prohibit recording private conversations without the consent of one or both parties to the conversation, and some states have statutes that also apply to public conversations. In certain circumstances, courts have held that the application of these statutes infringes on the recorder’s First Amendment rights. Nonetheless, reporters should review applicable law and guidance in the states in which they are working.
Retaliation
Government officials cannot retaliate against reporters for their reporting or selectively grant access, for example, by denying a press credential. Reporters who have been unfairly denied press credentials should review the applicable law in the jurisdiction to learn how to challenge or appeal the decision.
Journalist privilege
Most courts have recognized that journalists have a qualified privilege under the First Amendment against compelled disclosure of materials gathered in the course of their work. Journalists can be required to hand over their work materials, but only in limited circumstances – for instance, if the government demonstrates a compelling need and shows that the information is not obtainable from another source. Many states also have so-called “shield laws” which generally provide journalists with protection against disclosing their materials. These protections are not absolute: for example, in a 2020 case, a court upheld a subpoena requiring a number of news organizations to turn over unpublished photos and videos of a protest because “the photos and video were critical for an investigation into the alleged arson of [police] vehicles and theft of police guns.”
More recently, police in Kansas executed a search warrant and raided the office of the newspaper, the Marion County Record and the personal home of its publisher. The warrant was subsequently found to be improper, but only after many records and devices were seized. If a journalist’s audio or video recordings or notes are requested by a government official, including a police officer, the journalist may refuse. But when confronted with a warrant for search and/or seizure, the journalist should ask to review the warrant and confirm it is signed by a judge and accurately identifies the address of the place to be searched, describes the items to be seized, and identifies the legal basis for the warrant. He or she should also seek legal counsel as soon as practicable.
In 2021, the U.S. Justice Department updated internal policies to prohibit the seizure of reporters’ communications data for purposes of identifying confidential sources. However, this policy is not applicable to state and local law enforcement officers. In any event, such officers are bound by the Constitutional protections regarding seizure discussed below.
Fourth Amendment protections of journalists
Search
The Fourth Amendment protects journalists from unreasonable search and seizure. As a general matter, this means that police cannot search one’s body or belongings without a warrant. But there are exceptions, including to prevent or avoid serious injury, to prevent the imminent destruction of evidence, and with the consent of the person to be searched.
In addition, police may briefly detain and search a person—a “stop and frisk”—for investigative purposes based on a reasonable suspicion that an individual is armed or about to commit a crime. There must be at least some objective justification for a stop and frisk, but the officer need not even believe that it is more likely than not that a crime is or is about to be underway. Therefore, this type of stop is generally limited to a pat down, bag search, or vehicle search to search for weapons. Law enforcement officers generally are not permitted to search the digital contents of a journalist’s cell phone or camera based on reasonable suspicion alone.
Seizure
In addition to protection against an unreasonable search, the Fourth Amendment also protects against an unreasonable seizure. A seizure of property occurs when there is some meaningful interference with an individual’s possession of that property. A seizure can also be of a person, such as when an individual is stopped and then frisked (as discussed above).
Prior to an arrest, and during a temporary seizure of a person (i.e., during a stop and frisk), police may also temporarily seize property, such as journalistic equipment. Therefore, it is particularly important for a journalist to prominently display press credentials and to identify himself or herself as press when confronted by police, to assuage any concerns police may have regarding suspected criminal activity. This will also be favorable in any subsequent analysis of whether reasonable suspicion existed at the time of the search/seizure.
To preserve the added protections this law affords to such journalistic materials, a journalist—in addition to prominently displaying his or her press credentials—should let the officers know as soon as possible that certain materials that are or may be searched (whether notes, memory cards, etc.) are press materials related to media intended to be disseminated to the public. The Privacy Protection Act of 1980 (the PPA) provides for heightened standards to protect against unreasonable searches and seizures of certain materials reasonably believed to be related to media intended for dissemination to the public—including “work product materials” (e.g., notes or voice memos containing mental impressions, conclusions, opinions, etc. of the person who prepared such materials) and “documentary materials” (e.g., video tapes, audio tapes, photographs, and anything else physically documenting an event).
These materials generally cannot be searched or seized unless they are reasonably believed to relate to a crime committed by the person possessing the materials. They may, however, be held for custodial storage incident to an arrest of the journalist possessing the materials, so long as the material is not searched and is returned to the arrestee intact.
Arrest
An arrest is essentially a seizure of the person and so also implicates the Fourth Amendment. An officer must have probable cause to make an arrest. Probable cause requires more than a mere suspicion but less than absolute certainty that a crime has been or is being committed. The standard is intended to be practical and nontechnical and as a result, is “a fluid concept—turning on the assessment of probabilities in particular factual contexts—not readily, or even usefully reduced to a neat set of legal rules.” It is well-established that mere proximity to criminal activity does not establish probable cause to arrest, so a law-abiding journalist should not be arrested for covering a protest or demonstration even if that demonstration becomes unruly or violent.
When an officer makes a lawful arrest, the arrest impacts what qualifies as a reasonable search and seizure under the Fourth Amendment. It is considered reasonable for an officer to search an individual for weapons and evidence when making an arrest, even if the officer has no objective concern for safety or evidence preservation. This means that an officer with probable cause to arrest a journalist (for, e.g., disobeying a lawful order of dispersal, violating a curfew, trespassing, or participating in other unlawful conduct) may have legal justification to search through the belongings of the journalist. However, a search or seizure incident to arrest is limited to the area within the immediate control or vicinity of the arrestee—i.e., anything which would be easily reachable as a potential weapon (such as, arguably, a large piece of camera equipment) or easily destroyed evidence (such as camera film or memory cards).
Often during protests, officers choose to issue citations as opposed to making arrests. The law is unsettled as to whether officers may conduct searches incident to the issuance of these citations. Some courts, including the federal courts in New York, have held that a law enforcement officer need not intend to make an arrest to conduct a search incident to arrest, so long as the officer has probable cause to make an arrest and conducts the search prior to giving a citation. Federal courts in the western states, including California, Oregon, and Washington, have taken a different approach. There, search incident to arrest is only permissible when an arrest is actually made. Thus, if an officer seeks to conduct a search of a journalist, the journalist may want to ask whether they are being arrested, as this may affect what rights the journalist has to refuse the search. On the other hand, this may escalate the encounter and cause the officer to place the journalist under arrest when perhaps this was not the officer’s intention.
Importantly, a search incident to arrest likely does not extend to a search of the contents of mobile phones or cameras. The Supreme Court has held that a search of digital data on a cell phone does not implicate the risk of harm to an officer or evidence preservation, and is therefore outside the scope of a lawful search incident to arrest. This holding would likely apply to digital cameras as well, as cameras contain data similar to that stored on cell phones. Seizure of these items likely is permissible, though.
People protest the 2023 killing of Jordan Neely by a fellow subway passenger in New York City. (Photo: Eduardo Munoz / Reuters)
Covering the 2024 National Political Conventions
In 2024, The Democratic National Committee and the Republican National Committee will hold their conventions to nominate Presidential candidates in Chicago and Milwaukee, respectively. The protections above are based on the U.S. Constitution and so will apply. In addition, states and cities may have additional protections available, which are addressed below.
Chicago, Illinois
Section 4 of the Illinois Constitution provides that “all persons may speak, write, and publish freely.” And Illinois state and local law generally mirrors that of federal First Amendment jurisprudence when it comes to the right to gather news. Illinois law also mirrors federal law with respect to Fourth Amendment matters concerning search, seizure, and arrest. Below is a discussion of key aspects of Illinois law relevant to journalists covering demonstrations.
Arrest
Under the Fourth Amendment, police can only make arrests with probable cause. Two common justifications for arrests at protests in Illinois are (a) failing to comply with a dispersal order, and (b) disorderly conduct.
Federal courts in Illinois have held that probable cause may exist for arrest when a dispersal order is given and not followed. However, if permission to march is revoked without notice, arrests for marching without permission are not justified. Importantly, the message of the protest cannot be a justification for a dispersal order and the police are expected to protect protestors, even if their message provokes a hostile response from others. Further, under Illinois law, individuals on foot in public cannot be arrested simply for refusing to identify themselves. However, providing false information to police can lead to arrest. Journalists should comply with dispersal orders.
Illinois law prohibits disorderly conduct, which is defined as making an “unreasonable or offensive act, utterance, gesture or display which, under the circumstances, creates a clear and present danger of a breach of peace or imminent threat of violence.” Failing to obey law enforcement, and “using force or violence to disturb the public peace” are also considered disorderly conduct. Also, failure to disperse in the immediate vicinity of three or more people who are committing disorderly conduct is prohibited by this law.
Journalists should keep this in mind when covering demonstrations, as police officers may use this law as justification for detaining demonstrators and anyone in their vicinity. Journalists should avoid participating in any activities that may cause or provoke a disturbance and clearly distinguish themselves from individuals who may be doing so by wearing conspicuous press credentials.
Illinois Right to Record
The state of Illinois requires all parties to a conversation to give consent before one can record “all or any part of any” private oral conversation. Chicago ordinance also prohibits video recording in “areas where a person should reasonably expect to have privacy.” The Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, which includes Illinois, has held that there is a First Amendment right to record government officials performing their duties in public, except when the journalist is the subject of the arrest. As a result, journalists may record police officers covering demonstrations or protests as they will be occurring in public spaces and where the officers are on duty but such journalists must accede to an order to stop recording if the officers seek to lawfully arrest the journalist.
Illinois Shield Law
Under Illinois law, journalists enjoy qualified privilege with regard to maintaining confidential sources and news gathering material. A party that wishes to remove the protection can force a journalist to comply with a subpoena for material by showing that the interest in obtaining the material outweighs the journalist’s interest in not revealing their sources. The journalist loses the privilege if the information sought is: (1) highly relevant and material, (2) necessary to the claim or defense, (3) not obtainable from a non-journalistic source, and (4) the party has exhausted all alternative sources. Further, a court will only grant such a subpoena if “(1) the information sought does not concern matters, or details in any proceeding, required to be kept secret under the laws of [Illinois] or of the Federal government; and (2) all other available sources of information have been exhausted, and disclosure of the information sought is essential to the protection of the public interest involved.” Whether or not alternative sources have been exhausted is a fact-sensitive inquiry; however, parties seeking to remove the privilege must show that obtaining the information from other sources would be more than inconvenient, and that further efforts to obtain the information would likely be unsuccessful.
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Freedom of the press under Wisconsin state law mirrors federal law. The Wisconsin Constitution provides that “no laws shall be passed to restrain or abridge the liberty of speech or of the press.” And Wisconsin law likewise affords the protections of the First and Fourth Amendment concerning news gathering, search, seizure, and arrest in a manner that mirrors that of federal law.
Arrest
Police officers in Wisconsin may arrest individuals at protests or demonstrations for disorderly conduct, which under Wisconsin law is defined as “violent, abusive, indecent, profane, boisterous, unreasonably loud, or similarly disorderly conduct.” The Wisconsin Supreme Court reads this statute quite broadly such that any conduct that has the tendency to cause or provoke a disturbance is sufficient to give police officers probable cause to make an arrest, even if no actual disturbance is created. That said, federal courts in Wisconsin have held that an individual cannot be guilty of disorderly conduct simply by being in the vicinity of others being disorderly.
Wisconsin law permits police officers to call for the dispersal of an unlawful assembly, including protests that unlawfully block public travel on the street or entrances to buildings. Failure to accede to a lawful dispersal order is grounds for arrest. Journalists should comply with dispersal orders and wear clear press credentials to separate themselves from any unlawful demonstrations.
Wisconsin Right to Record
Wisconsin is a “one-party consent” state, meaning that at least one person involved in a recorded communication must give consent to record a conversation by participants who exhibit a justifiable expectation that the communication is not subject to interception. Thus, consent is not required to record conversations in public where there is no reasonable expectation of privacy. Moreover, as discussed above, the Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, which also includes Wisconsin, has held that there is a First Amendment right to record government officials performing their duties in public. Federal courts in Wisconsin have held that a journalist has the right to record a police officer making an arrest, but not if they are themselves being arrested. As such, in the event a police officer seeks to lawfully arrest a member of the press who is recording, that officer may order the journalist to stop recording.
Wisconsin Shield Law
Wisconsin law provides qualified journalistic privilege with regard to maintaining confidential sources and news gathering material. A party that wishes to override the protection may obtain a subpoena through court order only if all of the following conditions are met: (1) the news, information, or identity of the source is highly relevant to a particular investigation, prosecution, action, or proceeding; (2) the news, information, or identity of the source is necessary to the maintenance of a party’s claim, defense, or to the proof of an issue material to the investigation, prosecution, action, or proceeding; (3) the news, information, or identity of the source is not obtainable from any alternative source for the investigation, prosecution, action, or proceeding; and (4) there is an overriding public interest in the disclosure of the news, information, or identity of the source.
This guide was prepared for the Committee to Protect Journalists by TrustLaw, the Thomson Reuters Foundation’s global pro bono legal program.
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Acknowledgements & Disclaimer
The Committee to Protect Journalists and the Thomson Reuters Foundation would like to acknowledge and extend their gratitude to the legal team at A&O Shearman, who contributed their time and expertise on a pro bono basis to make this guide possible.
This report is offered for information purposes only. It is not legal advice. Readers are urged to seek advice from qualified legal counsel in relation to their specific circumstances. We intend the report’s contents to be correct and up to date at the time of publication, but we do not guarantee their accuracy or completeness, particularly as circumstances may change after publication. The Committee to Protect Journalists, A&O Shearman, and the Thomson Reuters Foundation, accept no liability or responsibility for actions taken or not taken or any losses arising from reliance on this report or any inaccuracies herein. Thomson Reuters Foundation is proud to support our TrustLaw member the Committee to Protect Journalists, with their work on this report, including with publication and the pro bono connection that made the legal research possible. However, in accordance with the Thomson Reuters Trust Principles of independence and freedom from bias, we do not take a position on the contents of, or views expressed in, this report.
Palestine Action targeted another link in Britain’s chain of complicity with Israel’s genocide in Gaza, as the Manchester offices of ‘CDW UK’ were forced to close by an activist blockade.
Palestine Action: CDW shut down
Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest weapons company, are facilitated in their British presence by support from CDW’s software and technology services.
So, as part of a nationwide campaign against complicity in Israeli atrocities, on Monday 1 July Palestine Action activists used a vehicle and lock-on device to blockade the back entrance:
Actionists are blockading the back and occupying the front of CDW’s Manchester offices.
By providing supply chain management and IT solutions to Israeli weapons maker Elbit Systems, the firm make arming genocide more efficient. pic.twitter.com/UWHV80vzJ1
Another one occupied the ledge at the building’s entry:
The Manchester building was also sprayed with blood-red paint – to serve as a reminder to CDW of the Palestinian bloodshed from which their firm profits:
CDW provide supply chain management, IT solutions, cyber security and eProcurement services to the British operations of the Elbit brand, part of the global Israeli arms firm.
CDW are contracted for IT services for ‘Elbit Systems UK Ltd’, headquartered in Bristol, from which Elbit oversees drone and arms production nation-wide. This is not the first time the company has been targeted, with activists spraying a site in Peterborough with red paint and shattering their windows.
This action in Manchester follows on the heels of others taken to target Elbit’s partners & suppliers.
This came after activists destroyed dozens of boxes of GRiD processors found inside Elbit’s Kent factory during an action, the total damage-caused estimated by police to be worth over £1m.
GRiD manufactures a range of military computers, processors, and similar electronic equipment, either for direct battlefield use or to be integrated into other systems.
Since 7 October, Israel has killed over 38,000 Palestinians, injured more than 86,000, and displaced the majority of people in Gaza. Elbit Systems supply the majority of Israel’s military drone fleet, land based equipment, bullets, munitions and missiles.
Their weaponry is often marketed as “battle-tested”, after deployment against the people of Gaza. The genocide of Gaza would not be possible without Elbit’s weaponry – and those firms, including CDW and GRiD, are made complicit by their facilitation of Elbit’s deadly business.
CDW is not the first to be targeted. After similar actions, five other companies have ended their association with Elbit’s deadly trade in the past two months. These include Elbit’s weapons transporters Kuehne+Nagel, recruiters iO associates, property managers Fisher German, website designers Naked Creativity, and legal firm MLL Legal.
Palestine Action says it will continue to target all those who allow Elbit to continue their business of genocide, until they declare they’ve cut all ties.
Featured image and additional images via Palestine Action
Sergio Olmos, an investigative reporter for the nonprofit news site CalMatters, reported that his phone was knocked to the ground and subsequently stolen while he was documenting clashes between pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli protesters in Los Angeles, California, on June 23, 2024. At least nine journalists were assaulted while covering the violence that day.
The conflict began after the Southern California chapter of the Palestinian Youth Movement called for demonstrators to meet at noon outside the Adas Torah synagogue in the heavily Jewish Pico-Robertson neighborhood in west LA to protest the alleged sale of occupied Palestinian land in the West Bank, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Multiple journalists told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that scuffles, brawls and exchanges of pepper spray broke out in the streets nearby between the protesters and counterprotesters.
Individuals from both sides — including a rabbi and security volunteers from the Jewish community — attempted to intervene and prevent the violence from escalating. CNN reported that Los Angeles Police Department officers established a perimeter around the synagogue.
Olmos wrote on the social media platform X that he was filming an attack on a pro-Palestinian protester when a man drove a truck toward the crowd, nearly ramming people. “At that moment a pro-israeli demonstrator knocked my phone out of my hands to stop me from filming it,” Olmos wrote.
Independent videographer Sean Beckner-Carmitchel told the Tracker that the phone was later returned. Olmos declined to comment further when reached by the Tracker.
In a second post, Olmos wrote that later that day a different demonstrator stole his phone and, when he held up his press credentials, the man told him, “You shouldn’t be there.” The robbery can be seen at 0:47 in footage captured by Beckner-Carmitchel. Of the phone, Olmos wrote: “its gone.”
At :47 seconds you can see the moment a demonstrator snatches my phone to stop me from filming. I told him I was press and showed him my press creds, he told me "you shouldn't be there" and took my phone, its gone. https://t.co/RIvFUixqjm
The LAPD said in a news release that officers were investigating two reports of battery at the protest and that one individual had been arrested for having a spiked post. A spokesperson for the department told the Tracker via email June 27 that they have no further information.
The following article is a comment piece from Just Stop Oil
Over the last 12 hours the British state has acted unlawfully in detaining a total of at least 13 ordinary people sharing food at a community event and at their homes. Their only crime? They are Just Stop Oil supporters.
Just Stop Oil: being a supporter makes you a suspect
Being a Just Stop Oil supporter is now enough to make you a suspect. Believing that no government has the right to tyrannise the entire world by encouraging the extraction and burning of fossil fuels, marks you out as a dangerous radical.
But we will not be intimidated. The painful truth right now is that our politicians and corporations have no intention of acting in accordance with the fundamental interests of either our young people or the country as a whole. Not content with cheering on war crimes in Gaza, our politicians have sat by and allowed the last government to licence yet more oil, making them complicit in the greatest crime in human history.
Continuing to extract and burn fossil fuels is an act of war against humanity that will result in unimaginable suffering and destroy the lives and livelihoods of billions of people. No one has ever voted for this, there has never been a democratic mandate to destroy the habitable world.
Just Stop Oil supporters are deeply committed to protecting their families and communities from the tyranny of fossil fuels. If our government refuses to do what is right to protect humanity, then people will step up to do what needs to be done. We refuse to die for fossil fuels and we refuse to stand by while millions are murdered.
Time to take more action
That’s why we are joining an international uprising taking nonviolent collective action to defend humanity. Sign up to take action at juststopoil.org.
We demand that our government stops the extraction and burning of oil, gas and coal by 2030 and that they support and finance other countries to make a fast, fair and just transition. They must sign the Fossil Fuel Treaty to end the war on humanity before we lose everything.
Dakar, June 27, 2024 — Malian authorities should urgently investigate the disappearance of journalist Yeri Bocoum and account for his whereabouts, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Thursday.
Bocoum, director of the Facebook news page YBC-Communication, was last seen by his family outside his home in Kati, a district in the western region of Koulikoro, on the afternoon of June 8, according to a statement by his outlet and a person familiar with the case who spoke to CPJ on the condition of anonymity, citing security concerns. That person, who has spoken to the journalist’s family, told CPJ that Bocoum’s disappearance had been reported to the local police and gendarmerie, and the family has not received any updates as of June 27.
The day before Bocoum disappeared, he covered a banned demonstration by the opposition political group “Synergie pour le Mali” in Bamako, the capital. That evening, the journalist posted on the outlet’s Facebook page that “malicious individuals” riding two motorcycles had tried to “intercept” him while he was going home.
“The disappearance of Malian journalist Yéri Bocoum is alarming, raises serious concerns for his well-being, and sends a chilling message to the Malian media community,” said CPJ Africa Program Coordinator Muthoki Mumo, in Nairobi. “It is imperative that Malian authorities do everything necessary to find Bocoum, ensure that he returns home unharmed, and is able to safely resume his work.”
Regional authorities banned the June 7 demonstration, citing an earlier April 10 directive by Mali’s transitional government, which took power following a 2021 military coup. The directive outlawed all political party activity after several opposition parties called for presidential elections.
On April 11, the country’s media regulator High Authority for Communication (HAC)ordered journalists to stop covering political activities.
HAC President Gaoussou Coulibaly told CPJ in April 2024 that the HAC would investigate violations of the directive and that those found in contravention would face sanctions, including the closure of their media outlets. Coulibaly told CPJ in June that Bocoum’s work did not fall within HAC’s remit as he was not affiliated with a media outlet approved by the regulator.
In a June 13 report, the French public broadcaster Radio France Internationale cited a “Malian security source” and said Bocoum was being held by Malian state security services, which operate under the direct authority of the President. CPJ could not independently verify the RFI report.
CPJ’s calls and messages to Baba Cissé, head of the Malian presidency’s communications unit, and the national gendarmerie’s publicly listed number were unanswered. CPJ’s call to the publicly listed number for the Malian national police was answered by a person who declined to give his name but said to ask the family to contact the Kati police station to find out the status of the investigation.
Cops arrested four Palestine Action activists after they entered, occupied, and dismantled a key supplier of Elbit’s factory – and therefore, Israel’s war machine – on Thursday 27 June. However, the response from the cops was nothing short of militarised – and utterly over the top.
Palestine Action: mashing up the Israeli war machine
Activists from Palestine Action occupied ‘GRiD Defence Systems’, military computer and processor supplier for Israel’s war machine:
After breaking into the company premises on Holtspur Lane, High Wycombe, activists barricaded themselves inside, destroyed military hardware and unfurled banners calling out the little-known military electronics firm:
BREAKING: Actionists occupied Grid Defence Systems, military hardware suppliers for several arms companies including Israel’s largest weapons firm, Elbit Systems.
From inside, parts for the zionist military supply chain have been destroyed. pic.twitter.com/xl4tOyb4QO
GRiD manufactures a range of military computers, processors, and similar electronic equipment, either for direct battlefield use or to be integrated into other systems. In this month’s raid on Elbit Systems’ ‘Instro Precision’ site in Sandwich, Kent, dozens of boxes of GRiD processors were trashed after being found inside. Their discovery confirmed what activists already knew about GRiD’s supplies to those arming Israel’s genocide.
That GRiD would do business with Instro Precision speaks volumes: Instro manufactures weapons sights, target acquisition, and electro-optics systems for the Israeli military, including the targeting systems for troop and vehicle ground operations in Gaza.
Their electro-optical equipment is an “important tool in the continuation of apartheid practices in Israel”. While GRiD brags that its products can bypass arms export regulations, by nature of using non-military-specific components, Instro has been granted over 50 export licenses for shipment of ‘ML5’ category arms (weapons sights and target acquisition systems) to Israel in just a five-year period.
On top of their dealings with Elbit and Instro, GRiD boasts that its clientele includes Lockheed Martin, lead manufacturers of the F-35 fighter jets terrorising Gaza, Leonardo, producers of Israel’s Apache military helicopters, and Israel-supplying missile manufacturer MBDA.
Shut it down
A spokesperson for Palestine Action said:
GRiD is just one of the companies we know to be supplying Elbit. From intel gleaned from actions, to information passed on by whistleblowers – we know who you are, and any firm doing business which enables genocide should not be surprised when they too are shut down.
Palestine Action will continue until every ounce of British complicity in the occupation of Palestine is undone.
Featured image and additional images via Palestine Action
Activists from Palestine Action targeted two banks in Leeds city centre overnight on Thursday 27 June, over their shareholdings in Israel’s biggest weapons firm Elbit Systems.
Palestine Action: who knew fire extinguishers had another use?
Using repurposed fire extinguishers, Barclays Leeds branch and the Pinnacle building, the base of JP Morgan’s offices, were covered in red paint – a symbol of both banks’ complicity in Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
This was the scene at Barclays after Palestine Action had finished with it:
And this was JP Morgan:
Both Barclays and JP Morgan holds shares in Elbit Systems, a key supplier for the Israeli military.
During the Gaza genocide, the Israeli weapons maker has “ramped up production” in order to meet the growing demand for more munitions and arms to decimate Palestinian lives in Gaza. In addition to providing the majority of Israel’s military drone fleet and land-based equipment, the company use Gaza as a testing ground for their new weaponry which is often marketed as “battle-tested”.
Barclays and JP Morgan: up to their grubby necks in genocide
Barclays has been repeatedly targeted in recent weeks by Palestine Action, with over 20 branches visited by the direct action network so far. Many of those branches remain shut.
It has caused outrage from the genocide apologists who somehow see Palestine Action’s mashing up of buildings as worse than tens of thousands of dead people. However, the group’s actions are getting results.
Last month, JP Morgan slashed their stake in Elbit by 70% – likely due to Elbit’s decreasing share price and the increased campaign pressure. However, Palestine Action activists have made it clear that “actions will continue until they fully divest from Elbit Systems”.
In recent weeks, JP Morgan has been targeted in Italy, Portugal, Manchester, Edinburgh, and now Leeds.
A Palestine Action spokesperson said:
Whilst the Gaza genocide rages on, our actions against the Zionist war machine and those who fund it will continue to intensify. There is no more time to waste on begging institutions to end their complicity. Ultimately, banks reduce Palestinian lives to profit on their accounts. As finance is the only language they understand, we will ensure they understand the full cost of investing in Israel’s weapons trade.
In her youth, 72-year-old Yeung Po Hei was a staunch communist, delivering a public eulogy for late supreme leader Mao Zedong and later joining the ranks of nationalistic supporters of Beijing during the labor movement of the late 1960s and 1970s.
Concerned about the subsequent crackdown on public dissent that followed, Yeung, like many other Hong Kongers, headed to democratic Taiwan.
Now, five years after the 2019 protests that began as a mass popular movement against extradition to mainland China and broadened to include demands for fully democratic elections, she is on the move again, seeking a new life in the United Kingdom.
“I remember telling my friends that I wouldn’t leave [Taiwan], even if there was war in the Taiwan Strait,” Yeung told RFA Cantonese as she left the island with her luggage en route to the U.K. “I could just tend to my vegetables and make myself food out back.”
“I was pretty disappointed with [those] elections, mainly because a lot of candidates had been accused of corruption, with a good deal of evidence against them, but they still got elected anyway,” Yeung said.
Yeung pores over her extensive newspaper cuttings collection as she packs to move to the United Kingdom. (Cheng Hao-nan/RFA)
“What were Taiwanese voters thinking? I always thought Taiwan was a democratic society, but how is it being implemented?”
But it wasn’t just the politics. Yeung’s plan to make a living by running a bookstore in a quiet backwater in Taiwan’s Yilan county proved harder than she had imagined.
‘A lot of rationalizing’
Back in Hong Kong, Yeung was a staunch supporter of the Chinese Communist Party, keeping faith until the fall of the Gang of Four in 1979.
Yeung took a large personal archive of newspaper reports and other material documenting her years of social activism in Hong Kong with her to the U.K.
“Firstly, it’s about the memories, and secondly, it’s a record of Hong Kong’s history,” said Yeung, who took part in the blind labor movement of the early 1970s that campaigned for better pay and conditions for blind workers, alongside fellow Maoists and communist-leaning students.
Yeung Po Hui in her former home in Taiwan’s Yilan county. (Alice Yam/RFA)
When late Mao died in 1976, Yeung was head of her university’s students’ union, and gave a public speech eulogizing him.
“There was a lot of rationalizing,” she said of her idealism at the time. “I thought that if you wanted socialism, then that had to be led by the Chinese Communist Party.”
“Later, I saw the bad things the Communist Party did, the blood on its hands,” she said. “It wasn’t until June 4, 1989, that I realized that the Chinese Communist Party is really evil.”
After the Tiananmen massacre shocked the world in that year, Yeung withdrew from political movements to raise her kids and be a housewife for a few years.
Yeung Po Hui as the first female president of the Chinese University of Hong Kong students’ union in the 1970s. (Photo courtesy of Yeung Po Hui)
It wasn’t until Hong Kong’s teenage activists led by Joshua Wong rose up in protest at plans to force “patriotic education” on Hong Kong’s schools in 2012 that she started to get involved in activism again.
“Someone in the pro-establishment camp [in Hong Kong] was saying that national education was a necessity,” Yeung said.
Lin Bao quote
For her, the attitude seemed to recall a quote by late disgraced Chinese leader Lin Biao: “Those who understand have to implement it. Those who don’t understand, also have to implement it.”
“That really got me thinking, because that’s how we came out [during the Cultural Revolution] at the time, only to be deceived by the Gang of Four,” she said. “I thought, if that’s still the way things are today, then I want to stand up and oppose this.”
Yeung started to be more engaged in social activism after that point, but no longer as a supporter of the Chinese Communist Party.
“My only regret is that I was so ignorant and naive,” she said of her early support for Beijing. “If I had to it all over again, I would read more books and reports.”
Yeung at a rally marking the anniversary of the 2019 protest movement in the U.K., June 2024. (Matthew Leung/RFA)
By the time millions were turning out onto the streets to oppose extradition to mainland China, Yeung was one of the organizers, gathering other people of her generation to take part in marches and rallies as the “Silver Parade.”
But now, years of passionate engagement with politics have started to take a toll on her, both physically and mentally.
“People who stay behind in Hong Kong, who stay in that environment, are the brave ones,” Yeung said. “But I don’t agree that people who leave have given up on Hong Kong.”
To the people of Taiwan living under the threat of encroaching Chinese political and military power, Yeung said: “Don’t waste the experience of the anti-extradition movement … It is really a good lesson and I hope the Taiwanese people can learn from it.”
Even in the U.K., Yeung has continued to attend events marking the 2019 protest movement, saying that everyone can contribute to the campaign for democracy in Hong Kong ‘according to their own abilities.”
“What you can’t do in Hong Kong, you can do after you leave,” she said. “If I am able to go, I always do, sometimes out of a sense of responsibility.”
But she is now also focusing more on her health, and enjoying her retirement.
“You can only keep going longer if you rest when you’re tired,” she said.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Alice Yam and Matthew Leung for RFA Cantonese.
In her youth, 72-year-old Yeung Po Hei was a staunch communist, delivering a public eulogy for late supreme leader Mao Zedong and later joining the ranks of nationalistic supporters of Beijing during the labor movement of the late 1960s and 1970s.
Concerned about the subsequent crackdown on public dissent that followed, Yeung, like many other Hong Kongers, headed to democratic Taiwan.
Now, five years after the 2019 protests that began as a mass popular movement against extradition to mainland China and broadened to include demands for fully democratic elections, she is on the move again, seeking a new life in the United Kingdom.
“I remember telling my friends that I wouldn’t leave [Taiwan], even if there was war in the Taiwan Strait,” Yeung told RFA Cantonese as she left the island with her luggage en route to the U.K. “I could just tend to my vegetables and make myself food out back.”
“I was pretty disappointed with [those] elections, mainly because a lot of candidates had been accused of corruption, with a good deal of evidence against them, but they still got elected anyway,” Yeung said.
Yeung pores over her extensive newspaper cuttings collection as she packs to move to the United Kingdom. (Cheng Hao-nan/RFA)
“What were Taiwanese voters thinking? I always thought Taiwan was a democratic society, but how is it being implemented?”
But it wasn’t just the politics. Yeung’s plan to make a living by running a bookstore in a quiet backwater in Taiwan’s Yilan county proved harder than she had imagined.
‘A lot of rationalizing’
Back in Hong Kong, Yeung was a staunch supporter of the Chinese Communist Party, keeping faith until the fall of the Gang of Four in 1979.
Yeung took a large personal archive of newspaper reports and other material documenting her years of social activism in Hong Kong with her to the U.K.
“Firstly, it’s about the memories, and secondly, it’s a record of Hong Kong’s history,” said Yeung, who took part in the blind labor movement of the early 1970s that campaigned for better pay and conditions for blind workers, alongside fellow Maoists and communist-leaning students.
Yeung Po Hui in her former home in Taiwan’s Yilan county. (Alice Yam/RFA)
When late Mao died in 1976, Yeung was head of her university’s students’ union, and gave a public speech eulogizing him.
“There was a lot of rationalizing,” she said of her idealism at the time. “I thought that if you wanted socialism, then that had to be led by the Chinese Communist Party.”
“Later, I saw the bad things the Communist Party did, the blood on its hands,” she said. “It wasn’t until June 4, 1989, that I realized that the Chinese Communist Party is really evil.”
After the Tiananmen massacre shocked the world in that year, Yeung withdrew from political movements to raise her kids and be a housewife for a few years.
Yeung Po Hui as the first female president of the Chinese University of Hong Kong students’ union in the 1970s. (Photo courtesy of Yeung Po Hui)
It wasn’t until Hong Kong’s teenage activists led by Joshua Wong rose up in protest at plans to force “patriotic education” on Hong Kong’s schools in 2012 that she started to get involved in activism again.
“Someone in the pro-establishment camp [in Hong Kong] was saying that national education was a necessity,” Yeung said.
Lin Bao quote
For her, the attitude seemed to recall a quote by late disgraced Chinese leader Lin Biao: “Those who understand have to implement it. Those who don’t understand, also have to implement it.”
“That really got me thinking, because that’s how we came out [during the Cultural Revolution] at the time, only to be deceived by the Gang of Four,” she said. “I thought, if that’s still the way things are today, then I want to stand up and oppose this.”
Yeung started to be more engaged in social activism after that point, but no longer as a supporter of the Chinese Communist Party.
“My only regret is that I was so ignorant and naive,” she said of her early support for Beijing. “If I had to it all over again, I would read more books and reports.”
Yeung at a rally marking the anniversary of the 2019 protest movement in the U.K., June 2024. (Matthew Leung/RFA)
By the time millions were turning out onto the streets to oppose extradition to mainland China, Yeung was one of the organizers, gathering other people of her generation to take part in marches and rallies as the “Silver Parade.”
But now, years of passionate engagement with politics have started to take a toll on her, both physically and mentally.
“People who stay behind in Hong Kong, who stay in that environment, are the brave ones,” Yeung said. “But I don’t agree that people who leave have given up on Hong Kong.”
To the people of Taiwan living under the threat of encroaching Chinese political and military power, Yeung said: “Don’t waste the experience of the anti-extradition movement … It is really a good lesson and I hope the Taiwanese people can learn from it.”
Even in the U.K., Yeung has continued to attend events marking the 2019 protest movement, saying that everyone can contribute to the campaign for democracy in Hong Kong ‘according to their own abilities.”
“What you can’t do in Hong Kong, you can do after you leave,” she said. “If I am able to go, I always do, sometimes out of a sense of responsibility.”
But she is now also focusing more on her health, and enjoying her retirement.
“You can only keep going longer if you rest when you’re tired,” she said.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Alice Yam and Matthew Leung for RFA Cantonese.
In her youth, 72-year-old Yeung Po Hei was a staunch communist, delivering a public eulogy for late supreme leader Mao Zedong and later joining the ranks of nationalistic supporters of Beijing during the labor movement of the late 1960s and 1970s.
Concerned about the subsequent crackdown on public dissent that followed, Yeung, like many other Hong Kongers, headed to democratic Taiwan.
Now, five years after the 2019 protests that began as a mass popular movement against extradition to mainland China and broadened to include demands for fully democratic elections, she is on the move again, seeking a new life in the United Kingdom.
“I remember telling my friends that I wouldn’t leave [Taiwan], even if there was war in the Taiwan Strait,” Yeung told RFA Cantonese as she left the island with her luggage en route to the U.K. “I could just tend to my vegetables and make myself food out back.”
“I was pretty disappointed with [those] elections, mainly because a lot of candidates had been accused of corruption, with a good deal of evidence against them, but they still got elected anyway,” Yeung said.
Yeung pores over her extensive newspaper cuttings collection as she packs to move to the United Kingdom. (Cheng Hao-nan/RFA)
“What were Taiwanese voters thinking? I always thought Taiwan was a democratic society, but how is it being implemented?”
But it wasn’t just the politics. Yeung’s plan to make a living by running a bookstore in a quiet backwater in Taiwan’s Yilan county proved harder than she had imagined.
‘A lot of rationalizing’
Back in Hong Kong, Yeung was a staunch supporter of the Chinese Communist Party, keeping faith until the fall of the Gang of Four in 1979.
Yeung took a large personal archive of newspaper reports and other material documenting her years of social activism in Hong Kong with her to the U.K.
“Firstly, it’s about the memories, and secondly, it’s a record of Hong Kong’s history,” said Yeung, who took part in the blind labor movement of the early 1970s that campaigned for better pay and conditions for blind workers, alongside fellow Maoists and communist-leaning students.
Yeung Po Hui in her former home in Taiwan’s Yilan county. (Alice Yam/RFA)
When late Mao died in 1976, Yeung was head of her university’s students’ union, and gave a public speech eulogizing him.
“There was a lot of rationalizing,” she said of her idealism at the time. “I thought that if you wanted socialism, then that had to be led by the Chinese Communist Party.”
“Later, I saw the bad things the Communist Party did, the blood on its hands,” she said. “It wasn’t until June 4, 1989, that I realized that the Chinese Communist Party is really evil.”
After the Tiananmen massacre shocked the world in that year, Yeung withdrew from political movements to raise her kids and be a housewife for a few years.
Yeung Po Hui as the first female president of the Chinese University of Hong Kong students’ union in the 1970s. (Photo courtesy of Yeung Po Hui)
It wasn’t until Hong Kong’s teenage activists led by Joshua Wong rose up in protest at plans to force “patriotic education” on Hong Kong’s schools in 2012 that she started to get involved in activism again.
“Someone in the pro-establishment camp [in Hong Kong] was saying that national education was a necessity,” Yeung said.
Lin Bao quote
For her, the attitude seemed to recall a quote by late disgraced Chinese leader Lin Biao: “Those who understand have to implement it. Those who don’t understand, also have to implement it.”
“That really got me thinking, because that’s how we came out [during the Cultural Revolution] at the time, only to be deceived by the Gang of Four,” she said. “I thought, if that’s still the way things are today, then I want to stand up and oppose this.”
Yeung started to be more engaged in social activism after that point, but no longer as a supporter of the Chinese Communist Party.
“My only regret is that I was so ignorant and naive,” she said of her early support for Beijing. “If I had to it all over again, I would read more books and reports.”
Yeung at a rally marking the anniversary of the 2019 protest movement in the U.K., June 2024. (Matthew Leung/RFA)
By the time millions were turning out onto the streets to oppose extradition to mainland China, Yeung was one of the organizers, gathering other people of her generation to take part in marches and rallies as the “Silver Parade.”
But now, years of passionate engagement with politics have started to take a toll on her, both physically and mentally.
“People who stay behind in Hong Kong, who stay in that environment, are the brave ones,” Yeung said. “But I don’t agree that people who leave have given up on Hong Kong.”
To the people of Taiwan living under the threat of encroaching Chinese political and military power, Yeung said: “Don’t waste the experience of the anti-extradition movement … It is really a good lesson and I hope the Taiwanese people can learn from it.”
Even in the U.K., Yeung has continued to attend events marking the 2019 protest movement, saying that everyone can contribute to the campaign for democracy in Hong Kong ‘according to their own abilities.”
“What you can’t do in Hong Kong, you can do after you leave,” she said. “If I am able to go, I always do, sometimes out of a sense of responsibility.”
But she is now also focusing more on her health, and enjoying her retirement.
“You can only keep going longer if you rest when you’re tired,” she said.
Translated by Luisetta Mudie. Edited by Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By Alice Yam and Matthew Leung for RFA Cantonese.
Rishi Sunak may well come across the one floating voter of the general election if he happens to go for a swim in his private lake. Because thanks to direct action group Youth Demand, the PM’s own body of water has a new resident – and his lake is now like the rest of Britain’s waterways: teeming with shit.
Sunak’s shitshow is over
As a thankyou and a parting gift to Sunak and the Tories for the last 14 years of service, a Youth Demand supporter has ‘sunk the Bismarck’ in Rishi Sunak’s lake. Youth Demand is a campaign calling for a two-way arms embargo on Israel and for the incoming UK government to revoke all new oil and gas licences granted since 2021.
At around 12:50 pm on Tuesday 25 June, Oliver, 21, a student from Manchester visited Rishi Sunak’s North Yorkshire mansion and ‘murdered a brown snake’ in the multi-millionaires’ lake, whilst wearing a shirt emblazoned with ‘Eat Shit Rishi’:
Police arrived on the scene almost immediately and detained four people, including a press photographer, which may lead to their arrest:
Before shitting in the lake, Oliver said:
We have so much to thank the Tories for: from crumbling schools, shit in the rivers and a collapsing NHS; to creating a nation with more food banks than McDonalds and 4.3 million UK children living in poverty. From allowing their mates to get filthy rich from selling weapons to battle-test on toddlers in Gaza, or by drilling for more oil as the world burns – it’s quite a legacy!”
Yet this shit-show is set to continue with yet another party led by a pathological liar who will be taking office next. Both Labour and the Tories are content to keep shitting on Gaza, and on every future generation, by continuing weapons trading with Israel and by not revoking all oil and gas licences granted since 2021.
The two party system is just two cheeks of the same arse. We deserve better! Take action at youthdemand.org.
Youth Demand: better at the puns than the Sun (and a lot nicer, too)
A Youth Demand spokesperson said:
From Number 10 to Number 2, let’s face it: he’s done a shit job, and the Tories are facing an electoral wipe-out. As a final goodbye, we’re issuing a ‘code-brown’ to Mr Sunak and his colleagues in government for 14 years of total failure, by delivering them some much needed moral fibre.
They’ve landed us all up shit-creek and so we hope they accept these ‘gorilla fingers’ as a heartfelt gesture of our feelings towards them.
But although we’ve unloaded some timber, we’re not out of the woods yet. Our political system is broken. Labour has to lose the policies from the bottom-drawer and convince floating voters by putting the skids on arms trading with Israel and flushing all oil and gas projects licensed since 2021- policies which stain the UK’s reputation.
It’s a big job, but it’s time to sort shit out. Join us for a week of action in London from the 13th July, sign up at youth demand.org.
Sunak: wiping his arse with £50 notes
This mansion is one of several properties owned by Mr Sunak and his wife Akshata Murty. Murty owns a reported £400m stake in her billionaire father’s company Infosys, which signed a $1.5bn deal with BP in May 2023.
Sunak and Murty bought the £2m Grade-II listed Georgian manor house in the picturesque village of Kirby Sigston, before Mr Sunak became MP for Richmond in 2015.
However, this isn’t the only property in the couple’s extensive repertoire, which include a £6.6m mansion in Kensington, London, and a vacation home in California. The couple have an estimated combined net worth of £730m.
Last year 16 Just Stop Oil supporters were arrested outside Sunak’s London Mansion, after Louise Harris sang her chart-topping track ‘We Tried’.
Featured image and additional images via Youth Demand
In the space of just two days, Palestine Action have smashed up banks, stopped production at an arms factory, and sent Cambridge Uni a message. It is, of course, all over these companies and institutions’ complicity in Israel’s genocide in Gaza. The actions collectively show that the group will not be stopped.
Barclays and JPMorgan get another dose of Palestine action
First, on Monday 24 June two groups from Palestine Action targeted JP Morgan Chase’s offices new offices in the Landmark building and Barclays branch in Altrincham:
Both banks saw their windows shattered and red paint covering their offices, symbolising their complicity in Palestinian bloodshed:
Both JP Morgan Chase and Barclays bank are both investors in Israel’s biggest weapons firm, Elbit Systems — a company which is the primary target of Palestine Action’s direct action campaign. Elbit manufactures 85% of Israel’s military drone fleet and land based equipment, as well as munitions, bullets, and missiles.
Bezhalel Machlis, CEO of the Israeli weapons maker, publicly states the company has “ramped up production” to arm the ongoing Gaza genocide.
Last month, JP Morgan Chase reduced their stake in Elbit Systems shares by 70%. However, their remaining investment is still significant and is currently valued at approximately $16m.
A Palestine Action spokesperson said:
Our actions cause economic disruption to those who make a killing out of genocide. By doing so, we make deadly dealings a less attractive investment for banks who only value profit. All investors must understand investing in Elbit comes with the additional risk of Palestine Action.
Elbit shut down – again
Then, also on 24 June seven Palestine Action activists were arrested after they attached themselves to two vehicles and blockaded the only road into the British headquarters of Israel’s largest weapons company, Elbit Systems, for nine hours:
Police had to drill through concrete within the vehicles in order to remove and arrest the activists:
The action successfully grounded Elbit’s operations to a halt today, disrupting an integral part of the genocidal arms company which Palestine Action vows to see forced out of Britain.
Elbit’s Bristol premises, at 600 Aztec West, Almondsbury, is used to oversee all British operations – including their drone-parts factories in site in Staffordshire and Leicester, and their weapons sights factory in Kent, all of which have found their activities severely disrupted by Palestine Action activists.
By managing all of these operations, the factory is a key operational hub for ‘Elbit Systems UK Ltd’ and its contributions to Israel’s genocide in Gaza, not least by processing the immense volume of arms that Elbit exports to Israel from Britain.
From across their global presence, Elbit manufactures munitions, combat vehicles, missiles and other Israeli arms and weapons components, and their British sites are used particularly for drones parts – with Elbit overall providing up to 85% of Israel’s drone fleet.
Palestine Action have shut down the Bristol HQ numerous times, by various means including person-to-person lock-ons, vehicular lock-ons, and occupations of the factory. Activists have also frequently targeted Somerset council, the landlords of Elbit’s Bristol HQ.
This action, as with every one undertaken by direct action network Palestine Action, has been taken to cease the operations at the premises, and to cease their contributions to Israel’s occupation and genocide in Palestine:
A spokesperson has stated:
Elbit Systems uses Gaza as a laboratory to develop their weaponry, a business model which has no place in any society. By arming Israel and allowing Elbit to operate in this country, our political establishment have failed to abide by their legal and moral obligations to end complicity in the Gaza genocide. That’s why it’s up to ordinary people to take direct action and shut Elbit down.
Cambridge Uni: also in Palestine Action’s sights
Meanwhile, on Saturday 22 June action takers sprayed the University of Cambridge’s historical Senate House in blood-red paint, in an act undertaken in collaboration with Palestine Action:
The site, used for the University’s upcoming graduation ceremonies, now reflects the Palestinian bloodshed which soaks the University’s financial records, research output, and historical legacy:
This action marks the end of an entire academic year where the University of Cambridge has funded, enabled and normalised the ongoing Palestinian genocide. Cambridge University has failed to take any meaningful action against, or even release a statement opposing, UK/US-backed-Israeli atrocities in Palestine.
The administration has repeatedly ignored student, staff, and alumni pleas for dialogue. The University has additionally refused to engage with escalating disruption which has been pursued in response to their silence, including the longstanding Cambridge University Encampment.
As one action taker said:
Uni administration sit in ivory towers, and don’t bat an eyelid at their involvement in the ongoing genocide in Gaza. The white pillars at Senate House prop up a legacy of white supremacy and colonialism, which continues to this day through investments in and partnerships with arms companies like Elbit. Cambridge’s graduation hall is stained with the blood of Palestinians and now these stains have been made visible.
Senate House stands as the imperial heart of Cambridge and is the educational birthplace of its Zionist alumni, most infamously Arthur Balfour, author and signatory of the Balfour declaration. Balfour graduated from this very building, as did many others who actively aided the foundation and establishment of the modern-day apartheid state, and continue to support it today.
The University of Cambridge continues to actively invest in weapons companies and research partnerships enabling and normalising the UK/US-backed Palestinian genocide. “Defence” research and grants conceptualising the development of AI systems, drones, and surveillance technologies abused for the deliberate starvation and decimation of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.
Overall, Palestine Action said:
As long as these [companies and institutions] continue to support the brutal Zionist project, actions will escalate.
Featured image and additional images via Palestine Action and Neil Terry
The government of Hawaiʻi and a group of young people have reached a historic settlement that requires the state to decarbonize its transportation network. The agreement is the first of its kind in the nation and comes two years after 13 Hawaiian youth sued the state Department of Transportation for failing to protect their “constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment.”
The settlement, announced last Thursday, requires the department to develop a plan and zero out greenhouse gas emissions from all transportation sectors by 2045. The agency is also required to create a new unit tasked with climate change mitigation, align budgetary investments with its clean energy goals, and plant at least 1,000 trees a year to increase carbon absorption from the atmosphere.
“It’s historic that the state government has come to the table and negotiated such a detailed set of commitments,” said Leinā‘ala L. Ley, a senior associate attorney at Earthjustice, one of the environmental law firms representing the youth plaintiffs. “The fact that the state has … put its own creativity, energy, and commitment behind the settlement means that we’re going to be able to move that much quicker in making real-time changes that are going to actually have an impact.”
According to a press release from the office of Hawaiʻi Governor Josh Green, the settlement represents the state’s “commitment … to plan and implement transformative changes,” as well as an opportunity to work collaboratively, instead of combatively, with youth plaintiffs, “to address concerns regarding constitutional issues arising from climate change.”
“This settlement informs how we as a state can best move forward to achieve life-sustaining goals and further, we can surely expect to see these and other youth in Hawaiʻi continue to step up to build the type of future they desire,” Green said in a statement.
The 13 teenagers who brought the suit, Navahine v. Hawaiʻi Department of Transportation, have cultural practices tied to the land. They are divers, swimmers, beachgoers, competitive paddlers, and caretakers of farms and fishponds. Many are Native Hawaiian. In the lawsuit filed in 2022, they alleged that the state’s inadequate response to climate change diminished their ability to enjoy the natural resources of the state. Since they filed, at least two plaintiffs were affected by the Lāhainā wildfire, the deadliest natural disaster in the state’s history.
Hawaiʻi has been a leader in recognizing the effects of climate change. The archipelago is battling rising sea levels, extreme drought, and wildfires among other climate calamities. In 2021, it became the first state in the nation to declare a “climate emergency” and committed to a “mobilization effort to reverse the climate crisis.” But the non-binding resolution did not translate directly into statewide transportation policies that reduced greenhouse gas emissions, according to the youth plaintiffs.
Between 1990 and 2020, carbon dioxide emissions from the transportation sector increased despite advances in fuel efficiency, and now make up roughly half of all greenhouse gas emissions in the state. The plaintiffs argued that the Hawaiʻi Department of Transportation is largely to blame. Instead of coordinating with other agencies to meet the state’s net-zero targets, it has prioritized highway construction and expansion. The agency operates and maintains the state’s transportation network in such a way that it violates its duty to “conserve and protect Hawai‘i’s natural beauty and all natural resources,” the plaintiffs noted.
Other similar constitutional climate cases are pending across the country. Our Children’s Trust, a public interest law firm that represented the Hawaiian youth with Earthjustice, has also brought cases against Montana, Alaska, Utah, and Virginia on behalf of young people. Ley said Hawaiʻi is a “great model” for other states to follow. “This settlement shows that these legal obligations have real effects,” she said.
The settlement requires the state transportation department to meet a number of interim deadlines and to set up a decarbonization unit. The agency has already hired Laura Kaakua, who was previously with the Hawaiʻi Department of Land and Natural Resources, to lead the unit. Ley said that they plan to monitor every report the agency publishes, submit comments, and educate their young clients on how they can stay involved.
“Often in the climate field, young people feel betrayed by their government,” Ley said. “But this settlement affirms for these young people that working with the government can be effective and that this is a way that they can make a difference in their lives and in the world.”
Editor’s note: Earthjustice is an advertiser with Grist. Advertisers have no role in Grist’s editorial decisions.
On Saturday 22 June, hundreds of foxes marched through Westminster. The skulk of campaigners-turned-canines were calling on the next government to clamp down on illegal hunting.
Illegal hunting campaigners at the Restore Nature Now rally
National animal welfare charity the League Against Cruel Sports organised the fox demonstration to highlight the prolific levels of illegal hunting that still goes on today. Significantly, this is nearly 20 years after parliament implemented the Hunting Act. This banned trail hunting – the practice of pursuing wild animals with dogs.
Fox campaigners turned out as part of the Restore Nature Now march and rally:
At the front as we start our march to Parliament Square
Extinction Rebellion with support from Chris Packham set up the event which brought together huge numbers of nature and environment groups. This included a mix of larger organisations, mingling with grassroots activist groups:
Today our Avocets spread their wings and hope for the future. Massive thanks to all of our staff, volunteers and supporters, without you, change is not possible . #RestoreNatureNowpic.twitter.com/wsuDM3BLpm
Around 80,000 to 100,000 people representing these organisations turned out for it. The crowd included former Green Party MP Caroline Lucas, and a menagerie of wildlife presenters and celebrities like Liz Bonnin, Steve Backshall, and Emma Thompson:
Fantastic energy at the #RestoreNatureNow march in London! Tens of thousands gathered to demand urgent action: a shift to nature-friendly farming; making polluters pay for their damage; fast, fair & effective climate action & a new right in law to a healthy environment pic.twitter.com/aRxGT88vHS
Collectively, the attendees raised their voices to call out politicians ahead of the general election. In particular, the march called on politicians of every stripe to prioritise the biodiversity crisis – or lose support on polling day:
I can’t begin to tell you how massive the #restorenaturenow march was, I’ve never seen London’s streets lined with so many people – if every single nature organisation is out shouting in the street that our politicians aren’t doing enough, our politicians need to listen pic.twitter.com/jTgci3Yup8
The hundreds of anti-hunting campaigners saw the march as a (sly) opportunity to outfox the cruel industry’s biggest political voices at the ballot box. Specifically, the group had a series of demands for whoever forms the next government:
The next government must strengthen the Hunting Act 2004.
We want to see:
Trail hunting banned Exemptions from the Act removed Custodial sentences for law-breakers
— League Against Cruel Sports (@LeagueACS) June 22, 2024
The League’s acting chief executive Chris Luffingham was among those marching for the foxes through London. He said that:
For years politicians have been getting away with sidelining their pledges on nature and climate, playing politics with issues that have a very real impact on our environment and our wild animals.
Hunting was one of those. When the Act was brought in hunting was supposed to be made illegal, but loopholes in the law has allowed foxes and other animals to continue to be killed purely for entertainment.
The next government needs to step up where previous administrations have failed: strengthen the hunting act as a matter of priority and renew pledges to safeguard other wild animals.
Our nature and environment urgently needs protecting, and British wildlife is part of that. It’s time for change.
Featured image via the League Against Cruel Sports
On Sunday 23 June, in a disruption far less severe than the previous day’s lightning strike, Extinction Rebellion activists interrupted play at Travelers Championship as Scottie Scheffler was playing at the 18th hole:
Travelers Championship disrupted
With this action, Extinction Rebellion said it was not protesting any individual or organisation. Rather, the protest highlighted the worldwide danger of climate breakdown.
Case in point: the last 13 months were the hottest on record, with extreme weather events around the globe. The activists pointed out that natural disasters are already causing large-scale loss of human, animal, and plant life, as well as significant damage to infrastructure, property, and agriculture.
On Saturday 22 June, they noted, at least two fans were injured due to a lightning strike at the Travelers Championship. This was of course due to increasingly unpredictable and extreme weather conditions.
Why “no golf on a dead planet”?
Climate catastrophe threatens everything we love on this planet, including golf. Many tournaments have been cancelled due to inclement weather. Golf, more than other events, is heavily reliant on good weather. Golf fans should therefore understand better than most the need for strong, immediate climate action.
During a recent appearance on Late Night with Seth Meyers, actor Jeremy Strong responded to Extinction Rebellion’s disruption of his Broadway performance in Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People this past March. He said that he’d:
be a hypocrite if [he] didn’t support what [the climate activists] were saying.
Strong understands that to achieve the necessary change, we must first acknowledge the truth of the current situation.
Golfer Rory McIlroy, currently ranked #2 in the world, has stated that he too takes climate change seriously and believes that everyone can play a part in addressing the crisis.
Golf courses and tournaments like the Travelers Championship have long paid lip service to the need to reduce the game’s grave environmental costs, which include profligate use of water and carbon-intensive fertilisers, as well as wanton destruction of forestlands.
Not addressing the seriousness of the crisis
However, the golf world’s minor interventions do not rise to the scale of the catastrophe. They are, in fact, a resounding failure says Extinction Rebellion:
This golf protest action and other, similar ones are the recourse of a movement that has tried all other approaches. Voting, marching, petitioning, and lobbying have all failed, and failed again.
The science makes clear that the window of time remaining for drastic reductions in carbon emissions is rapidly closing, and that if we don’t make such cuts we’ll face catastrophes far greater even than what we’re seeing now. At this point, the sole option remaining is to engage in unconventional forms of protest that bring attention to the severity of the climate emergency.
Moreover, as spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion Shayok Mukhopadhyay summed up:
Insurance companies are raising premiums, cutting back coverage, and leaving entire states altogether. This is only going to be disastrous for the financial markets and homeowners. We’re disrupting this event to make it clear to everyone that, just like insurance companies such as Travelers Insurance, the government needs to take the risks posed by the climate crisis seriously.
Extinction Rebellion demands
The world’s top scientists have stated unanimously, unambiguously, and repeatedly that in this century, global temperatures will rise to at least 2.5C (4.5F) above pre-industrial levels, surpassing internationally agreed targets.
Many scientists also say that climate breakdown has plunged them into a state of despair, as have the long years of having their predictions ignored. Extinction Rebellion says our political, economic, and social systems have proven incapable of addressing the challenges posed by modern civilisation, In which profit, industry, and consumerism trump all.
A discussion of demands and solutions requires a collective understanding of the issues. Most climate solutions now being proposed, such as electric cars, carbon capture, and renewable energy, are inadequate responses to the climate catastrophe occurring before our very eyes.
Any discussion of real alternatives is impossible without agreed-upon baseline facts and without prioritising the most vulnerable among us. The United Nations has warned that humanity faces a “code red” situation as a result of our fossil fuel addiction.
Right now, millions of people are experiencing climate catastrophe, as a result of the “developed” nations’ unsustainable standard of living. Recognising that we must act now, Extinction Rebellion demands Citizens’ Assemblies to determine next steps.
Fossil Free London activists unfurled a large banner reading ‘National Trust: Protect Nature, Drop Barclays’ across a tower at the iconic Bodiam Castle, East Sussex, on Friday 21 June. the protest was over the organisation’s links to the fossil fuels and arms manufacturer-supporting bank.
Barclays: climate-wrecking investments
Bodiam Castle, which was built in 1385 and is famous for its beautiful, moated setting, is one of hundreds of sites owned by the National Trust; the guardian of nature reserves, national parks, coastline, historic buildings and estates across the country.
Activists claimed the National Trust were ‘hypocrites’ for banking with Barclays, Europe’s worst funder of fossil fuels since the Paris Agreement, drawing attention to one of the trust’s core aims; to protect nature and climate. In 2023 alone, Barclays provided $24.221bn of financing to fossil fuel companies:
Pressure is building on Barclays and those institutions with links to the bank, since its sponsorship of Latitude, Download and Isle of Wight festivals was suspended when bands threatened to withdraw from the festivals because of Barclays funding of arms used by Israel against Palestinians in Gaza.
Barclays Bank holds over £1bn in shares and provides over £3bn in loans and underwriting to nine companies whose weapons, components, and military technology are being used by Israel in its genocidal attacks on Palestinians.
Complicit in Israel’s genocide
This includes General Dynamics, which produces the gun systems that arm the fighter jets used by Israel to bombard Gaza, and Elbit Systems, which produces armoured drones, munitions, and artillery weapons used by the Israeli military.
Amongst Barclays £3bn investments and loans in companies facilitating the Gaza genocide, the bank holds shares in Elbit Systems which is the primary target of Palestine Action’s campaign. Elbit Systems provide 85% of Israel’s military drone fleet and land-based equipment, as well as bombs, missiles and other weaponry.
The Israeli weapons maker market their weapons as “battle-tested” after they are developed during bombardments on occupied Palestine.
Joanna Warrington, spokesperson for Fossil Free London, said:
The National Trust’s core mission is to protect our environment, nature and heritage; but they are failing to do this for as long as they bank with Barclays. Because our world and all we love in it is in crisis, yet Barclays is still pouring billions into the fossil fuels destroying it. It’s time for the National Trust to stand up and protect nature, by ending their relationship with this oily bank.
Hundreds of Youth Demand supporters blocked Oxford Circus, London to demand a two-way arms embargo on Israel and for the incoming UK government to halt all new oil and gas licences granted since 2021.
Youth Demand: bringing central London to a standstill
At around 12pm on Saturday 22 June, a large group of Youth Demand supporters gathered at Victoria Embankment Gardens. The group heard speeches and held a people’s assembly – a deliberative discussion about the crisis and what to do about it:
The group then dispersed, with groups marching through central London before reconvening at Oxford Circus, at around 2:50pm:
BREAKING: Youth Demand Block Oxford Circus
We will not blindly support a broken political system that turns a blind eye to genocide. Voting, letter writing, and signing petitions is no longer enough–we must escalate
Of course, Youth Demand did previously warn it would be disrupting London each Saturday. As the Canary previously reported, the group gave the UK government one week from 23 May to stop all arms licences to Israel. Spain, Canada, Belgium, Italy, and the Netherlands have all paused arms licenses or shipments to Israel over fears that they may be used in violation of international humanitarian law.
That deadline passed – and now Youth Demand are acting, starting at Oxford Circus.
One of those taking action at Oxford Circus was Poppy Jabelman, 23, a human geography student from Exeter who said:
We’re demanding a two way arms embargo with Israel, as it’s appalling that the UK is still providing the bombs being dropped on starving people forced into refugee camps in Palestine. Each of the over 37,000 people brutally murdered had dreams, families and futures.”
Meanwhile Keir Starmer still refuses to call it what it is: genocide. Labour are set to win the general election with an unprecedented landslide, but this is no cause for celebration whilst they are complicit in the murder of children. The Youth Demand better! If you’ve similarly lost faith in our broken political system, and are outraged by the crimes against humanity we’re witnessing, head to youthdemand.org to sign up for action.
“We deserve better”
Another of those taking action at Oxford Circus was Violet Powell, 23, a student from Leeds who said:
Our country is complicit in genocide. Both major parties refuse to acknowledge the horrors they’re enabling or to call for an arms embargo on Israel. What good is voting when the outcome is the same? For a future to be liveable, and to not have regrets, I must take action now. I couldn’t live with myself otherwise. Join us for a week of action in Central London from the 13th-20th July.
The group said in a statement:
Young people will not accept a political system bought by weapons manufacturers, oil oligarchs and media barons. We deserve better. Young people all over the country are coming together to resist. Youth Demand will be taking action in Central London from the 13th-20th July.
Join us at https://youthdemand.org.
Featured image and additional images via Youth Demand
A landmark decision by the Supreme Court on Thursday 20 June has raised major barriers to all new fossil fuel projects across the UK, including the proposed new coal mine in Cumbria and the Rosebank oil field in the North Sea.
Horse Hill: unlawful planning permission
The Supreme Court has ruled that it was unlawful for Surrey County Council to grant planning permission for oil production to UK Oil and Gas (UKOG) at its Horse Hill site, near Gatwick, as it failed to assess the impact of downstream greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
Not only does today’s Supreme Court ruling destroy UKOG’s plans to drill for up to 3.3m tonnes of crude oil for 20 years at its Horse Hill site, near Gatwick Airport, but also has huge implications for all future fossil fuel projects in the UK.
Neither the Cumbrian coal mine in Whitehaven nor the Rosebank oil field in the North Sea sought consent for their projects. Nor did they provide any information on downstream emissions in their environmental statements. Both projects are the subjects of legal challenges.
Finch’s legal fight was part of a wider campaign of opposition, launched by Weald Action Group and supported by local Extinction Rebellion activists, who regularly carried out direct actions at Horse Hill, including scaling and occupying one of the oil rigs on site, locking themselves onto the main gate, slow walking and climbing onto the roofs of oil tankers entering the site and staging lock-ons at the gate.
Finch launched her case in 2019 and argued that, under the correct interpretation of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Regulations 2017, environmental impact assessments must take into account downstream emissions caused by burning extracted oil.
Today’s ruling marks the end of Finch’s long running legal campaign which she took to the Supreme Court after three Appeal Court judges were split over the lawfulness of Surrey County Council’s decision to grant permission for 20 years of oil drilling and production.
What the ruling said
The ruling makes clear that downstream emissions must be taken into consideration in the environmental assessments of fossil fuel projects, dismissing both the High Court’s ruling that refining the oil could break the chain of causation and the Court of Appeal ruling which left the issue to the planning authorities.
The court stated this would be “a recipe for unpredictable, inconsistent and arbitrary decision-making” adding that this inconsistency “would be all the more regrettable when issues relating to climate change and the extent to which disclosure of information about GHG emissions should be required are becoming more and more salient in policy-making and public debate”.
The ruling also emphasised the importance of public participation as a way of increasing the democratic legitimacy of environmental decision, and serving an educational function. As Lord Leggatt summarised: “You can only care about what you know about.”
The Court also said that while national policy on oil extraction must be taken into account, it said that did not mean a planning authority “has to ignore [the] adverse effects on climate.”
The majority judgment also stated that climate change “is a global problem precisely because there is no correlation between where GHGs are released and where climate change is felt”.
The majority ruling also rejected the argument that resulting GHG emissions are “outwith the control of the site operators with the Court stating that it found that such emissions “are entirely within their control” in that they could choose not to extract the oil.
Grassroots action on fossil fuels does work
Local Extinction Rebellion campaigner reverend Helen Burnett said the ruling is a testament to the power of grassroots organising.
I feel so much gratitude for the perseverance of the few, the ones who, in spite of ridicule and opposition, have gathered at the site for over five years to raise awareness of Horse Hill and shale oil extraction.
This verdict sends encouragement and hope to grassroots organisers everywhere that we can tell the truth about the climate emergency and demand that the impact of fossil fuel extraction be truly acknowledged as a current and future harm.
We have held a space at the Horse Hill gate monthly for years, honouring this little patch of land as a place where nature can flourish and now Horse Hill will be remembered because of the sheer determination and perseverance against all odds of those who just kept turning up whatever the weather to walk, to stand witness, to occupy by camping, to lock on, to block oil tankers, to make speeches, to pray. This is a day of jubilation and a day to remember all those who have raised their voices against the monolith of the oil and gas industries.
Campaigner Sarah Finch said:
I am absolutely over the moon to have won this important case. The Weald Action Group has always believed it was wrong to allow oil production without assessing its full climate impacts, and the Supreme Court has shown we were right.
This is a welcome step towards a safer, fairer future. The oil and gas companies may act like business-as-usual is still an option, but it will be very hard for planning authorities to permit new fossil fuel developments – in the Weald, the North Sea or anywhere else – when their true climate impact is clear for all to see.
The following article is a comment piece from students at the LSE Liberated Zone
On 17 June 2024, after serving student protesters with an Interim Possession Order (IPO) during the festival of Eid al-Adha, LSE evicted students and staff from the Bloom Building.
The following day, the LSE administration unilaterally broke off negotiations with student protesters concerning their demands, reneging on previous public commitments in which they had promised six weeks of negotiation between students and administrators, regardless of the status of the encampment:
A pattern of bad faith and bad behaviour from LSE
The behaviour of LSE administration since the beginning of the Bloom Building occupation on 14 May demonstrates a pattern of bad faith and refusal to engage with students’ demands, particularly for divestment from crimes against the Palestinian people and disaffiliation from institutions complicit in violations of international law.
Students and staff have refused to accept business as usual in an institution materially complicit in genocide. Yet instead of faithfully engaging with this position, LSE administrators have attempted to end the student occupation through an escalation of measures that leveraged their extensive resources.
The school has made history here, as the first of the UK universities to evict a pro-Palestine student encampment.
This stain on their reputation draws into question claims of academic excellence and diverse critical thought. Crucial to the continued prestige of the institution is the consideration that this young generation is paying attention to the news and paying attention to systems of power, therefore will be deterred from attending a university in which their right to free speech is repressed.
Secondly, through legal means which both threatened to criminalise students and infringed upon their human rights to freedom of association and assembly.
Finally, through a refusal to engage seriously with safety concerns, culminating in outright violence as security shoved and pushed windows onto students’ hands in the course of decampment.
After this repeated pattern of bad faith tactics, the LSE administration then had the audacity to renege on promises they made to the student community regarding the continuity of negotiations regardless of the status of the occupation.
The actions of LSE administrators mark a serious breach of trust between the leadership of the institution and the rest of the school community, as well as a profound disregard for the democratic mandate behind the movement for divestment – as per a Student Union referendum, a record-breaking 89% of students voted in support of divestment:
A legal precedent
LSE’s decision to evict student protesters following a County Court ruling in favour of their application for an IPO also marks a dangerous precedent in which administrators have chosen to prioritise proprietary rights over the human rights to freedom of expression and assembly, as outlined in Articles 10 and 11 of the Human Rights Act of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).
The court ruling means that it is a criminal offence if members of the encampment return to the Bloom Building as protesters in the next 12 months. However, given that the court order applies to ‘persons unknown,’ even students and staff who were not part of the encampment – and indeed future students joining LSE in the new academic year – are at risk of being prosecuted for exercising their rights to expression and assembly.
Such a precedent undermines the entire LSE community’s right to protest, and will also have a chilling effect on the exercise of free speech in the university, belying LSE’s core values as an institution committed to dialogue and the exchange of ideas.
The LSE administration’s failure to uphold its duty of care is shaped by a pattern of institutional Islamophobia, exemplified by the fact that LSE administrators chose to evict students and staff during Eid al-Adha, one of the holiest festivals of the Muslim calendar, while knowing that a significant contingent of student occupiers are Muslim:
Ignoring students’ concerns
Throughout the occupation, LSE administration refused to acknowledge students’ repeated requests to take health and safety and surveillance concerns seriously. Specifically, the administration ignored our emails regarding the discrimination faced by Muslim students for 14 days and only responded after we repeatedly demanded a response.
Reported incidents included security staff forcing Muslim women entering the encampment to unveil, interrupting Muslims in prayer, and in one case a male member of security barged into the women’s restroom in the early morning and harassed an unveiled Muslim woman camping in the building.
The response of security on 17 June, guided by administrators’ mandates and the encouragement of senior security staff, is a continuation of the universities’ failure to uphold their duty of care to students and staff. This is especially concerning within the context of an established pattern of inaction on alleged sexual assault from those in positions of power at the LSE:
LSE has trashed its reputation
Ultimately, LSE’s actions demonstrate a callous refusal to engage with students’ ethical concerns regarding £89m the school has invested in crimes against the Palestinian people, fossil fuels, arms, and financing for these egregious activities, as per the student and staff-authored report Assets in Apartheid.
These actions also belong in a continuum of violence that finds its most extreme expression in the genocidal brutality exercised by the Zionist regime against the Palestinian people – a genocide that includes the forced displacement of Palestinians from their homes, the repressive curtailment of rights to protest and assembly, and the attempts destroy of all forms of Palestinian life.
Featured image and additional images via LSE Liberated Zone
Palestine Action has caused £1m of damage to an Elbit-owned factory that supplies weapons parts to Israel. Of course, the militarists would call it criminal damage. However, activists would call the operation a success – as it means none of the kit made at the site can be used by Israel to kill Palestinians in Gaza and the Occupied Territories.
Palestine Action: Elbit smashed to bits
Palestine Action’s ‘decommissioning’ of Elbit Systems’ electro-optics weapons sights factory in Kent has left the ‘Instro Precision’ site immobilised, unable to produce weapons parts for export to Israel.
After tens of activists stormed the premises – bypassing security guards and cutting through three layers of wire fence – seven activists made it inside the factory itself, laying waste to the weapons of war being produced inside:
BREAKING: Actionists cut through 3 security fences to get inside Elbit's 'highly secure' compound and break into Kent's Israeli weapons factory.
Once inside, they begun dismantling machinery, technology and parts used to arm the Gaza genocide. pic.twitter.com/5yyQXJYbiA
During their 36 hour detention, before their release under strict bail conditions, police interrogators put it to the seven arrested that over £1m of damage was caused in their few hours inside the factory.
“Good”, said Palestine Action in a statement:
Fewer sniper sights manufactured at Instro Precision means fewer guns for Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
Cops then released the seven, pending further investigation:
All seven actionists released after 36 hours in police cells for breaking into Kent’s Israeli weapons factory and allegedly causing over £1million worth of damage! pic.twitter.com/ziKOcWcul4
Destroying cables on the outside of the factory, and wrecking machinery, computer technology, and parts being produced for Instro’s product line, the action sought to – and has successfully – put the site out of action.
Instro: complicit in Israel’s genocide
In a five year period, Instro Precision was granted over 50 weapons export licenses for sale of arms for military end-use in Israel, mostly of the ‘ML5’ category – weapons sight and target acquisition products. Many of these are the weapons sights ‘likely to be used in ground operations in Gaza’ by Israeli ground troops.
In 2019, an Elbit press release stated that thousands of XACT th64 and XACT th65 weapons sights had been delivered to the Israeli military, for use by “marksmen of both Infantry and Special Operation Forces”.
Besides products for snipers and infantry, Instro also manufactures sights and components for vehicular mounting, including the SpectroXR system fitted to Israel’s ‘Skylark’ drones. Instro products the ‘COAPS’ (Commander Open Architecture Panoramic Sight), which has been integrated with Main Battle Tanks and Armoured Fighting Vehicles with “hunter-killer capabilities”, in use by the Israeli military.
Liberal shill and Guardian columnist Marina Hyde has thrown her toys out the pram with the most privileged take imaginable. It was over book festival boycotts against climate-wrecking and genocidal investments.
Predictably, Hyde was incensed at the supposed “politicisation” of literary art and laid into the protesters fighting it. Or translation: she couldn’t give a toss about the Israel massacring people in Gaza, or people dying on the frontlines of the climate crisis. Because god forbid these get in the way of her little literary self-promoting event.
In a six-minute rant of epic cognitive dissonance proportions, Hyde showed all that’s wrong with the Western liberal media class.
Marina Hyde harping on about Baillie Gifford
On 17 June, Marina Hyde and Richard Osman’s media and TV podcast The Rest is Entertainment turned its attention to book festival boycotts.
Specifically, the pair opined on investment management company Baillie Gifford pulling out of or getting banned from major literary festivals. As the Canaryhas previously reported, this has largely occurred in response to protests against the company’s controversial investments.
In this particular instance, Hyde lambasted one specific group: Fossil Free Books. The group comprises literary workers who are calling for their industry to divest from fossil fuels and businesses propping up Israel’s genocide in Gaza. As its website explains:
Baillie Gifford currently has up to £5bn invested in the fossil fuel industry,[2] including the Chinese National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC)[3] and Petrobras.[4]
CNOOC is a shareholder in the East African Crude Oil Pipeline, which is already displacing people from their homes in Uganda and, if it goes ahead, will be the world’s largest heated crude oil pipeline.[5] Petrobras is one of the top ten companies for projected fossil fuel development and exploration this decade.[6] These investments are funding destruction and harm in very real terms.
We’ve just renewed our call for Baillie Gifford to divest from the fossil fuel industry and from companies that profit from Israeli apartheid, occupation and genocide. Read our updated open letter, signed by 800 members (and counting) of the literary community.
However, Hyde took umbrage with Fossil Free Books’ aims, arguing that the festivals shouldn’t be “politicised”.
The Canary won’t regale you with the nitty-gritty details of her soapbox tirade. The crucial point is, Hyde harped on about the wonderful philanphropic sponsorships of Baillie Gifford, and lambasted the boycotts. If you’re so inclined, you can watch her shit the bed here:
— The Rest Is Entertainment (@restisents) June 17, 2024
Largely, it was a media masterclass in rank hypocrisy. Thankfully, the good people of X have graciously well and truly ratioed her for it.
Hyde on her landed gentry high horse
Marina Hyde also branded the cultural boycotts a “contraction of the mind”. We hear you Marina, Fossil Free Books equipping themselves with the tools and information to fight the oppressors is evidently an exercise in shrinking the cerebrum.
A poster on X postulated that perhaps its those big Oxford bods that are festering in mindless mediocrity. What, like Hyde herself perhaps, who read English at Christchurch College?
Marina Hyde and Richard Osman (both Oxbridge cunts btw) are the perfect poster children for the mediocrity that defines British media and culture. https://t.co/GCCAKFbBBe
Of course, her high-horse shit is also rich from someone preaching from the landed gentry with an enormous media platform:
classic centrist columnist. “I preach about how awful this world is, from my landed gentry and well paid life. but should anyone make a stand to change it, you’re ridiculous bed wetters.” without a terrible world that they can preach about, Hyde et al will have no ivory tower. https://t.co/CbUkz8olBx
Lest we forget, Hyde – or Marina Elizabeth Catherine Dudley-Williams – is the literal daughter of a baronet:
Marina Hyde’s whole privilege existence is based upon a politics where the few matter more than the many. A Daughter of a baronet doesn’t get to cry “Art for art sake.”
— John Smith (son of Harry Leslie Smith) (@Harryslaststand) June 17, 2024
What’s more, she shamelessy peddled the position that “not all art is political”, so why punish the spineless book festivals taking blood money?
Except of course, Hyde quite literally makes a living out of just such snivelling liberal media takes herself:
Oh, bless the white privilege of imagining that not everything is politics. And the irony of Marina Hyde, who literally makes her living using an art form – writing – to be political, putting this forward is…quite something. https://t.co/xOl1x3O5Yo
Oh, bless the white privilege of imagining that not everything is politics. And the irony of Marina Hyde, who literally makes her living using an art form – writing – to be political, putting this forward is…quite something. https://t.co/xOl1x3O5Yo
Did we mention Hyde is a frequent-flier of the literary festival circuit? In May, she was a speaker at the Stratford Literary Festival. And you guessed it, Baillie Gifford is its sponsor. We’ll just leave that there…
Mind-bending athletics
Naturally, that might explain her doing mind-bending athletics to point the finger of blame at – *checks notes* – the protesters:
Who are “the wreckers” here?
Is it @fossilfreebooks workers who are using their right to free speech and calling for an end to deadly pollution?
Or is it the bosses of @BaillieGifford who have cut funding for festivals rather than cut funding for the wrecking of our future? https://t.co/l8clu4B5ly
In short, between ditching the book festival scene and divesting from fossil fuels and genocide, Baillie Gifford chose the former. Because ultimately, capitalists will always sacrifice their environmental and social goals for profit. It’s literally their MO. Nothing political about that. But of course it’s the boycotters fault that book festivals are short on funding.
In other words, she has it quite backwards:
Nonsense. It is Baillie Gifford who seek to politicise art by making it compatible with the aims (and advertising) of an asset manager, and in turn their profit from Israeli apartheid. The call for divestment is the call to depoliticise art. You and Marina have it upside-down.
In fact, as some on X highlighted, investment companies sponsoring cultural events is precisely this ‘politicisation’ she so despises:
In any event, why does Marina Hyde think investment bankers are funding arts festivals? Cos they just really love books? Corporate social responsibility programmes are just when companies are really nice? It’s thought-numbing reactionary dreck.
According to Marina Hyde, what’s not to love about laundering the image of climate crisis and genocide-funding corporations?
Planet-wreckers or polite little literary festival wreckers
Of course, that’s the rub. For the media establishment, it’s all about protecting the status quo:
It never fails to catch me off guard how, when self-confessed liberals are confronted with the need for actual radical action to create a fairer world, they are so quick to reel back in horror and support the status quo. https://t.co/82eRyCG2nG
Is it @fossilfreebooks workers who are using their right to free speech and calling for an end to deadly pollution?
Or is it the bosses of @BaillieGifford who have cut funding for festivals rather than cut funding for the wrecking of our future? https://t.co/l8clu4B5ly
What Marina Hyde and Jonny Geller mean here by ‘a contraction of the human experience’ is really just the loss of insulation, among the middle classes, from the effects of politics. https://t.co/PzsPZtVufj
Because boo-hoo, your middle class book soiree is cancelled. Meanwhile, Hyde couldn’t even masquerade as someone who cared about the climate crisis or Gaza:
I love how Gaza like climate change has become a derisive reference for western liberals when they want to rail against what they believe are the eccentric concerns that are destroying their way of life. https://t.co/tAERDzlcZ1
— Idrees Ahmad | idreesahmad.bsky.social (@im_PULSE) June 17, 2024
This is just genocide apologism. Very well dressed up, sure, but the point is clear: “Please let me get on with my life and stop asking me to discuss what is going on in Gaza”.
Nevermind that Israel has systematically destroyed Gaza’s cultural institutions and sites, including over 140 historic monuments. Or that the climate crisis is decimating the natural world.
It’s almost as if Marina Hyde isn’t actually interested in protecting art at all. Instead, reactionary punching down is the bread and butter of Western liberal chancers like Lady Dudley-Williams. Compare and contrast:
In 2019 Jeremy Corbyn wanted to protect EVERY public library for ALL UK children.
In 2024 Marina Hyde wants to protect £223bn Baillie Gifford’s sponsorship of Cheltenham Festival’s one-off Children’s outreach programme.
Some on X exposed her as the hypocritical opportunist she really is. Notably, on the one hand Marina Hyde has spoken out against sports-washing for prolific human rights violator Saudi Arabia. Yet, when it comes to fossil fuels and Israeli genocide, art-washing is golden:
Given how damning @MarinaHyde has been about Saudi Arabian sportswashing, surely not hard to understand the problem with artswashing? https://t.co/MLsCe9FLFa
If the Saudi Public Investment Fund was sponsoring these festivals, there would be no debate about art being political! https://t.co/6IcTtd3ZWZ
Hyde brazenly flirts within the politically permissible – that is, the media has manufactured the conditions for her flaccid criticism of these boycotts. Largely, it has done this by dehumanising Palestinians and colonised Black and brown communities in the Global South. By contrast, as one astute X user suggested, she’d likely be champing at the bit to stick it to Russia:
I also seriously doubt that Hyde would take this attitude to demands relating to cultural events and the Ukraine-Russia war. Hard not to read this from Lady Dudley-Williams at fizzing anger at the impertinence of the grotty little shouty people.
Yet, if Hyde’s rattled – she’s right to be. Because, with drivel like this, it’s only a matter of time before readers tire of her liberal lickspittle. Ultimately, Hyde’s selective outrage is not surprising. She predicates her privilege on massaging the image of criminal capitalists tyrannising people and the planet for profit. What is surprising, is that anyone still listens to her shite.
If you weren’t already folks, now would be a good time to boycott the Guardian and its corporate capitalist-abetting band of two-faced stenographers.
At yet another pro-Palestine demonstration, cops have been out enacting violence against peaceful protesters. This time, the Greater Manchester Police (GMP) force was the culprit.
As usual, the police appeared to be lying through their teeth to get out of it.
Manchester protests for Palestine
On Saturday, protesters in Manchester held a march in solidarity with Gaza, in central Manchester:
Now: Heavy rain in Manchester and 1000s out demanding freedom for Palestine & freedom for 5,000 Palestinians arrested in Gaza since October 07 who with 8000 arrested in the West Bank have suffered the most barbaric torture with over 60 tortured to death by their Israeli jailers.… pic.twitter.com/eYROs0UdWy
However, what started out as a peaceful demonstration, soon turned violent. Naturally, it was GMP that charged into the crowd and carried out the brutality, as protesters showed on X:
Police beat Manchester protesters for opposing the Gaza genocide and demanding the freedom of Palestinian political prisoners @_YFFP_pic.twitter.com/DSasQQINng
Predictably, the GMP statement closed ranks in the usual way. Notably, the Manchester Evening Newsreported that four officers “suffered ‘non-serious’ injuries”. Perhaps a few officers strained a vein in their temples, because protesters highlighted that it was the actually the police that injured people on the demo.
In some staggering levels of spin, GMP said that:
Whilst public order policing is complex and challenging, we will not tolerate violence or threatening behaviour and will take action to protect ourselves and the public when necessary.
However, as one X poster pointed out, this is evidently simply the behaviour of a police force ‘protecting’ itself:
It almost sounds straight from the deluded Zionist apologist’s playbook of the same old sycophantic mantra about Israel’s “right to defend itself”.
Manchester cops: endangering elderly people and children
People on X underscored that elderly people and children made up some of the peaceful demonstration. Of course, this didn’t stop the police from throwing some protesters to the floor and endangering them:
wasnt here yesterday but have been on majority of marches last 8 months and cannot believe this. these crowds are full of elderly people and children. seeing accounts of people having to pull toddlers out of the way of police. @AndyBurnhamGM answer for this. https://t.co/heuiCOIGS7
Moreover, pro-Palestine campaigners have held eight months of non-violent protest in Manchester. By contrast, this wasn’t GMP’s first assault on their democratic rights to peaceful assembly:
CALL OUT: if you have any video of the police violence in Manchester yesterday, please send it to @GBCMANCHESTER at manchestergbc@riseup.net
In particular, Netpol referred to GMP officers previously assaulting two legal observers with batons. As it reported at the time:
One of the legal observers held up his hands as the police became more violent and informed officers that he was not a participant in any of the protests, but fell to the ground after he was struck painfully in the back, he believes by a police baton. He then described how three officers stood over him with their batons drawn before he was picked up – and thrown violently back onto the floor. He has bruising to his legs. This excessive use of force was captured on video, which also verifies the legal observer’s description of events.
The other legal observer, who was behind the police line some distance from this incident, told us how she was confronted by an inspector with an extended baton. She said she was pushed backward and struck twice before two other officers, one an ‘evidence gatherer’ (normally responsible for filming protests), came aggressively towards her with their batons drawn. This too has been verified by video footage. As a result of the police violence, she has a suspected perforated ear drum and received bruises to her face.
From Peterloo to Palestine
Of course, it barely needs pointing out after months of oppressive policing of Palestine solidarity protests, but this is the cops operating exactly as intended. That is, as a violent tool of the oppressive state. Many on X were quick to state this:
The British state doing what it does – attacking ordinary citizens who dare challenge its imperialism as genocide. “The enemy is at home”… https://t.co/KqDSfUWgKR
The capitalist state and its enforcers don’t protect the rights of the oppressed abroad or the working class here. They protect their own power and the system of oppression they benefit from. We need our own self defence orgs.
And as astutely highlighted by others, there’s a long history of police forces violently repressing the working class. In fact, in the very spot the pro-Palestine protesters marched, a paramilitary force protecting the interests of the Tory elite, enacted just such violence against pro-democracy and anti-poverty protesters. Only, that was the Peterloo Massacre in 1819:
theres a kind of fatalistic irony for this to happen in st peters square where peterloo took place. https://t.co/heuiCOIGS7
— John Urquhart #AintAsking 𓅿 (@TheDryhtscipe) June 15, 2024
It’s a reminder, if we still needed it, that the police exist to shield the interests of the state, and its capitalist elite. Since the political establishment is drenched in complicity of Israel’s genocide, it’s not surprising that its enforcers continue to turn on those showing solidarity with Palestine.
North Warwickshire Borough Council are seeking to use public money to make an interim injunction banning protest at Kingsbury oil terminal, permanent. Just Stop Oil supporters took action at the terminal in 2022 and are currently demanding an emergency plan to end the extraction and burning of fossil fuels by 2030.
North Warwickshire: public money to protect private profit
More than 15 Just Stop Oil supporters, named in the injunction filed by North Warwickshire Borough Council, appeared before Judge Kelly at the Royal Courts of Justice for a hearing that commenced on Tuesday 11th June.
The council, currently under no overall control but Tory-led, aims to extend the injunction against ‘persons unknown’ to prevent all future protests outside the terminal in Tamworth, operated by Shell, Essar, and Valero Energy Corporation.
Lawyers for North Warwickshire Borough Council argued that the interim injunction granted in 2022 should be made permanent to stop protests at the terminal. This effectively means the council is using taxpayers’ money to protect a private oil company facility. Judge Kelly is likely to take a few weeks to reach a decision on whether the injunction can be extended.
In a surprising development, counsel revealed in court that the council would not be seeking costs from any named defendants regarding the injunction.
At the start of the trial, the judge highlighted the council’s failure to comply with a previous order concerning the service of notice to defendants. Some defendants received notice as late as two days before the trial began.
None of the defendants had any legal representation and were informed in court that each individual wishing to give a closing statement in the civil proceedings would need to file a new application, costing £300 each. Ultimately, three supporters made the application in record time and were granted permission by Judge Kelly to deliver closing statements.
Just Stop Oil: trying to stop an existential threat
Alyson Lee was allowed to give a closing statement. In 2022, she was sentenced to 16 days at Foston Hall prison in Derby for holding a sign on a grass verge outside the terminal. In part of her closing statement, she said:
We find ourselves in unprecedented circumstances where governments of the world are supporting the fossil fuel corporations in their genocidal businesses.
There is something particularly distressing about a local authority spending time and resources on protecting one of the richest industries on earth, whilst its own residents are vulnerable to harms caused by that industry (e.g. flooding, heatwaves, food inflation and food insecurity).
The council needs to be putting its time and money into preparing for climate breakdown and protecting its citizens from all the consequences of that.
Another defendant named on the injunction is Chloe Naldrett. She was sent to Foston Hall prison in Derby for six days in 2022, also for holding a sign outside the terminal. She said in part of her closing statement:
The people listed on this injunction did not break it for fun. We did it out of a sense of duty and moral and social responsibility, and because we have tried literally everything else to raise the alarm and try to persuade the Government to respond appropriately to the existential threat that is posed by our relentless heating of the planet.
The group of people named on this injunction includes doctors, social workers, electricians, clergy, teachers, nurses, farmers, students. Deeply moral, deeply responsible, entirely ordinary people. A huge number of us are parents. Many are grandparents. We love our children, our families, our communities, and we love this beautiful, fragile world to which we are doing so much damage.
Ordinary people are being abused by oil companies: not the other way around. I broke this injunction to make a point about how justice in this country can be purchased, and how it is therefore open to exploitation by wealthy companies.
‘Persons unknown’ in North Warwickshire
The trial comes amidst growing criticism of the use of “persons unknown” injunctions, which have proliferated over the past two years.
These injunctions target unknown defendants to ensnare as many individuals as possible, often without their knowledge. Sixteen people have already served up to 85 days in jail for breaching the same injunction that the council now seeks to extend.
On a single day in September 2022, over 50 people were arrested based on this injunction, with six jailed and most receiving two-year suspended sentences.
Friends of the Earth is challenging the use of injunctions against “persons unknown” at the European Court of Human Rights. Katie de Kauwe, a lawyer at Friends of the Earth has described anti-protest injunctions as a “confusing, opaque, parallel system of prohibitions” used by private companies and public authorities to create their own public order laws.
The UN Rapporteur for Environmental Defenders has strongly criticised the draconian clampdown on the right to protest in England and Wales, particularly the use of civil injunctions.
Palestine Action were causing problems for Israel’s war machine up and down the UK on Monday 17 June – leaving cops scrabbling to contain the metaphorical fires the group created.
Palestine Action: carry on camping
Activists have set up camp at the premises of Elbit Systems’ UAV Engines, Shenstone, increasing pressure on the Israeli drone manufacturer which has found its weapons-sights factory in Kent, and the offices of its major shareholder Scotiabank, shut down by Palestine Action.
The camp, far from the first that Palestine Action has undertaken against the Israeli-owned Staffordshire factory, has been established in the trees surrounding the Lynn Lane, Lichfield site:
BREAKING: Palestine Action set up camp outside Elbit’s drone engine factory in Shenstone
We’ll be a daily reminder that it’s the beginning of the end for the Israeli weapons maker
Limiting the operational capacity of the factory, the Palestine Action camp threatens the production of the drone engines and components therefore which UAV Engines is currently producing for the Israeli military.
UAV Engines is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Israel’s largest weapons company, Elbit Systems, the parent company producing for 85% of Israel’s drone fleet. This includes the Hermes 450 and 900 drones terrorising Gaza, the rotary Wankel-style engines for which originate from UAV Engines in Shenstone.
While UAV Engines regularly claims that they produce solely for the British Ministry of Defence, export license information, showing their regular shipment of ML10 UAV parts, along with Freedom of Information requests detailing the company’s non-disclosure agreement in place with the Israeli ‘military end-user’ of their products, suggests that this is a falsehood.
Shut Israel’s war machine down
On the same day, Palestine Action activists took on another Elbit site – storming and breaking apart the premises of Instro Precision, the Kent-based manufacturer of weapons sights and targeting systems similarly exported for use by Israel’s genocidal military:
BREAKING: Actionists cut through 3 security fences to get inside Elbit's 'highly secure' compound and break into Kent's Israeli weapons factory.
Once inside, they begun dismantling machinery, technology and parts used to arm the Gaza genocide. pic.twitter.com/5yyQXJYbiA
Scotiabank, the Canadian bank which is Elbit’s largest foreign shareholder, had their London offices blockaded by a lock-on action:
BREAKING: Palestine Action lock down all entrances into Scotiabank’s London office.
Despite slashing their stake in half, the bank still invest over $230million in Israel’s biggest weapons firm, making them the largest foreign shareholder in Elbit Systems. pic.twitter.com/Wb5JK7kqKo
10 arrested in London for blockading Scotiabank, the largest foreign investor in Israel's biggest weapons producer, Elbit Systems pic.twitter.com/Dk4WAySUpI
It came a week after Palestine Action activists smashed and sprayed red the premises of 20 Barclays branches across the country as a result of their billions invested in Israel’s genocide. As the Canary previously reported, activists broke windows of Barclays branches and offices across England and Scotland on Monday 10 June to demand the bank divests from Israel’s weapons trade and fossil fuels.
A jury at Snaresbrook Crown Court has resisted a judge’s invitation to convict six medical professionals, charged with ‘criminal damage’, after they broke windows at JP Morgan in July 2022, on the eve of the UK’s record-breaking climate crisis-induced heatwave. Despite more than two days of deliberations and the judge’s direction that they had no legal defence, the jury were unable to agree on a verdict.
The JP Morgan Six: no verdict reached
Just before lunch on Friday 14 June, the jury asked the judge whether a medical emergency could be a lawful excuse, by inference rejecting the prosecutor’s position that the action concerned not objective reality, but ‘political opinion and belief’. The judge told them that in this case it was no defence.
The outcome casts further doubt on the GMC’s position that doctors who take direct action to protect the public from climate breakdown undermine public trust in the profession. It was on this basis that the GMC suspended Dr Sarah Benn from practice in April, after she held a sign saying ‘Stop New Oil’, in breach of an injunction obtained by Valero, the US-based fossil fuels company.
Speaking after the verdict, Dr Alice Clack said:
It’s hard to express what we’re all feeling right now. We’re grateful to the jury for bringing moral sense and humanity into the courtroom.
Their deliberations can’t have been easy given the directions of the judge. The outcome doesn’t bring back the countless lives already lost to JP Morgan’s fossil fuel addiction, in this country and around the world. But it gives an indication of the public support for medical practitioners willing to put their bodies on the line.
The climate crisis is a health crisis. We can’t protect our patients by treating the symptoms, and we won’t stand by while JP Morgan and others cover up the truth and pour petrol on the flames of the climate crisis. It’s our duty as evidence-based professionals to take proportionate and effective action to protect public health.
Today the jury, by refusing the judge’s invitation to find us guilty, has sent a powerful message to the GMC that public trust in the medical profession is not eroded by their engagement in civil disobedience.
Dr Fiona Godlee, former editor in chief of the British Medical Journal, said:
None of these experienced and dedicated doctors and nurses wanted to be up in court on these charges. They wanted to be treating patients and protecting the public as they have sworn to do. But the world is facing an existential climate emergency that threatens our very survival, and our government and corporations like JP Morgan are completely failing us by continuing the madness of investing in fossil fuels. In view of this, I fully understand why these doctors and nurses felt the need to act as they did and I thank them for their leadership and courage.
Action taken ahead of 40˚C heatwave in 2022, which claimed thousands of lives
Taking action against JP Morgan
On 17 July 2022, the group of six medical professionals (two consultants, two GPs and two nurses) knew what was coming. The UK’s record heatwave, that would cause thousands of deaths across the country, in particular among the young, elderly and the vulnerable, most in need of medical care. 19 July 2022 remains the hottest recorded day in UK history, with the mercury hitting 40.3˚C in Coningsby, Lincolnshire.
At 8am that day, Dr Juliette Brown, a consultant psychiatrist, Maggie Fay, a Dementia Specialist Nurse, Dr David McKelvey, a GP, Dr Alice Clack, a consultant obstetrician and gynaecologist, Dr Patrick Hart, a GP, and Ali Rowe, a child and adolescent mental health specialist and former mental health nurse, carefully cracked a number of panes of glass at JP Morgan’s offices in Canary Wharf and put up posters which read “IN CASE OF MEDICAL CLIMATE EMERGENCY BREAK GLASS”.
At the time of their action, JP Morgan, the leading financier of the global fossil fuel industry, had poured $384.2bn into the sector since the Paris Agreement on Climate Change called for an urgent reduction of carbon emissions. This despite JP Morgan themselves producing a report, leaked to the press in 2020, warning that climate change was a threat to the survival of the human race. The report also stated:
The human cost of climate change will play out through worsening health outcomes.
Growing number of health professionals arrested
More than 130 health professionals have been arrested for climate protest in the last few years. Information published by the British government on climate change and health in May 2022, which quotes from the Lancet, a leading medical journal, helps explain why so many are ready to risk their livelihoods for the public:
The science is unequivocal; a global increase of 1.5°C above the pre-industrial average and the continued loss of biodiversity risk catastrophic harm to health that will be impossible to reverse.
As the International Energy Agency and others have made clear, the new fossil fuel developments being supported by the banking sector in general, and JP Morgan in particular, are inconsistent with keeping warming under 1.5˚C. Medical professionals who understand the catastrophic consequences feel duty-bound to take proportionate action to protect life and public health. In 2019, Richard Horton, editor of the Lancet, the leading medical journal, called on all medical practitioners to take direct action:
All health professionals have a duty and obligation to engage in all kinds of non-violent social protest to address the climate emergency’ because it represents ‘the most existential crisis facing our communities in the world today.
In September 2022, the World Health Organisation joined calls for a binding treaty to end what it referred to as the ‘self sabotage’ of addiction to fossil fuels, before prioritising in May 2024 the escalating climate change impacts on health in its next programme of work. The British Medical Journal has reported that air pollution from fossil fuels is causing more than five million deaths a year. Rising temperatures are now driving the spread of mosquito-borne diseases, such as dengue fever, into Europe.
On the last Friday before the trial begun, Judge Pounder removed all legal defences from the defendants, changing the legal goal-posts at the last minute and frustrating prior trial preparation.
In doing so, Judge Reid remarked“none of you pleaded guilty despite your obvious guilt”, a comment contradicted not only by the verdict of this jury, but by others such as the jury who acquitted nine women at Southwark Crown Court last year who broke windows at HSBC.
Indeed, the five women were only found guilty after Judge Reid had warned the jury they could face criminal prosecution if they applied their conscience to the case, prompting an anonymous King’s Counsel to tell Private Eye:
I’ve never encountered a judge threatening jurors in the way that Judge Silas Reid did. That suggests a clear determination by him to deter them from returning a verdict independently.
The case is being appealed to the Court of Appeal on the basis that Judge Reid’s warning to the jury was unlawful, and led to a formal complaint to the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office, signed by more than 1,800 people including naturalist and broadcaster Chris Packham.
Over 80,000 people, all marching to Parliament with one message for our politicians: 
Trail hunting banned
Victoria Embankment Gardens now! 
(@Muguruki1) 
#AintAsking 𓅿 (@TheDryhtscipe)