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Category: Protest

  • Protests erupt after PhD student Rumeysa Ozturk’s abduction by masked US agents

    Masked agents abducted PhD student Rumeysa Ozturk in Somerville on 25 March. Focusing on her opposition to Israel’s genocide in Gaza, the US government revoked her visa. Critics have called her kidnapping a “chilling violation of civil liberties“.

    Rumeysa Ozturk: persecuted for speaking out against genocide

    It appears that Ozturk became a target for persecution because she co-authored an article in a student newspaper opposing genocide and calling for divestment from companies complicit in violations of international law. She also apparently attended anti-genocide protests. The Trump administration has provided no evidence for its own defamatory allegations.

    Ozturk’s attorney said on 26 March that she was “unaware of her whereabouts” and had “not been able to contact her”. She was also aware of “no charges” against her client. A database later suggested authorities had taken her out of state to “an ICE processing center in Louisiana”. Her attorney asserted:

    Based on patterns we are seeing across the country, her exercising her free speech rights appears to have played a role in her detention

    The article that Ozturk co-authored was peaceful and sensible, calling for “the equal dignity and humanity of all people”. But because it criticised Israel’s violations of international law and called for divestment, it made her a target for “a massive blacklisting and doxxing operation directed from Israel”. Canary Mission (absolutely no relation at all to the Canary) is “a key intelligence asset for the Ministry of Strategic Affairs, a highly secretive intelligence organization that is largely focused on the United States, and the Shin Bet security service”. It gets its money from wealthy, anonymous donors, and aims to “silence anti-Israel dissent”. And that’s what it did by alleging Ozturk’s engagement in “anti-Israel activism in March 2024” (i.e. the article).

    The US struggle for free speech

    Ozturk’s kidnapping comes as other anti-genocide students have also faced state persecution on behalf of Israel. In particular, there has been mass solidarity with Mahmoud Khalil, a prominent anti-genocide protester in New York whom the Trump administration detained and has been seeking to deport.

    On 26 March, hundreds of people in Somerville came out to protest Ozturk’s abduction:

    As human rights activist Kashif Chaudhry said, the Trump administration’s assault on free speech is simply “to shield a genocidal state from criticism”. He added that:

    Criticizing and condemning Israel’s actions isn’t just a moral duty — it has become the litmus test for free speech in America today.

    The American Civil Liberties Union, meanwhile, has stressed:

    Nobody should be disappeared from the streets of Somerville – or anywhere in America.

    Everyone should be alarmed by the video of Rumesya Ozturk being handcuffed and taken away by agents. The government must immediately release her.

    Nobody should be disappeared from the streets of Somerville – or anywhere in America.Everyone should be alarmed by the video of Rumesya Ozturk being handcuffed and taken away by agents. The government must immediately release her.www.bostonglobe.com/2025/03/26/m…

    — ACLU of Massachusetts (@aclum.bsky.social) 2025-03-26T20:07:29.282Z

    Featured image via screengrab

    By Ed Sykes

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Even BBC journalists are being deported from Turkey as Erdoğan’s authoritarianism intensifies

    Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu was arrested over the weekend on corruption charges. However, as the leader of the opposition, Imamoglu’s arrest has sparked anti-government protests in Turkey. Imamoglu has presented a staunch opposition to Turkish president Recep Erdoğan and, as Al Jazeera reported:

    The court’s decision to send Imamoglu to pre-trial detention comes after the opposition, European leaders and tens of thousands of protesters criticised the actions against him as politicised.

    Censorship in Turkey

    Now, thousands of protesters have been detained and government-owned media appears to be running a blackout on any coverage of the protests. A number of journalists have been arrested and a BBC reporter has even been deported after his reporting of demonstrations.

    Hundreds of thousands of protesters have gathered across Turkey in what was initially to express opposition to Imamoglu’s arrest, but have quickly bloomed into wider anti-government gatherings. However, Turkish state media has been accused of censoring any coverage of the protests. The Guardian reported that government owned channels broadcast interviews with ministers unrelated to the protests and that:

    Substantive coverage of the protests has instead been the preserve of the small slice of newspapers and cable channels that exist outside the well funded and slick pro-government broadcasting networks.

    Erol Önderoğlu of Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said:

    This is the negative outcome of what Erdoğan has built for two decades, which is a highly polarised, toxic media environment.

    Erdoğan now controls about 85% of national and corporate media in Turkey, so we’re not talking about a fair media environment where pluralism truly flourishes.

    Deportation

    In a move likely to awaken the attention and ire of Western media, the Turkish government have also deported BBC reporter Mark Lowen. In a statement, the BBC said:

    This morning (27 March) the Turkish authorities deported BBC News correspondent Mark Lowen from Istanbul, having taken him from his hotel the previous day and detained him for 17 hours.

    On Thursday morning, he was presented with a written notice that he was being deported for ‘being a threat to public order’.

    Lowen himself said:

    To be detained and deported from the country where I previously lived for five years and for which I have such affection has been extremely distressing. Press freedom and impartial reporting are fundamental to any democracy.

    And, to further compound the issues of censorship in coverage of the protests, several journalists have been arrested as demonstrations continue. RSF released a statement with the details of those journalists arrested:

    AFP photojournalist Yasin Akgül, freelance photojournalist Bülent Kılıç, Now Haber reporter Ali Onur Tosun, and freelance journalist Zeynep Kuray were simply doing their job — covering massive public demonstrations.

    An RSF representative in Turkey said:

    This is the first time that clearly identified journalists who were in the middle of working have been sent to prison under this law against public gatherings and protests. These scandalous rulings reflect a deeply serious situation in Turkey.

    Equating professional journalists with protesters not only shows shameless bad faith but also highlights the grave interference of political power in the judiciary that is attempting to silence the media.

    Turkey crackdown

    In addition to journalists being arrested, many protesters have been detained by authorities. Footage shared on social media showed rows of riot police threateningly lined up beside protesters:

    Footage from Getty showed riot police trying to use tear gas on demonstrators:

    Gigantic crowds continued to gather despite the attempted government repression:

    Growing anger

    At the time of publication, almost 1,900 people have been arrested during the protests. This number will likely increase, with further protests planned for the weekend and no sign of tensions easing. Erdoğan has remained defiant and blamed the opposition for inciting protests.

    However, what started as protests against the apparent politically-motivated arrest of a mayor, has quickly captured an exhaustion and frustration with the government that will be much harder to pacify. The Turkish government’s response of censoring, arresting, and deporting even coverage of opposition is testament to their fear of public collectivity and resistance.

    Featured image via screengrab

    By Maryam Jameela

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Just Stop Oil: ‘this is not the end of civil resistance’

    The following is a statement on full from Just Stop Oil over its decision to end its direct action

    Three years after bursting on the scene in a blaze of orange, at the end of April we will be hanging up the hi vis.

    Just Stop Oil’s initial demand to end new oil and gas is now government policy, making us one of the most successful civil resistance campaigns in recent history. We’ve kept over 4.4 billion barrels of oil in the ground and the courts have ruled new oil and gas licences unlawful.

    So it is the end of soup on Van Goghs, cornstarch on Stonehenge and slow marching in the streets. But it is not the end of trials, of tagging and surveillance, of fines, probation and years in prison. We have exposed the corruption at the heart of our legal system, which protects those causing death and destruction while prosecuting those seeking to minimize harm. Just Stop Oil will continue to tell the truth in the courts, speak out for our political prisoners and call out the UK’s oppressive anti-protest laws. We continue to rely on small donations from the public to make this happen.

    Just Stop Oil: this is not the end

    This is not the end of civil resistance. Governments everywhere are retreating from doing what is needed to protect us from the consequences of unchecked fossil fuel burning. As we head towards 2°C of global heating by the 2030s, the science is clear: billions of people will have to move or die and the global economy is going to collapse. This is unavoidable. We have been betrayed by a morally bankrupt political class.

    As corporations and billionaires corrupt political systems across the world, we need a different approach. We are creating a new strategy, to face this reality and to carry our responsibilities at this time. Nothing short of a revolution is going to protect us from the coming storms.

    We are calling on everyone who wants to be a part of building the new resistance to join us for the final Just Stop Oil action in Parliament Square on 26 April.

    We will all be coming together for one day of action on Saturday April 26th at Parliament Square. This means everyone: whether you’ve taken action in the past, or are still considering joining, the plan is we all converge on the streets of London on the same day.

    This will be a lower-risk action and we won’t be pushing for arrest. We know that arrest can be a barrier to stepping out, and we will be doing our best to minimise that risk so that everyone can join. This is an opportunity for all of us to come together in our numbers and show that civil resistance is alive and well, that it remains a force for change in this country. If you have ever considered taking action with Just Stop Oil, now is the time, it’s your final chance.

    Sign up here. See you on the streets.

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Councillor tells the Canary local pressure must continue following Oxford divestment vote

    Oxford City Council voted unanimously on Monday 24 March to divest from companies complicity in Israel’s genocide in Gaza. But as councillor Hosnieh Djafari-Marbini told the Canary, a continuation of local pressure is essential to ensure the council follows through.

    Djafari-Marbini seconded the motion which called for the council to “actively avoid complicity in Israel’s occupation of Palestine”. And she said:

    From the outset, this motion clearly affirmed local authorities’ ethical duty and legal obligation to actively avoid complicity in Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine and genocidal acts against the Palestinian people. Successive ICJ rulings apply to every branch and level of government, so all councils must take concrete steps to end trade and investment relations and cooperation with entities that legitimise, aid or assist violations of international law. UN experts cited in the motion are clear: if authorities do not act now, international law—the fundamental rights and freedoms on which we all depend—will be forever eroded. No councillor can deny this, particularly in Oxford, a City of Sanctuary that has long stated an explicit commitment to human rights.

    “Lengthy and constructive engagement” to get a unanimous vote in Oxford

    She also added context about how a unanimous vote on the motion was possible, stressing that:

    The movement for Palestinian liberation has always been strong in Oxford; our twinning with Ramallah in 2019 was the culmination of many years of cultural, healthcare worker, trade union and student activism. The local Labour Party lost its majority in the city council when 10 of us resigned from the party due to its leadership’s reprehensible—and indeed criminal—response to Israel’s colonial genocide. It would have been hypocritical and ultimately politically damaging to vote against upholding international law and human rights in an academic city proud of its City of Sanctuary status, human rights positioning and green credentials.

    Nonetheless, she pointed out that:

    Lengthy and constructive engagement with all parties and council officers was necessary to arrive at wording that could pass unanimously.

    Keeping up the pressure

    Djafari-Marbini is fully aware, however, that continuing pressure will be necessary to make sure the council respects the vote. She asserted that:

    As with all our institutions inherently designed to support and protect the interests of the military industrial complex, this is only the beginning of the process and careful monitoring will now be crucial to ensure the motion is fully implemented. The unanimous vote reflected the strength of the movement in the city, which will be crucial in the months to come. Local residents, activists and councillors will stay mobilised and submit regular questions to the scrutiny committee, and full council.

    And she emphasised:

    We are resilient and will dismantle Israeli impunity step by step. This is the call of Palestinian civil society and we need to act if not least for the sake of regaining our own humanity.

    Djafari-Marbini also shared with the Canary the summing up speech of councillor Barbara Coyne, who proposed the motion, at the vote on 24 March. We will share this below:

    No more “wasting time and costing lives”

    The situation in Palestine is not complicated.

    As Oxford City residents recognise, Britain’s historic and ongoing ties to colonial oppression and lack of decisive action to uphold international law make us complicit in crimes against humanity. When we engage in intellectual or verbal acrobatics to deny realities or justify continued silence, we are wasting time and costing lives.

    6% of Gaza’s population has been slaughtered, and 2.1 million survivors are facing “the fastest starvation campaign in modern history”. Over 40,000 have been forcibly displaced in the West Bank, where homes and land are daily destroyed and violently expropriated. Almost 10,000 political prisoners continue to be subjected to systematic abuse and torture, including hundreds of children; Israel killed 46 children per day throughout 2024, and 200 in just 3 days last week.

    I truly believe that we have a profound moral duty to act, now, to ensure we do no further harm.

    As UN experts cited in this motion emphasise, international law is on a precipice: in the absence of decisive action, all of our fundamental rights and freedoms risk being indelibly eroded. We must understand that none of us are free until all of us are free. And particularly as elected officials, we have a role to play in advancing dignity, freedom, justice and equality for ALL PEOPLE.

    “We cannot stand by, in this preeminent university city, when every university in Gaza has been destroyed”

    This council has previously acknowledged the vital role of economic action by local authorities in achieving justice (notably in the South African liberation struggle). Palestinians—including those in our twin city of Ramallah—have long called for concrete solidarity, and international law demands it.

    We cannot stand by, in this preeminent university city, when every university in Gaza has been destroyed, along with 90% of schools and countless libraries, archives and cultural and heritage sites.

    It was an eminent Oxford professor who, in 2009 coined the term “scholasticide” to denote Israel’s decades-long, systematic destruction of Palestinian education, saying, quote “Education posits possibilities, opens horizons. Freedom of thought contrasts sharply with the apartheid wall, the shackling checkpoints, the choking prisons.”

    As a city councillor, a teacher and special needs teacher, a parent, a grandparent and a human being—I urge you to join me in voting for this motion and commit to strengthening our Council policies to reaffirm our city’s commitment to human rights and international law. I do not believe we can claim to be addressing the climate emergency, let alone upholding human rights and equality, if we do otherwise.

    Featured image supplied

    By Ed Sykes

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Disabled people and allies just came out in communities nationwide to fight the DWP cuts

    On Wednesday 26 March, there was a nationwide groundswell against the Labour Party government’s brutal cuts to benefits, as chronically ill and disabled people came out in force for #WelfareNotWarfare protests. The enormous turnout in London was only part of it – as people around the country took to the streets to fight the cruel Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) plans. Together, across the UK, chronically ill and disabled people, and their allies made it clear that government won’t get away with it without a fierce collective resistance.

    Welfare Not Warfare: disabled people mount nationwide protests

    While the major protest centred round Downing Street and Parliament Square in London, plenty turned out elsewhere in the country against Labour’s disgraceful plans.

    In Aberdeen, Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) activists gave speeches and hosted a die-in to represent the chronically ill and disabled people Labour’s vicious cuts will kill:

    Activists from Stop the War Coalition turned out in solidarity in Glasgow:

    Meanwhile, in Newcastle, protesters even caught the attention of Reach Plc’s faux local news site ChronicleLive, with the outlet reporting “dozens of protesters” gathering in the city centre:

    DPAC and Crips Against Cuts member Hannah Frost spoke to the Local Democracy Reporting Service. At the protest, Frost highlighted the impact the cuts could have her as a wheelchair-user living with hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (hEDS). As the news site reported:

    Speaking at the city centre rally, Hannah said: “They are trying to frame this as getting people back into work. But cutting our benefits will not help that, it will make it harder for people to work.

    “I pay for medicinal cannabis through my Pip and without that I am in so much pain that I can’t sleep. How would I be able to work if I don’t have that extra money to spend managing my life? It is expensive needing a wheelchair”.

    Bringing out the best in communities everywhere

    Darlington drew a significant crowd with DPAC banners and speeches against the cuts:

    End Social Care Disgrace campaigners in Leeds brought attention to the connection between the cuts and systemic care failures in social care also impacting chronically ill and disabled people:

    Over in Derry, DPAC Northern Ireland activists gathered together outside the Guildhall:

    DPAC Norwich protesters took over the entrance to Norwich City Hall:

    Labour’s proposals are leaving many chronically ill and disabled people fearful for themselves and their loved ones. As much as they were to resist the government’s callous cuts, the protests were also focal point for people to find solidarity and support. A poignant photo from Norwich of people sitting with a protester in distress showed how these demonstrations also brought out the best in our local communities:

    Making sure Labour MPs got the message: Welfare Not Warfare

    Some protests took the fight right up to the local Labour MPs’ offices to call on their representatives to oppose the cuts. In Chesterfield for instance, the protesters went to make some noise outside Labour MP Toby Perkins’ office:

    Activists in Cardiff continued the nationwide protests into the evening outside Labour Secretary of State for Wales Jo Stevens’ office:

    All told, hundreds of protesters outside London came out on the National Day of Action. This was on top of the thousands in the capital. Overall, the multiple demonstrations all across the country showed the depth of opposition to Labour’s plans. Of course, it’s only the start of the fight back – but the government can be damn sure communities everywhere aren’t going to stop until Labour ends it war on chronically ill and disabled people.

    Featured image supplied

    By Hannah Sharland

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • While disabled people blocked Westminster, Palestine Action hit genocide insurers Allianz – twice

    On Wednesday 26 March, Palestine Action’s campaign to pressure Allianz, who provide insurance for Elbit Systems, to end their complicity in Israel’s genocide continued.

    Allianz: shut down yet again

    Two Allianz sites in Bristol, at Victoria Street and Aztec West were sprayed with symbolic blood-red paint and had their windows smashed – in order to shut them down and let people know the company’s profits are covered in Palestinian blood.

    This was the Aztec West site after Palestine Action paid it a visit:

    Allianz
    Copyright Mark Simmons
    Copyright Mark Simmons

    And here’s what Palestine Action did to Allianz’s Victoria Street site:

    Allianz
    Copyright Avon Valley Pictures
    Copyright Avon Valley Pictures

    Elbit, Israel’s biggest weapons maker, produces a variety of military attack drones in Britain, which have been used extensively to kill Palestinian civilians throughout the ongoing Gaza Genocide. The firm supplies 85% of the IDF’s killer drone fleet and land-based equipment, as well as electronic warfare devices, remote-controlled attack boats, munitions, and more.

    The Israeli weapons giant, who boast that their deadly products are “battle tested”, are only able to operate in Britain because Allianz provide them with insurance. By targeting the company, alongside Elbit, and all those who aid and abet them, Palestine Action aim to stop production of the weapons being used to massacre Palestinian civilians and save lives.

    Palestine Action have already targeted scores of Allianz sites, many of them repeatedly. In January, for example, on one night alone there were actions against 15 Allianz offices across Europe, with the campaign continuing to escalate throughout this year.

    Within the past week, the Glasgow offices of Allianz was sprayed with blood-red paint, with the words ‘AZ DROP ELBIT, IT’S GENOCIDE’ painted on the front of the building.

    Palestine Action: stopping a genocide

    A spokesperson for Palestine Action said:

    While the governments of the world do nothing, the Israeli war-machine, aided and abetted by Keir Starmer, are threatening the very existence of the Palestinian people in Gaza, and escalating attacks against them in the West Bank. The destruction of hospitals, the targeted murder of journalists, and the wholesale slaughter of the civilian population has become normalised.

    We are in an urgent struggle to stop a genocide, and will target the Israeli weapons makers to the best of our ability, along with all those who assist them, such as Allianz, who would be well-advised to invest elsewhere. We will not stop until every last Israeli weapons maker quits these shores for good.

    Featured image and additional images supplied

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Filthy Met Police arrest disabled activist at PEACEFUL #WelfareNotWarfare protest

    On Wednesday 26 March, Met Police arrested a disabled activist at the peaceful Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) ‘Welfare Not Warfare’ protest in London.

    #WelfareNotWarfare: pigs arresting disabled people

    Disabled people took to the street to protest the governments vicious planned cuts to Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) disability benefits. During the protest, Met Police arrested Carole, from East London Unite Community Branch.

    It says it all when the police feel the need to arrest disabled people who are protesting over planned cuts which could kill them.

    In the video, originally shared by East London Unite Community branch, officers claim Carole was shouting. However, unless the officers have hearing problems – and lets face it, if they did they wouldn’t be acting like dicks at a disability protest – then they arrested her for no reason.

    It doesn’t get much lower than arresting a disabled protestor:

    The Met also attempted to stop a Canary journalist filming:

    Three little piggies went to Parliament:

    Get those animals off those horses

    Meanwhile, the Met police literally deployed HORSES – to a disabled protest? Talk about pre-meditated violence. No wonder crime rates are so high when the entirety of the met is sat on horseback chasing disabled people through Westminster.

    Activists are encouraging people to head to Charing Cross Police Station where Carole is being held, to show support.

    Feature image and additional images via the Canary

    By HG

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Glasgow students step up resistance to university’s complicity in Israel’s genocide

    The University of Glasgow has been seeking to deter and repress anti-genocide protesters. But students continue to step up their resistance to the institutions links to death and destruction in occupied Palestine.

    Glasgow University faces protests

    For months, students have been protesting against the university’s £6.8m worth of shareholdings in arms companies complicit in Israel’s war crimes, despite overwhelming opposition from students and staff. And now, following the institution’s decision to call in the cops to help repress dissent, the campaign is only growing stronger.

    As the National reported, students with links to Glasgow University Justice for Palestine Society (GUJPS) have now “set up tents on the grass outside of the university’s library” until the university commits to divestment. This follows on from the student occupation of the Charles Wilson Building last week, which prompted the university to call in the police. And it comes as five students continue a hunger strike. Monday 24 March saw hundreds of students protest outside the library in solidarity with the strikers and the call for divestment.

    Students have named the encampment the “Dima Al Haj Liberated Zone” in memory of World Health Organisation worker Dima Alhaj, a former Glasgow university student whom Israel murdered in 2023 “alongside her six-month-old baby, her husband and her two brothers”.

    The University and College Union (UCU) has opposed the institution’s involvement of police officers in repressing protests:

    No Cops on Campus.The University and College Union Glasgow (UCUG) is gravely concerned at the response of the university’s governing bodies to peaceful student protests relating to divestment and the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

    — UCU University of Glasgow (@ucuglasgow.bsky.social) 2025-03-25T14:49:11.294Z

    Jewish staff members have expressed their support for the divestment campaign and anti-genocide protesters:

    🍉 UCU Glasgow support for PalestineIn light of today’s protests on campus, the UoG Jewish Staff Network has also issued a statement of support for the GUJPS campaign for divestment (slide 2).@glasgowstopwar.bsky.social

    — UCU University of Glasgow (@ucuglasgow.bsky.social) 2025-03-19T19:04:30.457Z

    Meanwhile, down in Cambridge

    At the University of Cambridge, meanwhile, protesters from the Organisation of Radical Cambridge Activists for Environmental Liberation (ORCA) and other groups took action against the institution’s hosting of an event involving “oil companies, fossil fuel lobbyists, mining companies and insurers providing services to the arms and fossil fuel industries”. In a press release, the activists accused the “Nature Action Dialogue” event of trying to greenwash “the reputation of companies responsible for the devastation of our climate and environment”.

    They stressed that:

    From Drax and Nestle to HSBC and Aviva, many of the companies attending today are responsible for war, genocide and environmental devastation around the work.

    In particular, they highlighted that “infamous fossil-fuel investors HSBC”:

    invested $192 billion in fossil fuels between 2016 and 2023 – and also has £831.5 million of investments in companies supplying Israel as it continues its genocidal onslaught on Gaza, which so far has resulted in the deaths of at least 50,000 Palestinians.

    Insurance giant Aviva, meanwhile:

    has over $880 million invested in arms companies which supply Israel, a fact which has been highlighted by new activist group Boycott Bloody Insurance in the context of the Gaza genocide.

    Protesters disrupted events from both outside and inside the event, aiming to inform attendees and passers-by about the companies’ involvement in fuelling death and destruction.

    BREAKING Activists have disrupted a greenwashing conference at Cambridge Uni!Today @uniofcam.bsky.social & @unep.org invited top polluters & genocide funders to chat about climate solutions.How can the Uni or UN be trusted when they're in the pockets of violent, colonial corporations?

    — ORCA (@orca4el.bsky.social) 2025-03-25T09:49:29.201Z

    3. HSBC: Invested $192 billion in planet-killing fossil fuels between 2016 and 2023.HSBC also invests £831.5 million in companies supplying Israel as it continues its genocidal onslaught on Gaza – which has so far killed at least 50,000 Palestinians.3/3

    — ORCA (@orca4el.bsky.social) 2025-03-25T10:34:44.720Z

    Featured image supplied

    By Ed Sykes

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Wes Streeting and the Guardian just got the treatment they deserved at a live event

    Health secretary Wes Streeting was at a Guardian Live event on Tuesday 25 March. Hosted by the liberal outlet’s stenographer-in-chief, Pippa Crerar, it sadly didn’t go quite according to either of their plans. This is because not only were there protesters outside over Streeting’s plans for more private involvement in the NHS – but inside, young disabled people took the health secretary to task over his government’s plans to cut Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) Personal Independence Payment (PIP) and Universal Credit for chronically ill and disabled people.

    Wes Streeting: don’t mess with the NHS

    First, outside the event at Conway Hall in London campaign group Keep Our NHS Public were there to greet snivelling Streeting:

    Little wonder the group was out protesting, really. As the Canary previously reported, Streeting said last month he’s “very sympathetic to the argument that we should try and leverage in private finance.” This is on top of the hundreds of thousands of pounds he’s received in donations from companies with links to private health care. Plus, Streeting has been open about his plans to let private companies get even more NHS contracts.

    And then, you have the appointment of Blairite Alan Milburn to Streeting’s team. This in itself is a cause for major concern:

    So, Keep Our NHS Public was right to sound the alarm outside Conway Hall.

    Then, inside young disabled people took Streeting to task:

    DWP PIP cuts will kill

    This was of course over Labour and DWP plans to kill chronically ill and disabled people – or if you’re reading from the party script, “reform the welfare state”.

    The “reforms” include stricter tests for DWP PIP claimants resulting in reduced payments for many – with those under the age of 22 no longer being able to claim incapacity benefit top ups to Universal Credit. This austerity dressed up as reform has left millions of disabled people feeling deflated and fearful, as most DWP PIP claimants won’t ever be able to work due to their disabilities.

    Overall, the DWP will be cutting around £5bn from people’s benefits. Of course, Labour is dressing this up as being done to ‘support’ chronically ill and disabled people into work. Yet it is the very opposite of that. – and as protesters pointed out, could end up killing some people.

    Not that blood being on the DWP’s hands is new. As the Canary reported in 2021, thousands of people have died on the DWP’s watch. Among these are:

    • Around 90 people a month between December 2011 and February 2014. The DWP said these people were fit for work.
    • Roughly 10 people a day died between March 2014 and February 2017 – a period of almost three years. The DWP had put these people in the ESA Work Related Activity Group (WRAG). This meant it told them they were healthy enough to start moving towards work.
    • Nearly 12 people died daily over a period of five years – between April 2013 and April 2018. The DWP was making them wait for their Personal Independence Payment (PIP) claims to be processed when they died.

    That’s over 34,000 people. They died either waiting for the DWP to sort their claims or after it said they were well enough to work or start moving towards work. Moreover, in 2018 alone there could have been 750 (if not more) people who took their own lives while claiming from the DWP. But across five years, the department only reviewed 69 cases of people taking their own lives.

    Streeting: expect more of this

    So, the threat from Labour to chronically ill and disabled, and our NHS, is very real – as is the party’s refusal to take the climate crisis seriously, and Streeting’s willingness to destroy the lives of trans children.

    Therefore, it was good to see him getting shouted down by the very people his government’s policies will be affecting. And, we can expect to see even more of this type of resistance over the next few months:

    Featured image via Climate Resistance 

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Drax protester get preposterous sentence for blocking a train for ONE MINUTE

    Retired GP Diana Warner has been sentenced today in Leeds Crown Court to a two year conditional discharge and required to pay £4,380 in court costs after being found guilty of obstruction of a railway line that carries trees to be burned at Drax, the UK’s single biggest carbon emitter.

    Drax: burning the planet but it’s activists at fault

    On Wednesday 26 February, a jury guided by a corporate servile judge handed climate protester and retired GP Diana Warner a guilty verdict. It was over an action in December 2021. Warner obstructed a railway line that carries trees destined to be burned by Drax’s Selby power plant in Yorkshire.

    As the biggest burner of woody biomass worldwide, its the UK’s single largest carbon polluter, and then some. In 2023 for instance, the planet-wrecking wood pellet plant pumped out 11.5m tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions. It meant that Drax’s Selby power station put out the equivalent of nearly 3% of the UK’s territorial emissions.

    At Leeds Crown Court, Judge Kearl instructed the 12-person jury to ignore their consciences in the case. Notably, the judge told the jury that:

    You have all taken an oath or affirmation to try this case on the evidence not your conscience

    He directed them to try Warner solely on the basis of whether she a) trespassed on Network Rail’s land, and b) caused an obstruction. Despite this, the jury still raised the concern over conscience, before ultimately finding Warner guilty.

    The jury queried Judge Kearl over their moral concerns, raising the question:

    As a matter of conscience we are finding it difficult to come to a verdict. What should we do?

    Of course, it isn’t the first case where a judge has tried to silence the jury’s right to acquit defendants. Notorious judges Christopher Hehir and Silas Reid – who have repeatedly handed out guilty verdicts to protesters – have been a leading example of judge hostility to juries ruling with their consciences.

    Now, Diana has had her sentence passed down to her.

    ‘This doesn’t make sense to me’

    Following the sentencing, in a statement outside the court Diana said:

    I trespassed on network rail land and stopped a train heading to the Drax power station for thirty seconds to a minute. I was drawing attention to what most people now know; Drax power station adds to the mass death and destruction caused by climate change and pollution.

    Today I have been given a two year conditional discharge. Drax power station is able to continue operating and at the same time it receives government subsidies. This doesn’t make sense to me.​​​​​​​

    Diana went on to say:

    What happens when jurors are told that they must act against their conscience?

    This is an attack on the very basis most of us live by – that human life and wellbeing are of utmost importance, and that the rights to life and health are respected in law.

    This is the time, more than ever, we all need to hold firm to our conscience. We need to act according to our moral principles for the safety of our lives and the lives of our children.

    In the three day trail the Jury heard how she took to the railway on 14 December 2021 to draw attention to the climate emergency and highlight the destructive practices of the controversial power station. The court heard that the train was disrupted for less than one minute.

    Following Warner’s guilty verdict, on the 27 February Drax posted its full year results. Across its 2024 operations, the greenwashing giant raked in £1.06bn in profits.

    Its gargantuan payouts also come the same month the Labour Party government has granted Drax £2bn in taxpayer subsidies. On Monday 10 February, the government extended this sum propping up the destructive industry from 2027 to 2031.

    Featured image supplied

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Insurance offices targeted across England in mass action by climate and anti-genocide groups

    On Tuesday 25 March, climate crisis and anti-genocide protesters across England came together to target insurance companies complicit in death and destruction around the world.

    A press release from Boycott Bloody Insurance explained that:

    groups from the climate justice, Palestine liberation and migrants rights movements, held protests in cities across England. Protests took place in London, Manchester, Birmingham, Lancaster, Guildford, Blackburn and Preston. With groups targeting the offices of Aviva, AIG, Allianz and Axa.

    In London, police arrested two people who climbed a building in order to drop a banner. Protesters also entered insurers’ offices and occupied their foyers, while others marched in city centres.

    BREAKING: Offices Occupied, Buildings Climbed, protests across England… 📍 London, Manchester, Birmingham, Lancaster, Guildford, Blackburn & Preston 📢 Insurers underwrite weapons, detention centres, fossil fuels, & genocideWe are calling on orgs to #BoycottBloodyInsurance

    — Boycott Bloody Insurance (@insuranceboycott.bsky.social) 2025-03-25T13:05:19.759Z

    Participants in the campaign come from Coal Action Network, Palestine Youth Movement, Parents 4 Palestine, Energy Embargo for Palestine, Tipping Point UK, Youth Front for Palestine, and Axe Drax.

    Insurers invest “over $1.7 billion in companies supplying military equipment used by Israel”

    Boycott Bloody Insurance recently released a report showing how “major global insurers actively enable Israel’s ongoing assault on Palestinians”. In a press release, it explained that “insurers including Allianz, Aviva, AXA, Zurich, and RSA” have been investing “over $1.7 billion in companies supplying military equipment used by Israel since 7 October 2023”. The latter include “Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Elbit Systems, and BAE Systems”, which Boycott Bloody Insurance said have a direct link to Israel’s war crimes, “including attacks on civilians in Gaza using white phosphorus and precision-guided munitions”.

    Amid the actions of 25 March, Boycott Bloody Insurance’s Andrew Taylor said:

    Insurers underwrite weapons, detention centres, and fossil fuels, causing environmental destruction, human rights abuses and genocide. We are calling on organisations across the UK to boycott deadly insurance companies. Change starts in our communities. Deadly insurers profit from our local councils, churches, charities and schools. We need to hurt insurers’ bottom line to force them to stop cashing in on death and suffering.

    The campaigners stress that “Allianz underwrites Elbit Systems, the main supplier of arms to Israel”, “AVIVA underwrites PetroChina, the third-biggest fossil fuel company globally by revenue, as well as, G4S and Serco who run many of the UK’s migrant detention centres”, “AXA gives cover to Drax, UK’s single largest carbon emitter”, and “AIG underwrites BP, the 8th largest fossil fuel company globally and supplier of a third of Israel’s total oil supply during the genocide”.

    Palestinian Youth Movement member Yara Derbas insisted:

    Insurance, just like logistics, is crucial for arms transfers to oppressive regimes. Our actions target the corporate complicity enabling Israel’s ongoing crimes. This isn’t just about Palestine—it’s about global justice and ending corporate exploitation.

    A member of the Shareholders Show Up, meanwhile, highlighted that immigrants are “held hostage indefinitely” as if they’re criminals while the highly controversial private company Serco “is being given chance after chance, despite numerous allegations of racism and abuse, and previously being fined for fraud and false accounting related to GPS tagging”. They asked “why is Aviva insuring this?”

    Featured image and additional images supplied

    By Ed Sykes

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Activists are about to take on Elon Musk in the best way – by tanking Tesla shares

    On Saturday 29 March, thousands of people will take on far-right billionaire and fascist Elon Musk in a Tesla Takedown Global Day of Action. Across seven UK cities (and counting), protesters will pitch up at Tesla dealerships across the UK, in tandem with activists in Australia, Canada, and Germany.

    Elon Musk: Tesla Takedown to hit him where it hurts

    As of Monday 24 March, protests are confirmed for: Bristol, Edinburgh, Leeds, London, Manchester, Nottingham, and Winchester.

    Tesla Takedown is a grassroots, decentralised movement to stop Elon Musk promoting authoritarians, disinformation and fossil fuels around the globe. The aim is to finish the unelected centibillionaire as a political force by tanking Tesla’s still wildly inflated share price, and thus his liquidity.

    The International group has described that activists across the world sprang into action barely six weeks ago in response to fascist Musk’s Nazi salute and ongoing hijacking of the US federal infrastructure:

    Elon Musk’s Dr. Strangelove salute on 20 January 2025 highlighted the tech billionaire’s role in supporting nationalists, authoritarians, climate change deniers and fossil fuel junkies around the world. Coupled with the grotesque sight of the world’s richest man cutting funding to AIDS charities and cancer research under the banner of an internet meme (DOGE), it’s inspired a grassroots movement of peaceful, legal protests: Tesla Takedown. Since the first, small demonstration in Manhattan on 4 February 2025, the decentralised movement has grown to cover more than 100 locations—including, now, the UK.

    The diversity of the upcoming protests reflects the diversity of protesters, many first-time activists. In Nottingham Ukrainian refugees will protest Musk’s support for Trump and Putin and his manipulation of Starlink during the war.

    Meanwhile, Hungarians will share their experiences of life under fascism in Edinburgh. In Winchester, a pair of Hampshire ‘dog dads’ will be supporting their anti-fascist pup Pepsy in her campaign, Whippets Against Elon.

    ‘Honk if you hate Elon’

    The campaign against Musk is a very broad church, spanning workers’ rights, anti-racism, climate activism, disinformation research, and the desire for democracy and freedom from invasion, occupation and war.

    Theodora Sutcliffe, an organiser of Tesla Takedown UK, said:

    One of the most fascinating things about watching this wave of protests unfold internationally is realising how many countries have an Elon Musk problem.

    Tesla Takedown’s planned protests follow a series of peaceful protests in London, Leeds, and Reading on Saturday 22 March.

    These ongoing small-scale protests are powerful and effective. They raise awareness, hit the brand, and hinder Tesla’s ability to make sales.

    However, most cities are expecting to see higher turnouts than at previous protests and some are organising special events. London will see ordinary people from across the world share their stories of the damage Musk has wrought.

    Activists will be selling bumper stickers to Tesla drivers, while a large ‘Honk If You Hate Elon’ sign will continue to draw support from passing vehicles.

    John Gorenfeld, who took the first bold step to create what might have been a one-man protest in London roughly a month ago, said:

    If you are against this attack on democracy, if you are against these people gambling with lives, this weekend is your moment to stand up against all this nonsense.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Parents and children occupy the South Bank Centre over JCB’s complicity in ethnic cleansing

    Protesters gathered for a unique day of action against British bulldozer manufacturer JCB. It was over the company’s complicity in the projects of ethnic cleansing across Palestine, India, and Kashmir.

    Parents 4 Palestine and the Stop JCB Demolitions Campaign mobilised for the series of creative protests at the Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, in London. This was to call out the its sponsorship agreement with JCB.

    JCB: complicit in human rights violations across Palestine, India, and Kashmir

    On Saturday 22 March, the two groups came together in a series of powerful acts of creative resistance.

    Using art, crafts, and poetry, families and children learnt about resistance to occupation, dispossession, and home demolitions:

    Parents and children sit amid boxes and craft supplies in a room with a bold banner reading: "JCB - stop house demolition in Palestine, Kashmir & Muslim homes in India. Poetry not JCB genocide." Illustration of a JCB digger with a red stop sign crossed over it.

    JCB is responsible for the demolition of homes, water sources, schools and places of worship in Palestine, India and Kashmir. They made connections between the struggles in each, and JCB’s murderous role. And to illustrate how rebuilding is a form of resistance, they built a model Palestinian village.

    Alongside this, they focused on the JCB branded Lift at the site. They highlighted it as a disturbing reminder of the blood money sponsoring the South Bank Centre and the Royal Festival Hall:

    Sticker on a glass panel in a building where a the JCB sponsored lift is which reads: "Stop JCB bulldozer genocide in Palestine, India & Kashmir. #STOPJCB

    The Lift which connects to the World Poetry Library on the 5th floor tries to portray JCB as a poetry – and fun-loving benefactor and educator of children. Meanwhile countless children are being traumatised, made homeless and destitute, and some are dying, as a direct result of its activities in Palestine, India and Kashmir.

    JCB’s owner, billionaire Lord Anthony Bamford, a major donor to the Conservative Party, is reaping huge profits from this displacement, destruction of livelihoods, and death.

    Poems of resistance

    Outside the National Poetry Library, protesters read out poems of resistance from Palestine, India, and Kashmir. They did so in solidarity with the ongoing struggle against JCB’s role in landgrab and ethnic cleansing.

    These included poems by:

    • Rashad Abu Sakhilah, who, at 23, was the youngest poet in Palestine to publish a book of poetry. Rashad was killed in cold blood by Israeli forces. His compilation titled Letters of the Earth has been described as “the heartbeat of Palestine”.
    • GN Saibaba, a 90% disabled professor of English, human rights activist and poet who wrote about the struggles of India’s oppressed and marginalised. Saibaba died soon after he was finally released following nearly a decade of incarceration in the Modi regime’s monstrous solitary Anda cell in the notorious Nagpur prison.
    • Asiya Zahoor, a Kashmiri poet and filmmaker whose collection Serpents Under My Veil was written in the period after August 2019 when the Indian government revoked Kashmir’s limited autonomy and intensified repression and violent military occupation.

    The South Bank Centre’s so-called ‘Singing Lift’

    Protesters set out the clear demand that the Southbank Centre must immediately end JCB sponsorship.

    On top of this, it demanded all traces of JCB branding to be removed from the so-called ‘Singing Lift’. Instead, they called for the lift to be named after Palestinian poet Refaat Alareer, who Israeli forces murdered.

    A copy of the book Letters of the Earth by Rashad Abu Sakhilah, the youngest published poet in Palestine, will be presented to the National Poetry Library and must be accepted and given due importance.

    JCB’s murderous activities

    While Israel violates the ceasefire agreement and resumes its genocide in Gaza, Israeli military and Zionist settlers are using JCB bulldozers daily for the ongoing demolition of Palestinian communities in the West Bank. JCB has long been a key supplier of machinery used in the Israeli state’s systemic violations of human rights. It operates through its sole dealer, the Israeli company Comasco, which holds contracts with Israel’s Ministry of Defence.

    Meanwhile, in India, JCB’s bulldozers have become symbols of the Hindu supremacist Narendra Modi government’s ethnic cleansing of Muslims. The government sanctions the demolition of homes and places of worship, often without notice, both randomly or to punish people who disagree with the government. Hasina Bi, a 56 year old widow from the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh testified:

    Everyone at home was asleep that noon, from the fatigue of fasting for Ramzan. Suddenly we heard a lot of commotion outside. We came out and saw four or five JCB machines coming towards our house. The machines directly attacked our house.

    The situation in Kashmir bears striking similarities as well. In one of the most militarised zones on earth, where the Indian army acts with total impunity, the army uses JCB bulldozers for demolition drives in the name of development. They ignore ownership documents and destroy homes. Houses of non-BJP leaders are singled out for demolition.

    JCB: an ‘obscene symbol of destruction’ and ‘blood money’

    The Stop JCB Demolitions Campaign is also filing a complaint with the UK National Contact Point, under the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises on Responsible Business Conduct, alleging JCB UK’s failure to take necessary actions to address the adverse human rights impacts resulting from the use of its heavy machinery products in “punitive demolitions” in India.

    Stop JCB Demolitions Campaign said:

    Visitors to the South Bank trying to reach the poetry library are confronted with an obscene symbol of the destruction of homes and lives in Palestine, India and Kashmir – a JCB sponsored and branded Lift. This has no place in an institution dedicated to enjoying and celebrating the arts. Shamefully the Southbank Centre is taking JCB’s blood money as sponsorship. This must end.

    Parents 4 Palestine commented:

    As parents who regularly visit the Southbank Centre with our children and enjoy its rich programme of activities we strongly believe that it should be a space free of discrimination. We recognise the traumatising effect of the JCB branding on families from Palestine and those who have been made aware of JCB’s role in Israel’s ongoing violent ethnic cleansing of Palestine. As we watch helplessly as Israel resumes its genocide in Gaza, we hope that Southbank will heed our call by disassociating itself from JCB and honouring communities which are facing erasure and genocide, from Palestine to India and Kashmir. By taking a stand the Southbank can help build real solidarity and a better world for all.

    Feature image via Stop JCB Demolitions Campaign/Parents 4 Palestine

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • If you’re not supporting disabled people on Wednesday – then where the hell are you?

    On Wednesday 26 March, hundreds of chronically ill, disabled, and neurodivergent people, those living with mental health issues, and their allies will gather outside 10 Downing Street from 11am. It will be in protest at the Labour Party government’s proposed £5bn cuts to people’s social security. It comes after decades of Department for Work and Pensions (DWP)-led abuse of benefit claimants – and this time, those affected are promising not to go quietly. They’re going to be raising their voices both in person and online – and the Canary will be amplifying them. However, we want our readers to get involved too.

    Balls to the DWP – and the Spring Statement

    Supporters of Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) will be saying ‘balls to the Spring Statement’ – making sure Keir Starmer’s government knows that they will not quietly accept these DWP-led attacks on their most fundamental rights:

    DPAC Balls to the Spring statement

    After speeches and direct action at Downing Street, protesters will be making their way to parliament – and they’ll be ensuring that the politicians sitting inside know they’re there, too. As is always the case with DPAC, there will be some surprises on the day. So, come prepared for action.

    Stop the War are helpfully supporting this action directly, with the help of a stage and PA system. Other groups such as Black Lives Matter UK, London Renters Union, WinVisible, and more have also come out in solidarity.

    Away from London, local DPAC groups alongside new campaign group Crips Against Cuts are having actions across Great Britain and the North of Ireland. You can find all the details here.

    However, if people cannot make the protests in person then DPAC and its allies are calling on them to get involved online.

    What is independent media good for?

    The Canary, one of the UK’s longest-established online independent media outlets, has given its support and labor to DPAC on the day.

    The team will be livestreaming the entire event via its TikTok – @thecanaryuk – to ensure that any chronically ill, disabled, and neurodivergent people, and those living with mental health issues, who cannot physically attend get to experience the protest as best as possible. The Canary will also be using its Instagram to release videos and images form the rally in real time. Plus, over on its X account we will be bringing you all the updates from both the protest and chancellor Rachel Reeves’s Spring Statement as they happen.

    As an independent media outlet, the Canary has never sat on the fence. Nor have we hidden the fact that everything we do is in support of, and solidarity with, those that the system marginalises. Therefore, it would seem natural for us to lend our support and labor to DPAC. We believe that it is the duty of every independent media outlet which has any moral fibre to be doing this.

    We have always been a team of activists first, journalists second – which is reflected in our work. Now, we want to expand on our near-10 year legacy of campaigning journalism – by actively campaigning by the side of marginalised groups like chronically ill, disabled, and neurodivergent people, and those living with mental health issues.

    The Canary believes this should be a core function of independent media. It is no longer enough to report on what the state and the system are doing to the very people they marginalise. Independent media should be actively fighting back with those impacted – and we don’t just mean reporting on protests. We mean boots-on-the-ground action. Getting your hands dirty, if you like.

    We’d urge our readers to get involved too.

    Fight back against the DWP – in person and online

    If you can, be at Downing Street at 11am and be prepared to make some noise.

    If you can’t make it in person, get involved online using #WelfareNotWarfare. We are determined to drown out politicians’ propaganda on the day. So, share your experiences of the DWP, your thoughts on Labour’s planned social security cuts, tag your MP telling them to oppose the DWP plans, and repost all the protest content, using the hashtag:

    DWP

    The Canary and DPAC want to ensure #WelfareNotWarfare is trending and that as many people – including the corporate media – see the level of opposition there is to Labour’s callous cuts.

    We need to stop the Labour government in its tracks over these vicious cuts to chronically ill, disabled, and neurodivergent people, and those living with mental health issues’ social security. But we can’t do it without your solidarity and support. So, please join us on the day in any way you can.

    Let’s rise up and say ‘balls to the Spring Statement’ together.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Here are all the details of the nationwide DPAC protests happening on Wednesday

    On Wednesday 26 March, protesters across the country are mobilising against the Labour Party-led Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) brutal cuts to vital disability and health-related benefits. In multiple cities and towns all over the UK, activists will turn out with a resounding message to the Labour government: to end its war on chronically ill and disabled people.

    DWP benefit cuts: the disability green paper will end in disaster

    As the Canary previously reported, on Tuesday 18 March DWP boss Liz Kendall laid out the government’s broad catalogue of plans to ‘reform’ disability and health-related income-based benefits. It set this out in its Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working green paper. Broadly, this made for a callous cocktail of catastrophic cuts and changes that will harm chronically ill and disabled claimants.

    Notably, the paper included a suite of regressive reforms to make it harder for people to claim disability benefits like Personal Independence Payment (PIP). As expected, the changes it’s proposing will target certain claimants in particular, namely young, neurodivergent, learning disabled, and those with mental health disorders. Alongside this, there’ll be cuts to out-of-work benefits like the LCWRA health-related component of Universal Credit. Once again, it additionally wants to make this harder to claim, and all as it ramps up reassessments and conditions for doing so.

    The government is now consulting on some of these plans until 30 June. You can respond to this here. However, there’s also a number of plans the government isn’t consulting on. And appallingly, the government has yet to publish any impact assessment on these plans. However, what’s clear already is that these will hit chronically ill and disabled claimants hardest. Research from multiple think tanks and campaign groups over the proposals – many put forward by previous Conservative governments – have painted a bleak picture of the harm these will enact on some of the most vulnerable communities.

    DPAC and others gear up to take on the DWP cuts

    So, in response to Labour’s cruel plans, activists have organised numerous demonstrations across the country.

    Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) are holding a major protest in London to coincide with chancellor Rachel Reeves delivering the government’s Spring Statement.

    Protesters will meet outside Downing Street at 11am for a day of protest and action.

    The Canary is supporting there in support and solidarity on the day, and will be livestreaming the event:

    Alongside the all-day demonstration in London, under the banner and hashtag #WelfareNotWarfare, groups over the country are participating in the National Day of Action:

    National Day of Action: where are protests taking place?

    At the time of writing, protests have been planned for the following locations on 26 March:

    Scotland

    Aberdeen – Meet Outside Marischal College, Broad Street, Aberdeen, AB10 1AB 12pm (organised by DPAC)

    Glasgow – Meet outside Ministry of Defence 65 Brown Street Glasgow G2 8EX  12:30pm

    Northeast 

    Newcastle – Grey’s Monument, 150 Grainger Street, Newcastle Upon Tyne, NE1 5AF 12-2pm (organised by Crips Against Cuts)

    Darlington – Darlington Town Hall, Fleethams, Darlington DL1 5QT 12-2pm (organised by Crips Against Cuts)

    York  – Meet Outside the Guildhall, St Helen’s Square, York 5pm onwards (organised by YDRF)

    Leeds – Leeds Bus station 11am-1pm  (organised by DPAC, supported by Leeds and York Unite community)

    Northwest

    Lancaster and Morecambe – Dalton Square, Lancaster, LA1 1PL (organised by DPAC)

    East

    Cambridge – Leafleting outside the Grafton Centre 12.30-1.30pm, rally outside the Guildhall 5.30-6.30pm (organised by DPAC)

    Norwich – outside Norwich City Hall, St Peter’s Street, Norwich Norfolk NR2 1NH 12-2pm (organised by DPAC)

    Midlands

    Chesterfield  – outside Chesterfield Labour Club, Unity House, 113 Saltergate, Chesterfield, Derbyshire, S40 1NF 4.30pm onwards (organised by Crips Against Cuts)

    Wales

    Cardiff – Office of Jo Stevens MP, Secretary of State For Wales, 116 Albany Road, Cardiff, CF24 3RU 6.30pm ( organised by Cardiff People’s Assembly)

    Swansea – Castle Square, Swansea SA1 3PP 1pm onwards (organised by DPAC)

    Northern Ireland

    Derry – Guildhall, Londonderry, BT48 7BB 1pm onwards (organised by DPAC)

    Southeast 

    Brighton – Hove Town Hall, Brighton, BN2 3BQ 11am – 1pm stationary protest with banners (organised by Crips Against Cuts and DPAC)

    Margate – outside east Thanet’s Labour MP Polly Billington Office 44, Northdown Road, Cliftonville, Margate, Kent CT3 2RW 11am (organised by DPAC)

    Additionally, some groups have planned actions for after the 26 March:

    1 April – Manchester – 32 Market Street, Manchester, M1 1PL 12pm (organised by DPAC)

    5 April – Portsmouth – Portsmouth Guildhall 2-4pm

    A message loud and clear to Labour

    If the Labour Party government thought it could get away with its cut to little fanfare, it has another thing coming. Chronically ill and disabled people and allies will remind the Labour-led DWP that “nothing about us, without us” means listening to our communities first and foremost, rather than railroading dangerous policies through that run roughshod over them.

    On 26 March, protesters in 16 places around the country (and counting) will make sure the Labour government hears them loud and clear. The Labour-led DWP’s war on chronically ill and disabled people must end and it must no longer use us as its convenient political football.

    Featured image via DPAC

    By Hannah Sharland

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Crips Against Cuts mounted nationwide DWP protests – but they weren’t without incident

    Chronically ill and disabled activists and allies took to the streets on Saturday 22 March against the Labour Party’s planned brutal cuts to their benefits. Protesters mobilised across the country in 14 locations to call out the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) disgraceful move to slash social security for sick and disabled people to meet chancellor Rachel Reeves’ arbitrary self-imposed fiscal savings.

    The demonstrations kicked off the start of chronically ill and disabled resistance to the government’s dangerous austerity-driven punch downs on the community. However, the protests weren’t without issue or incident.

    Most alarmingly, protesters were met with violent physical hate crimes at one protest – showing the unsafe and hostile climate Labour’s plans and rhetoric has stoked.

    Crips Against Cuts: protests against the Labour-led DWP’s plans

    As the Canary previously reported, local disabled activists from the new decentralised grassroots group Crips Against Cuts coordinated the protests across the country. They held these in:

      • London
      • Birmingham
      • Sheffield
      • Leeds
      • Bournemouth
      • Exeter
      • Brighton
      • Bristol
      • Portsmouth
      • Edinburgh

    Crips against cuts protests planned for this weekend. Please follow the QR for details and please please please repost on your accounts 💜

    @crips-against-cuts.bsky.social

    [image or embed]

    — Just Em x (@agirlcalleddave.bsky.social) March 20, 2025 at 9:57 AM

    In London, a small group of protesters gathered at Southbank along the River Thames holding placards and giving powerful speeches against the cuts:

     

    View this post on Instagram

     

    A post shared by Samantha Baines👑 (@samanthabaines)

    One disabled protester called the corporate media’s recent attacks on Personal Independence Payment (PIP) claimants’ access to the Motability scheme out for what it is:

    Hands off my PIP, you traitorous arseholes. Great @crips-against-cuts.bsky.social rally. You’ve riled the disableds @teamlabouruk.bsky.social, we will fight your abominable cuts till we win, we will not vote for you again 🧑‍🦼👩🏽‍🦼‍➡🤬🤬🤬 #pip #disabilityrights #wheelchair

    [image or embed]

    — elbelbumble.bsky.social (@elbelbumble.bsky.social) March 22, 2025 at 9:28 PM

    Exeter activists held a die-in to represent the deaths of chronically ill and disabled people that Labour’s cuts will foment:

    #DisabledPeopleAgainstCuts #Exeter protest against cuts to disability benefit and personal independence payments today.

    I have to say I was pleasantly surprised by the crowd’s reaction. I’ve been to a fair number of protests which are usually met with […]

    [Original post on social.coop]

    [image or embed]

    — Jules (@afewbugs.social.coop.ap.brid.gy) March 22, 2025 at 4:19 PM

    Sheffield drew a sizeable crowd with some poignant and on-point placards:

    This is what community looks like ✊🏻 Thanks for showing up Sheffield! Don’t forget to take action – write to your MP, and follow @crips-against-cuts.bsky.social on insta or bsky!

    [image or embed]

    — Miranda Debenham (@mdebenham1.bsky.social) March 22, 2025 at 9:15 PM

    Labour MPs didn’t have the balls to face protesters

    Protesters in Cambridge pitched up outside a local Jobcentre with a big banner. They followed this up by draping the banner over a local bridge in defiance against Labour’s plans:

    In Edinburgh, campaigners took their protest right to the constituency office front door of Labour Secretary of State for Scotland Ian Murray MP:

    #WelfareNotWarfare

    Edinburgh Coalition Against Poverty Kicked Off DPAC local actions across the UK in Edinburgh, Scotland, with a lively protest outside Ian Murray MP Sec of State for Scotland

    Write up Edinburgh Reporter theedinburghreporter.co.uk/2025/03/prot…
    Photos with Alt text 📢⬇

    [image or embed]

    — Disabled People Against Cuts (@dis-ppl-protest.bsky.social) March 22, 2025 at 6:36 AM

    Local media site the Edinburgh Reporter was on the ground interviewing protesters who spelled out what the cuts would mean for them and their loved ones:

    Protesters outside the constituency office of @ianmurraymp.bsky.social were keen to tell him what they think of the UK Government’s plans to wipe £5billion off the benefits bill. He wasn’t there but we had asked him about the proposed cuts earlier…

    [image or embed]

    — The Edinburgh Reporter (@edinreporter.bsky.social) March 21, 2025 at 5:02 PM

    However, as the outlet noted, while Murray was in Edinburgh, he clearly didn’t have the balls to look his constituents in the face outside his office.

    Green Party co-leader Carla Denyer on the ground, but…

    Meanwhile, activists gathered together on College Green in Bristol to host speeches:

    As the Canary highlighted ahead of the protests, Bristol Central MP and Green Party leader Carla Denyer came out in support of chronically ill and disabled people fighting the cuts:

    Choosing to cut support for disabled people, knowing that many already live in poverty, and that being disabled means that life almost always COSTS MORE – that’s a political choice

    Pleased to join @crips-against-cuts.bsky.social in Bristol today, angry that it had to happen

    (📸 by Clare Reddington)

    [image or embed]

    — Carla Denyer (@carladenyer.bsky.social) March 22, 2025 at 6:02 PM

    Though, a word of caution might be warranted here. This is the same Denyer who also voted for Kim Leadbeater’s assisted dying bill at second reading, alongside her Green Party colleagues.

    All 350 Deaf and Disabled People’s Organisations (DDPOs) are against it due to the enormous risks it poses to chronically ill and disabled folks.

    So, while she may be an ally in opposing these cuts, protesters should be wary of thinking that she’s genuinely listening to the valid concerns and fears of our communities.

    Hate crimes: protesters attacked in Exeter

    The widespread protests show the depth of opposition to Labour’s callous plans from chronically ill and disabled people across the country.

    However, while these protests brought out the best of our communities, it also sadly drew in some of the worst. These were some of the very first protests chronically ill and disabled people have mounted against these cuts, but immediately they’ve exposed the disgusting ableist bigotry at the beating heart of Labour right Britain.

    In Exeter, this came to a head with some local residents committing violent hate crimes against the protesters. In one disturbing scene, a bigot threw a chair into the crowd:

    Another incident involved local people lobbing cap bombs at protesters:


    It’s clear who’s to blame for this despicable display of rancid ableist abuse: Labour and its client media cronies.

    That is, the vile rhetoric Labour ministers and the right-wing corporate media have been spouting, painting claimants as ‘scroungers’, ‘skivers’ and ‘fraudsters’ has already culminated in disgusting real-world consequences for chronically ill and disabled people.

    In short, it’s a shameful indictment that chronically ill and disabled people can’t go out and exercise their right to protest without threats to their person. Of course, this is one very visible,

    However, it’s characteristic of the types of discrimination and abuse chronically ill and disabled people experience every day. From outright verbal and physical bigotry, right through to ableist micro-aggressions, these all add up to a dangerous climate for chronically ill and disabled communities.

    Moreover, it’s the thin edge of the wedge of the state-sanctioned violence perpetrated against them through the systemically ableist DWP. Now, Labour is only amping up its war on chronically ill and disabled people with this fresh round of cuts. It will mean only more of this hostile environment.

    Where are our ‘allies’ on the Left?

    One thing that’s also immediately striking from the sparse photos and videos currently available is the scale of the protests.

    Unfortunately, this isn’t in an off-the-charts turnout kind of way. Instead, apart from the odd exception, the protests largely seem to have garnered modest crowds. Compare the numbers in these locations to nationwide demos in recent years – ongoing Palestine protests, workers’ strikes, climate emergency mobilisations, and for a nationwide call out, the protests on Saturday were pretty small.

    Of course, many chronically ill and disabled people couldn’t be there too (myself included thanks to a flare), so that’s another reason the turn out wasn’t huge. But that again begs the question – where were allies when we needed them?

    Non-disabled people, I’m looking at you. Come to the protests, de-centre yourself, and just listen, support, make noise alongside us.

    And chances are, many have a chronically ill or disabled family member or friend too – so where were they?

    Now, that’s not to take away from the brilliant people who did turn up, and the folks who poured their hearts into organising these demos in the short space of less than a week.

    However, what it is a reminder is how disability rights is still seen. That is, it’s the non-glamorous social justice sibling, way down the priority list. This isn’t anything new of course. And Crips Against Cuts managed to motivate more people at a local level than perhaps has been seen in some time over DWP welfare reforms.

    Historically, people just don’t turn up to support chronically ill and disabled protests. That should be a stain on the conscience of the left. Partly, this is a product of left-wing movements focusing on working people, as the Canary’s Steve Topple recently highlighted:

    When you centre working people as the priority (and let’s be real, based on the weighting of the line up, white people) and leave chronically ill, disabled, homeless, and non-working people – as well as minoritised women – as an after thought, you expose yourselves for the political games you are actually playing.

    People on the left regularly signal their intersectionality, but somehow chronic illness and disability are forgotten when it counts. Or worse still, tokenised as part of other campaigns, and deployed at and for their convenience.

    PCS union: handwringing DWP staff won’t strike for us

    And there is perhaps no clearer example of this than the Public and Commercial Services (PCS) union.

    PCS national president Martin Cavanagh gave a speech at the Bristol demo:

    Throughout, he appealed to ‘class solidarity’ and argued that:

    Those who need support are somehow the problem. Those who need support are somehow the cause of all our ills in the UK. Well we all know that is a damn right lie. And every single one of us has a duty and responsibility to call it out.

    However, as always with the corporatist union handmaidens at the top, it has long been a case of “strike for me, but not for thee”. This was, after all, Cavanagh – the PCS’s DWP Group president – who despite all the platitudes over the years of solidarity with chronically ill and disabled benefit claimants, has mustered only hand-wringing defiance of his employer’s unconscionable welfare reforms and punitive sanction policies.

    Where was Cavanagh and his colleagues when DWP grim-reaper Iain Duncan Smith unleashed his devastating wave of welfare cuts?

    Where were they every IDS-reprising DWP boss since who’ve slashed benefits, and overseen the “systematic” and “grave” violation of disabled people’s human rights?

    Where were they when the Tory-led DWP presided over the deaths of tens of thousands of chronically ill and disabled claimants?

    The short answer is, the snivelling sell-out lot of them sure as hell weren’t striking. That’s reserved solely for their own work conditions. But then, it’s hard to imagine snobby middle class managers that populate the DWP and look down their noses all day at claimants sacrificing their job security. God forbid they’d be finding themselves signing onto the dole alongside us!

    Tokenised class solidarity

    Moreover, Cavanagh seemed to skip over the part where it’s DWP staff that he and his union represent who have enacted years of the department’s violence against chronically ill, disabled, and poor claimants. Instead, he sung the praises of the ‘good’ folks at the DWP, working day in, day out in public service:

    And comrades, what I find particularly disturbing, is that my background is DWP – clearly I’ve been evil in a previous life. But absolutely we understood and we knew back in the 1980s when I first started, that you absolutely on day one learned that anyone who came through that door, whether they were sick, had a disability, or just couldn’t find work, your job was to support them. Give them the financial leg up that they needed, when they needed it.

    And you were absolutely told that they shouldn’t leave that building until you’ve done everything you could to help them. And how quickly times changed.

    It’s almost chilling to see him convinced that the DWP is, or was ever anything other than the brutal arm of the state punching down on chronically ill, disabled, and poor people. His speech should be seen for what it is: a shallow effort to rehabilitate a department rife in ableism, classism, and rampant negligence.

    In short, Cavanagh and his union are the very epitome of tokenised class solidarity. Over a decade ago, his union abandoned claimants forced into ‘workfare’. This was the government’s policy forcing claimants into unpaid labour in order to claim benefits. Of course, little has changed today – Labour’s latest work requirements conditionality regime will usher in only more of the same.

    Now, does anyone really believe beyond Cavanagh’s warm words, that the PCS union isn’t going to throw chronically ill and disabled people under the bus once more?

    Working class solidarity is conditional when it comes to disability rights. And Cavanagh laundering the PCS union’s image at these protests should be ample evidence of that.

    Chronically ill people: an afterthought

    Moreover, the protests were also somewhat marred as much by who wasn’t included, as by who they did.

    Crucially, the precious few posts from these protests illustrated something important. This is how the lack of online live-stream, videos, and action left out a whole contingent of people the cuts will undoubtedly impact: chronically ill people.

    Many are bed-bound/house-bound or immuno-compromised and so unable to make it to in-person demos. So, making it so they can participate online – or view back speeches not in real-time is a key matter of accessibility.

    It speaks to a problematic persisting feature of the left’s protest spaces more generally. And notably, it unfortunately often extends to protests held by disabled groups. This is, the lack of inclusivity and accessibility for their chronically ill siblings-on-the sharp end of state violence.

    A movement that’s sorely needed all the same

    On the whole, the Crips Against Cuts protests were a welcome and vital show of chronically ill and disabled people’s collective resistance against the DWP. Its quick organisation and power to pull in activists nationwide is needed now more than ever. Credit where it’s due.

    However, the left more broadly need to take a good look in the mirror and reflect why so many failed to turn out to these protests. Moreover, the movement should be careful who it gets into bed with – because when push comes to shove, not everyone who proclaims to stand up for us really have our backs.

    Nonetheless, Crips is just getting started, and they’re sure to continue being a force for chronically ill and disabled people going forward.

    Featured image via screengrab

    By Hannah Sharland

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Pro-Palestinian protesters challenge Peters at state of the nation speech

    SPECIAL REPORT: By Saige England in Christchurch

    Like a relentless ocean, wave after wave of pro-Palestinian pro-human rights protesters disrupted New Zealand deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters’ state of the nation speech at the Christchurch Town Hall yesterday.

    A clarion call to Trumpism and Australia’s One Nation Party, the speech was accompanied by the background music of about 250 protesters outside the Town Hall, chanting: “Complicity in genocide is a crime.”

    Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) co-chair John Minto described Peters’ attitude to Palestinians as “sickening”.

    Inside the James Hay Theatre, protester after protester stood and spoke loudly and clearly against the deputy Prime Minister’s failure to support those still dying in Gaza, and his failure to denounce the ongoing genocide.

    Ben Vorderegger was the first of nine protesters who appealed on behalf of people who have lost their voices in the dust of blood and bones, bombs and sniper guns.

    Before he and others were hauled out, they spoke for the tens of thousands of Palestinians who have been killed by Israeli forces in Gaza — women, men, doctors, aid workers, journalists, and children.

    Gazan health authorities have reported that the official death toll is now more than 50,000 — but that is the confirmed deaths with thousands more buried under the rubble.

    Real death toll
    The real death toll from the genocide in Gaza has been estimated by a reputed medical journal, The Lancet, at more than 63,000. A third of those are children. Each day more children are killed.

    One by one the protesters who challenged Peters were manhandled by security guards to a frenzied crowd screaming “out, out”.

    The deputy Prime Minister’s response was to deride and mock the conscientious objectors. He did not stop there. He lambasted the media.

    At this point, several members of his audience turned on me as a journalist and demanded my removal.

    Pro=Palestine protesters at the Christchurch Town Hall
    Pro=Palestine protesters at the Christchurch Town Hall yesterday to picket Foreign Minister Winston Peters at his state of the nation speech.Image: Saige England/APR

    This means that not only is the right to free speech at stake, the right or freedom to report is also being eroded. (I was later trespassed by security guards and police from the Town Hall although no reason was supplied for the ban).

    Inside the Christchurch Town Hall the call by Peters, who is also Foreign Minister, to “Make New Zealand Great Again” continued in the vein of a speech written by a MAGA leader.

    He whitewashed human rights, failed to address climate change, and demonstrated loathing for a media that has rarely challenged him.

    Ben Vorderegger was the first of nine protesters who appealed on behalf of Palestinans before being thrown out
    Ben Vorderegger in keffiyeh was the first of nine protesters who appealed on behalf of Palestinans before
    being thrown out of the Christchurch Town Hall meeting. Image: Saige England/APR

    Condemned movement
    Slamming the PSNA as “Marxist fascists” for calling out genocide, he condemned the movement for failing to talk with those who have a record of kowtowing to violent colonisation.

    This tactic is Colonial Invasion 101. It sees the invader rewarding and only dealing with those who sell out. This strategy demands that the colonised people should bow to the oppressor — an oppressor who threatens them with losing everything if they do not accept the scraps.

    Peters showed no support for the Treaty of Waitangi but rather, endorsed the government’s challenge to the founding document of the nation – Te Tiriti o Waitangi. In his dismissal of the founding and legally binding partnership, he repeated the “One Nation” catch-cry. Ad nauseum.

    Besides slamming Palestinians, the Scots (he managed to squeeze in a racist joke against Scottish people), and the woke, Peters’ speech promoted continued mining, showing some amnesia over the Pike River disaster. He did not reference the environment or climate change.

    After the speech, outside the Town Hall police donned black gloves — a sign they were prepared to use pepper-spray.

    PSNA co-chair John Minto described Peters’ failure to stand against the ongoing genocide of Palestinians as “bloody disgraceful”.

    The police arrested one protester, claiming he put his hand on a car transporting NZ First officials. A witness said this was not the case.

    PSNA co-chair John Minto (in hat behind fellow protester)
    PSNA co-chair John Minto (in hat behind fellow protester) . . . the failure of Foreign Minister Winston Peters to stand against the ongoing genocide of Palestinians is “bloody disgraceful”. Image; Saige England/APR

    Protester released
    The protester was later released without any charges being laid.

    A defiant New Zealand First MP Shane Jones marched out of the Town Hall after the event. He raised his arms defensively at protesters crying, “what if it was your grandchildren being slaughtered?”

    I was trespassed from the Christchurch Town Hall for re-entering the Town Hall for Winston Peters’ media conference. No reason was supplied by police or the Town Hall security personnel for that trespass order..

    "The words Winston is terrified to say . . . " poster
    “The words Winston is terrified to say . . . ” poster at the Christchurch pro-Palestinian protest. Image: Saige England/APR

    It is well known that Peters loathes the media — he said so enough times during his state of the nation speech.

    He referenced former US President Bill Clinton during his speech, an interesting reference given that Clinton did not receive the protection from the media that Peters has received.

    From the over zealous security personnel who manhandled and dragged out hecklers, to the banning of a journalist, to the arrest of someone for “touching a car” when witnesses report otherwise, the state of the nation speech held some uncomfortable echoes — the actions of a fascist dictatorship.

    Populist threats
    The atmosphere was reminiscent of a Jorg Haider press conference I attended many years ago in Vienna. That “rechtspopulist” Austrian politician had threatened journalists with defamation suits if they called him out on his support for Nazis.

    Yet he was on record for doing so.

    I was reminded of this yesterday when the audience called ‘out out’ at hecklers, and demanded the removal of this journalist. These New Zealand First supporters demand adoration for their leader or a media black-out.

    Perhaps they cannot be blamed given that the state of the nation speech could well have been written by US President Donald Trump or one of his minions.

    The protesters were courageous and conscientious in contrast to Peters, said PSNA’s John Minto.

    He likened Peters to Neville Chamberlain — Britain’s Prime Minister from 1937 to 1940. His name is synonymous with the policy of “appeasement” because he conceded territorial concessions to Nazi Germany in the late 1930s, fruitlessly hoping to avoid war.

    “He has refused to condemn any of Israel’s war crimes against Palestinians, including the total humanitarian aid blockade of Gaza.”

    Refusal ‘unprecedented’
    “It’s unprecedented in New Zealand history that a government would refuse to condemn Israel breaking its ceasefire agreement and resuming industrial-scale slaughter of civilians,” Minto said.

    “That is what Israel is doing today in Gaza, with full backing from the White House.

    “Chamberlain went to meet Hitler in Munich in 1938 to whitewash Nazi Germany’s takeovers of its neighbours’ lands.

    “Peters has been in Washington to agree to US approval of the occupation of southern Syria, more attacks on Lebanon, resumption of the land grab genocide in Gaza and get a heads-up on US plans to ‘give’ the Occupied West Bank to Israel later this year.

    “If Peters disagrees with any of this, he’s had plenty of chances to say so.

    “New Zealanders are calling for sanctions on Israel but Mr Peters and the National-led government are looking the other way.”

    New Zealand First MP Shane Jones marched out of the Town Hall
    New Zealand First MP Shane Jones marched out of the Town Hall after the event, dismissing protesters crying, “what if it was your grandchildren being slaughtered?” Image: Saige England/APR

    Only staged questions
    The conscientious objectors who rise against the oppression of human rights are people Winston Peters regards as his enemies. He will only answer questions in a press conference staged for him.

    He warms to journalists who warm to him.

    The state of the nation speech in the Town Hall was familiar.

    Seeking to erase conscientiousness will not make New Zealand great, it will render this country very small, almost miniscule, like the people who are being destroyed for daring to demand their right to their own land.

    Saige England is a journalist and author, and a member of the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA).

    Part of the crowd at the state of the nation speech by Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters at the Christchurch Town Hall
    Part of the crowd at the state of the nation speech by Deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters at the Christchurch Town Hall yesterday. Image: Saige England/APR

    This post was originally published on Asia Pacific Report.

  • Billionaires Advance Fossil Fuels at “Energy Super Bowl” in Houston

    Last week, thousands of people gathered in Houston, Texas for CERAWeek 2025, perhaps the most significant annual meet-up of the network of oil executives, investors, consultants, government officials, and more, that make up and support the fossil fuel industry. Inside the gathering, oil, finance, and tech executives joined a slew of panels discussing a range of energy industry topics.

    Source

    This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.

  • Cambridge University just got an injunction against pro-Palestine protesters

    On 21 March, the High Court granted a reduced version of Cambridge University’s proposed sweeping injunction against Palestine-related protests in three locations on their campus. The University’s initial attempt to secure a five-year ban on 27 February was resoundingly rejected in the court, and it was forced to return this week with a significantly reduced version of its initial injunction that would apply for four months, rather than five years.

    Cambridge University: stopping protests against genocide

    The University’s second attempt to pass this injunction has resulted in an injunction restricting access to three key University sites frequently used for protests until 26 July 2025. This is far less than the five years initially sought by the university, but human rights campaigners have called the judgment excessive and said it will curb students’ right to freedom of expression.

    The University claimed that disruptions to three previous graduation ceremonies justified an injunction prohibiting all access to and protests on the land without the University’s consent, which campaigners said was ‘an attempt to silence students, academics and staff’.

    The European Legal Support Centre (ELSC) and Liberty intervened, arguing that the injunction violated freedom of expression and assembly under Articles 10 and 11 of the ECHR.

    Groups said the University’s decision to apply for an injunction represents a considerable crackdown on protest rights and is part of a broader pattern of punitive measures against students standing in solidarity with Palestine amid a genocide. ELSC argued that the effect of the injunction disproportionately impacts Palestinians and those with anti-Zionist beliefs and support for Palestinian liberation, silencing dissent and undermining the right to political expression.

    Campaigners said this judgment highlights the urgent need to resist overreaching injunctions and protect the right to protest, and urged the public to remain vigilant against attempts to criminalise solidarity and suppress voices advocating for justice and human rights.

    We must resist

    Anna Ost, ELSC Senior Legal Officer, said of the ruling:

    It is more important than ever to resist attempts to shut down protests for Palestinian liberation. The extent of the 5-year injunction the University originally asked for demonstrated that they were seeking to restrict protests, which called out the University’s complicity in enabling genocide. Instead of acting urgently to review their investments, the University has stalled and sought to silence their critics with this injunction. We remain deeply concerned about the broader trend of universities using legal measures to target solidarity with Palestine.

    Michael Abberton, Cambridge UCU President, said of the Cambridge University injunction:

    It is disappointing news that the High Court has retained some of the most repressive elements of this order. We remain concerned that the order granted will have a chilling effect on our members exercising their rights to peaceful protest and we will be continuing our campaign to urge the University to end its use of the courts against its own students and staff.

    Cambridge for Palestine commented:

    The Cambridge for Palestine (C4P) coalition condemns the High Court’s decision to approve Cambridge University’s injunction against protests on Palestine, a violent move to criminalise and police our movement. Today, the court and the university have chosen to protect imperial and Zionist interests, defending genocide over the students of conscience that speak out against it.

    We know that this setback cannot be separated from the broader pattern of anti-Palestinian targeting that is occurring on campuses across the UK, US, and world, grounded in decades of policy based on racism and Islamophobia. We know, however, that no injunction– no policy, no threat– has lessened the steadfastness of the Palestinian people. As Israel carries out massacre after massacre in Gaza and the West Bank, we derive our resolve from steadfast people of Palestine, and will continue to direct our energy to the most pressing fight: the struggle for divestment and an end to Cambridge’s ongoing partnership in the colonisation of Palestine. ​​​​​​

    Cambridge University: wider implications

    Ben Jamal, Palestine Solidarity Campaign Director, said:

    The very week that Israel has torn up the ceasefire agreement and renewed its full-scale genocidal assault against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, the University of Cambridge should be taking steps to end its complicity in these crimes and supporting Palestinian students, not seeking draconian powers to silence them. While the university failed to obtain the full five-year ban on protests that it originally sought, this decision is still a chilling attack on our fundamental rights to freedom of expression and protest. The university should listen to its staff and students and cut its financial ties to companies linked to Israel’s violations of human rights and international law.

    Ruth Ehrlich, Head of Advocacy and Campaigns at Liberty:

    Today’s judgment sets a dangerous precedent which will severely restrict protest rights on campus.

    Students have long been at the forefront of movements for social change, whether in opposing apartheid or rising tuition fees. It is not right that universities are curbing students’ ability to do so, and creating a hostile space for people simply trying to make their voices heard.

    We urge universities to allow students to speak up for what they believe in on campus, and to protect the right to protest.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Elite Media Paved Way for Trump’s Targeting of Columbia 

     

    WSJ: Columbia Yields to Trump in Battle Over Federal Funding

    Explaining Columbia’s capitulation, the Wall Street Journal (3/21/25) reported that “the school believed there was considerable overlap between needed campus changes and Trump’s demands.”

    President Donald Trump’s campaign against higher education started with Columbia University, both with the withholding of $400 million in funding to force major management charges (Wall Street Journal, 3/21/25) and the arrest and threatened  deportation of grad student Mahmoud Khalil, one of the student leaders of Columbia’s  movement against the genocide in Gaza (Al Jazeera, 3/19/25). The Columbia administration is reportedly acquiescing to the Trump administration, which would result in a mask ban and oversight of an academic department, to keep the dollars flowing.

    Trump’s focus on Columbia is no accident. Despite the fact that its administration largely agrees with Trump on the need to suppress protest against Israel, the university is a symbol of New York City, a hometown that he hates for its liberalism (City and State NY, 11/16/20). And it was a starting point for the national campus movement that began last year against US support for Israel’s brutal war against Gaza (Columbia Spectator, 4/18/24; AP, 4/30/24).

    And for those crimes, the new administration had to punish it severely. The New York Times editorial board (3/15/25) rightly presented the attack on higher education as part of an attack on the American democratic project: “​​Mr. Trump’s multifaceted campaign against higher education is core to this effort to weaken institutions that do not parrot his version of reality.”

    But the response to Columbia’s protests from establishment media—including at the Times—laid the groundwork for this fascistic nightmare. Leading outlets went out of their way to say the protests were so extreme that they went beyond the bounds of free speech. They painted them as antisemitic, despite the many Jews who participated in them, following the long tradition of Jewish anti-Zionism (In These Times, 7/13/20; FAIR.org, 10/17/23, 11/6/23). Opinion shapers found these viewpoints too out of the mainstream for the public to hear, and wrung their hands over students’ attempts to reform US foreign policy in the Middle East.

    ‘Incessant valorization of victimhood’

    NYT: Should American Jews Abandon Elite Universities?

    The New York Times‘ Bret Stephens (6/25/24) included Columbia on his list of schools that “have descended to open bigotry, institutional paralysis and mayhem.”

    I previously noted (FAIR.org, 10/11/24) that New York Times columnist John McWhorter (4/23/24), a Columbia instructor, made a name for himself defending the notion of free speech rights for the political right (even the racist right), but now wanted to insulate his students from hearing speech that came from a different political direction.

    Trump’s rhetoric today largely echoes in cruder terms that of Times columnist Bret Stephens (6/25/24) last summer, who wrote of anti-genocide protesters:

    How did the protesters at elite universities get their ideas of what to think and how to behave?

    They got them, I suspect, from the incessant valorization of victimhood that has been a theme of their upbringing, and which many of the most privileged kids feel they lack—hence the zeal to prove themselves as allies of the perceived oppressed. They got them from the crude schematics of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion training seminars, which divide the world into “white” and “of color,” powerful and “marginalized,” with no regard for real-world complexities — including the complexity of Jewish identity.

    In fact, in the month before Khalil’s arrest, Stephens (2/27/25) called for swift and harsh punishments against anti-genocide protesters at Barnard College, which is part of Columbia:

    Enough. The students involved in this sit-in need to be identified and expelled, immediately and without exception. Any nonstudents at the sit-in should be charged with trespassing. Face-hiding masks that prevent the identification of the wearer need to be banned from campus. And incoming students need to be told, if they haven’t been told already, that an elite education is a privilege that comes with enforceable expectations, not an entitlement they can abuse at will.

    Stephens has been a big part of the movement against so-called cancel culture. That movement consists of journalists and professors who believe that criticism or rejection of bigoted points of views has a chilling effect on free speech. As various writers, including myself, have noted (Washington Post, 10/28/19; FAIR.org, 10/23/20, 5/20/21), this has often been a cover for simply wanting to censor speech to their left, and Stephens’ alignment with Trump here is evidence of that. The New York Times editorial board, not just Stephens, is part of that anti-progressive cohort (New York Times, 3/18/22; FAIR.org, 3/25/22).

    ‘Fervor that borders on the oppressive’

    Atlantic: What 'Intifada Revolution' Looks Like

    The Atlantic (5/5/24) identified Iddo Gefen as “a Ph.D. candidate in cognitive psychology at Columbia University and the author of Jerusalem Beach,” but not as an IDF veteran who spent three years in the Israeli military’s propaganda department.

    The Atlantic’s coverage of the protests was also troubling. The magazine’s Michael Powell, formerly of the New York Times, took issue with the protesters’ rhetoric (5/1/24), charging them with “a fervor that borders on the oppressive” (4/22/24).

    The magazine gave space to an Israeli graduate student, Iddo Gefen (5/5/24), who complained that some “Columbia students are embracing extreme rhetoric,” and said a sign with the words “by any means necessary” was “so painful and disturbing” that Gefen “left New York for a few days.” It’s hard to imagine the Atlantic giving such editorial space to a Palestinian student triggered by Zionist anti-Palestinian chants.

    The Atlantic was also unforgiving on the general topic of pro-Palestine campus protests. “Campus Protest Encampments are Unethical” (9/16/24) was the headline of an article by Conor Friedersdorf, while Judith Shulevitz (5/8/24) said that campus anti-genocide protest chants are “why some see the pro-Palestinian cause as so threatening.”

    ‘Belligerent elite college students’

    WaPo: At Columbia, Excuse the Students, but Not the Faculty

    Paul Berman (Washington Post, 4/26/24) writes that Columbia student protesters “horrify me” because they fail to understand that Israel “killing immense numbers of civilians” and “imposing famine-like conditions” is not as important as “Hamas and its goal,” which is “the eradication of the Israeli state.”

    The Washington Post likewise trashed the anti-genocide movement. Guest op-ed columnist Paul Berman (4/26/24) wrote that if he were in charge of Columbia, “I would turn in wrath on Columbia’s professors” who supported the students. He was particularly displeased with the phrase “from the river to the sea,” a chant demanding one democratic state in historic Palestine. Offering no evidence of ill will by the protesters who use the slogan, he said:

    I grant that, when students chant “from the river to the sea,” some people will claim to hear nothing more than a call for human rights for Palestinians. The students, some of them, might even half-deceive themselves on this matter. But it is insulting to have to debate these points, just as it is insulting to have to debate the meaning of the Confederate flag.

    The slogan promises eradication. It is an exciting slogan because it is transgressive, which is why the students love to chant it. And it is doubly shocking to see how many people rush to excuse the students without even pausing to remark on the horror embedded in the chants.

    Regular Post columnist Megan McArdle (4/25/24) said that Columbia protesters would be unlikely to change US support for Israel because “20-year-olds don’t necessarily make the best ambassadors for a cause.” She added:

    It’s difficult to imagine anything less likely to appeal to that voter than an unsanctioned tent city full of belligerent elite college students whose chants have at least once bordered on the antisemitic.

    ‘Death knell for a Jewish state’

    WaPo: I’ve read student protesters’ manifestos. This is ugly stuff. Clueless, too.

    While “defenders of the protesters dismiss manifestations of antisemitism…as unfortunate aberrations,” Max Boot (Washington Post, 5/6/24) writes. “But if you read what the protesters have written about their own movement, it’s clear that animus against Israel runs deep”—as though antisemitism and “animus against Israel” were the same thing.

    Fellow Post columnist Max Boot (5/6/24) dismissed the statement of anti-genocide Columbia protesters:

    The manifesto goes on to endorse “the Right of Return” for Palestinian refugees who have fled Israel since its creation in 1948. Allowing 7 million Palestinians—most of them the descendants of refugees—to move to Israel (with its 7 million Jewish and 2 million Arab residents) would be a death knell for Israel as a Jewish state. The protesters’ slogan “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” is a call not for a two-state solution but for a single Palestinian state—and a mass exodus of Jews.

    Boot here gives away the pretense that Israel is a democracy. The idea of “one Palestine” is a democratic ideal whereby all people in historic Palestine—Jew, Muslim, Christian etc.—live with equal rights like in any normal democracy. But the idea of losing an ethnostate to egalitarianism is tantamount to “a mass exodus of Jews.”

    Thirty years after the elimination of apartheid in South Africa, the white population is 87% as large as it was under white supremacy. Is there any reason to think that a smaller percentage of Jews would be willing to live in a post-apartheid Israel/Palestine without Jewish supremacy?

    The New York Times, Atlantic and Washington Post fanned the flames of the right-wing pearl-clutching at the anti-genocide protests. Their writers may genuinely be aghast at Trump’s aggression toward universities now (Atlantic, 3/19/25, 3/20/25; Washington Post, 3/19/25, 3/21/25), but they might want to reflect on what they did to bring us to this point.

    This post was originally published on FAIR.

  • ‘I want to look my nieces in the eye and say I did everything I could’: eight Just Stop Oil supporters found GUILTY

    Eight Just Stop Oil supporters were found guilty of conspiracy to cause a public nuisance at Heathrow by a jury at Isleworth Crown Court on Thursday 20 March, while one other supporter was acquitted.

    The Heathrow 10 were arrested on 24 July 2024, on the first day of the Oil Kills International Uprising to end fossil fuels. Nine defendants have been on trial since 27 January before Judge Duncan. One, Rory Wilson (26), pleaded guilty last September.

    Just Stop Oil Heathrow 10: the verdicts are in

    On 19 March Julia Mercer (74) , who was arrested leaving a house in Wraysbury, where she had volunteered to cook meals for the group, was acquitted unanimously by the jury.

    But on 20 March, eight Just Stop Oil supporters: Sally Davidson (37), Adam Beard (55), Luke Elson (31), Luke Watson (34), Sean O’Callaghan (29), Hannah Schafer (60), William Goldring (27), and Rosa Hicks (28) were found guilty by majority verdict.

    Sentencing was adjourned until 16th May. Luke Elson, Luke Watson and Rory Wilson are to remain in prison, where they have been held since 24 July 2024. Will Goldring was also remanded ahead of sentencing, the remaining five were granted bail.

    Sean O’Callaghan, Sally Davidson, Hannah Schafer, Julia Mercer and William Goldring were all granted bail in the weeks after the action last July. Rosa Hicks, was bailed in January after six months on remand because of a heating failure in the female court cells and Adam Beard was released in February, but Rory Wilson, Luke Elson, and Luke Watson remained in prison serving something close to a two-year prison sentence without having been convicted of anything.

    The trial was adjourned in January due to Ministry of Justice rules limiting court sitting days as a cost saving measure, only to be reinstated on 24 January giving the defendants just half a working day to reorganise.

    All legal defences removed

    During the trial the judge removed all legal defences from the jury’s consideration, ruled the climate emergency to be ‘irrelevant’ and forbade defendants from mentioning that a jury has a right to acquit a defendant as a matter of conscience.

    The defendants were not permitted to bring expert witnesses on international law or climate science or to show the jury videos they recorded of themselves speaking before the action, nor were they allowed to read the quotes from news articles about their arrests and subsequent remand to prison.

    The prosecution argued that between 1 March and 24 July 2024 the nine defendants had, along with Rory Wilson, planned an action which involved some of them entering Heathrow airport and gluing themselves to runways or taxiways in order to cause maximum disruption.

    During the seven week trial, expert witnesses including a retired pilot, members of Heathrow Operations team and the Met Police Protest Removal Team presented their hypothetical scenarios of what might have happened had the defendants entered the airfield.

    Laughable

    Scenarios ranged from people being sucked into aircraft engines, vulnerable plane passengers being stranded in disabled aircraft with no access to air conditioning, planes being diverted to far flung locations or forced to make emergency landings in unsuitable locations. None of which actually happened.

    The defendants argued that their intention was not to cause disruption, indeed none thought that they would make it to the perimeter fence, let alone cut a hole and go airside. Their plan was to use the publicity surrounding their arrests at Heathrow in order to get good information to the public about the scale and danger of the climate crisis.

    Evidence for the defence included the prepared statements they had carried with them to the action, which outlined their justification for the action and the steps they would take to minimise harm. This included their commitment to remain clear of the runways and to wait until a 999 call had been made before entering the airport perimeter.

    Despite repeated interruptions from the Judge, Sally Davidson, 37, a hairdresser from Portland, Dorset spoke at length about the climate crisis and said that although evidence had been included in the agreed facts of the case, facts could not convey the emotional force of the losses people are experiencing.

    She said:

    If you hear about the father who watched his wife and baby being swept off their car roof while trying to escape the floods last summer in Valencia, your emotional response to this is valid. It is what makes you human.

    I did everything I could

    Luke Elson, 31, a support worker from East London told the court that he felt compelled to take action because he knew one day his young nieces would ask him:

    Uncle what did you do when you knew this was happening?

    He said:

    I want to be able to look them in the eye and say that I did everything I could.

    In her closing statement Julia Mercer, 74 from Todmorden in Yorkshire referred to her time at Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp saying:

    Back in those Greenham days, peaceful protestors were treated differently by the law. And what’s happening now is that the law is becoming increasingly punitive with police raids and arrests; long periods for people in prison on remand before trial. It’s not right. It doesn’t serve the public to silence and jail those sounding the alarm. It’s only serving the interests of the arms dealers and oil barons. We have a long and honourable tradition of peaceful protest in the UK

    In his closing statement Sean O’Callaghan, 30, an Environmental educator, from Dorking, Surrey referred to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act and said:

    Let’s not forget these anti-protest laws can be traced back to fossil fuel lobbyists. The repression being applied to peaceful activists since these laws came in, is a desperate attempt by powerful corporations to prevent the horrifying truth of decades of deception being revealed to the general public. If the fossil fuel companies had been held to account for their lies, we wouldn’t need to be doing this. If the Government had done its job to protect us, we wouldn’t need to be doing this. Who are the democrats in this situation? Those trying to conceal the truth, or those trying desperately to reveal it?

    In his closing statement Adam Beard, 55, a gardener from Stroud, Gloucestershire said:

    While the climate crisis was central to why I took the action, it has been ruled irrelevant to this case… I don’t have huge resources behind me but I do have my body, and sacrificing my freedom through civil resistance to get a message of truth into the media is within my power. This is what it was all about. So our action did not fail as the prosecution has claimed, it was a success. This was achieved because we were arrested at a high-profile location and then remanded into custody, with all the press attention that that brought. And all this coverage was about our message and information for the public, not about delayed flights.

    Just Stop Oil: the uprising will continue

    Following the verdict the defendants issued the following statement:

    We thank the jury for their service and accept their decision. We recognise the constraints they were under given that the judge removed all legal defences, ruled the climate emergency to be ‘irrelevant’, and forbade us from mentioning that a jury has a right to acquit a defendant as a matter of conscience.

    Some of us now face many months in prison for planning an action that never happened. We sought to get media attention so that we could explain the growing suffering and the horror of our heating world and the urgency for global action. In that we count ourselves successful. A small victory won in the wider struggle against complacency, false hope and denial.

    We have no regrets. We planned our campaign with care, aiming to avoid harm and with the intention of preventing greater harm. The bigger crime would have been not to act.

    When it comes to global heating there are no winners. Governments are rolling the dice on billions of deaths and economic collapse as extreme heat, crop failure and starvation drive mass migration and civil unrest. Our government is failing to protect us and the courts and the judiciary are complicit. They are protecting those who profit from death and destruction while criminalising those standing up against it.

    Civil resistance to a morally bankrupt political class is not only necessary as an act of self-defence, it is also morally justified. There are many who know the horror of our situation, who nonetheless are carrying on with business as usual, in the mistaken belief that someone else will solve the problem. We are sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but if you don’t stand up and do something, we are going to lose literally everything.

    In 2024 Just Stop Oil successfully won its original demand of ‘no new oil and gas’. Now the courts agree that new oil and gas is unlawful. Just Stop Oil supporters are on the right side of history and nonviolent civil resistance works. Just Stop Oil will once again be stepping into action this April to demand that governments work together to end the extraction and burning of oil, gas and coal by 2030. You can help make this happen by coming to a talk and signing up for action at juststopoil.org

    Featured image supplied

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Meet Crips Against Cuts – who have joined the fight against Labour and the DWP

    A new grassroots campaign group is planning to take action against the Labour Party-led Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) brutal plans to cut chronically ill and disabled people’s benefits.

    In the space of little more than a week, disabled-led Crips Against Cuts has mobilised to challenge all this. Now, under its banner, activists across the country have organised 14 demonstrations against the government’s sweep of dangerous cuts.

    And, as a Crips Against Cuts activist told the Canary, this is only the beginning of its plans to fight back.

    Crips Against Cuts: the new kid on the block for resistance against the DWP

    Crips Against Cuts is a new decentralised network of disabled activists and allies. The group sprung up in a little less than a week in response to the news the Labour Party government is sizing up deep cuts to welfare, targeting chronically ill and disabled claimants.

    What started small as a group of Crip activists, largely based in Bristol, soon took off. Around the country, activists set up multiple Crips Against Cuts groups. You can join up with these and get involved via their national WhatsApp:

    FIND YOUR LOCAL GROUP✊❤

    — Crips Against Cuts♿🌻 (@crips-against-cuts.bsky.social) 2025-03-19T23:20:38.502Z

    On Saturday 22 March, the groups will be holding a number of protests nationwide. Local Crips Against Cuts activists are hosting these in tandem in the following locations:

    Crips against cuts protests planned for this weekend. Please follow the QR for details and please please please repost on your accounts 💜 @crips-against-cuts.bsky.social

    — Just Em x (@agirlcalleddave.bsky.social) 2025-03-20T09:57:07.496Z

    To find your nearest protest, you can head to Crips Against Cuts Instagram at www.instagram.com/crips_against_cuts and its linktr.ee.

    Time to ‘cut the discrimination, not our lifeline benefits’

    Beth O’Brien, from Crips Against Cuts London said:

    This is nothing short of an assault on the dignity and rights of Disabled people in the UK. Human life has dignity regardless of work or productivity. Removing entitlements which helps pay for basic care and necessary support creates far bigger barriers to work and independent living.

    Charities have warned the new 4-point rule will leave 700,000 people struggling to survive in poverty. Without PIP, you cannot claim other disability benefits. GPs lose their vital role assessing and signing people off work, instead referring them to a “back to work program”- not what you need alongside a new cancer or dementia diagnosis.

    Instead of punishing disabled people, this Labour government must invest in sickness prevention, research and treatment, and address widespread inaccessibility, prejudice and abuse. 1 in 4 working age adults have some form of disability, and most of us will experience disability in our lifetime. It’s time to cut the discrimination, not our lifeline benefits and access to society.

    Black and brown allies at the heart of it

    The Canary spoke to Crips Against Cuts activist Mac, from Bristol. Mac and her wife Abby founded the group, but she was keen to emphasise that “all they really did was get it started”.

    Crucially, she highlighted how:

    It has all been led by cripples, and so, every decision has been made by a community of about 250 Crips that have got involved in the last week.

    She also wanted to underscore that none of it “would be possible” without the help of a dedicated collective of allies, who she said:

    are predominantly Black and brown women, and I think it’s really important that we recognise that they’re the only real group coming in as allyship.

    Mac explained how Black and brown women allies had been the driving force behind the group’s organisation in recent days.

    So just what have the groups planned for the day?

    Largely, the 90-minute to two hour demos will start with a line-up of set speakers. In Bristol, Mac said this largely includes long-term community leaders and local politicians against the cuts. Bristol Central MP and Green Party co-leader Carla Denyer will open the protest. Mac also explained how some DWP employees have come forward to speak out against their department’s cuts at the Bristol demo.

    However, the bulk of the protests Crips Against Cuts have set aside to give local disabled people a supported space to speak out:

    Everybody in the crowd, whether a cripple, carer, or an ally, feels as important and as amplified as the people who are booked speakers. And so we’re going to have the majority of the two hours put aside for anybody who would like to speak, or has been inspired to speak at the demo.

    This ‘isn’t going to be the end of it’

    Mac expressed that the groups want to make sure disabled people across the country feel heard over the Labour-led DWP’s disgraceful plans. Noting how this isn’t “going to be the end of it”, she said how she and other activists hoped that:

    the more inclusive we are, and the more empowering the rally is for other disabled people in the city, the more likely we are to get the government to not only U-turn on this, but actually improve things for disabled people and poor people.

    Importantly, Crips Against Cuts want these protests and their national groups to be a focal point for support for chronically ill and disabled people as well.

    At the Bristol protest for instance, Mac told the Canary that there will be a:

    safe space, where we do have a couple of qualified first-aiders.

    On top of this, the group has coordinated for there to be a:

    small sectioned-off area for anyone who feels emotional or overwhelmed or feels like they need additional space.

    Despite the short notice, the group has additionally managed to get a small number of local mental health professionals – all independent therapists – to offer free therapy sessions on the day. Crips Against Cuts also hopes to have the presence of mental health charities, who it has invited to support the protest.

    After the event, the Bristol team intend to host some regular mental wellbeing and community socials.

    Crips Against Cuts ‘furious’ at Labour

    Drawing together a broad community of disabled people and allies across the country, Mac also reflected on the ferocity of feeling for what many feel is an unforgivable betrayal by Labour. She told us that:

    Something that has become really apparent in all of the groups across the country and in the support groups on WhatsApp, is that people are furious that they voted for Labour to get rid of the Tories, and instead Labour are just pushing further to the right than they would ever allow the Tories to do.

    She told the Canary how many in the group now want to see Starmer and his cabinet face a vote of no confidence.

    Ultimately, Mac said that through Crips Against Cuts, her, and other disabled activists want to empower as many people as possible to resist Labour’s cruel plans:

    Every single human being is an activist. If you are a human living in a democracy, part of your role is activism. A lot of people feel like they need permission to try and create change, and they don’t.

    Featured image supplied

    By Hannah Sharland

  • CND slams Labour’s nuclear rhetoric ahead of major protest outside BAE Systems

    As CND prepares for its national demonstration at the BAE Shipyard, Barrow-in-Furness, on Saturday 22 March, the government is ramping up nuclear threats to prop up Britain’s failing nuclear weapons programme and justify military spending hikes in next week’s Spring Statement

    BAE: laughing all the way to the bank, thanks to the Labour Party

    The recent visit to the BAE Shipyard in Barrow and nuclear base at Faslane by Keir Starmer and John Healey, saw the Defence Secretary claim the weapons could do “untold damage” against countries like Russia in the event of a conflict.

    It was also announced that the Port of Barrow, which has built submarines for Britain’s nuclear weapons programme since the 1950s, will be given royal status. This status applies to the dockland where the arms manufacturer’s shipyard is based and not the wider Barrow area.

    CND’s protest comes ahead of the chancellor’s Spring Statement, where it’s expected that billions of pounds will be added to the military budget while brutal cuts are made to overseas aid, and services helping some of the country’s most vulnerable people.

    The government argues that increasing the military budget will help revitalise “left behind” industrial towns and the wider economy. But military spending has one of the lowest employment multipliers of all sectors. Towns like Barrow need sustainable and varied forms of employment that put its people and the planet first.

    Britain’s nuclear weapons accounts for at least 14% of the MoD’s military expenditure but the most recent annual report by the Infrastructure and Projects Authority (IPA) found that key parts of its nuclear weapons programme are either failing or have major issues. CND is calling on the government to scrap Britain’s nuclear programme once and for all and develop an industrial strategy that generates sustainable economic growth that benefits everyone.

    Protest details

    The protest details for Saturday 22 March are as follows:

    12 noon: activists will meet and take part in a leafletting action outside in Barrow-in-Furness town centre, outside The Forum, Duke Street, LA14 1HH

    1-3pm: March and rally on High Level (Michaelson Road) Bridge over the Devonshire Dock.

    Speakers at rally include: Sophie Bolt, CND General Secretary; Ben Soffa, Palestine Solidarity Campaign National Secretary; Dr Stuart Parkinson, Scientists for Global Responsibility Executive Director; Philip Gilligan, South Lakeland and Lancaster District CND Coordinator; Helen Tucker, NEU Cumbria and International Solidarity Officer for NEU Northern Region; Marianne Birkby, Radiation Free Lakeland; Linda Walker, Manchester Climate Justice; James Aigh, Paper Not Planes – Stop Croppers F35.

    CND General Secretary Sophie Bolt said:

    Starmer and Healey’s recent visit to Faslane and Barrow is part of the government’s reckless attempt to justify Britain’s immoral nuclear weapons programme. We need to see Healey’s nuclear threats for what they are: whipping up global tensions to justify siphoning off billions of pounds to the arms industry. Nuclear weapons do nothing to make people safer. They are a huge drain on public finances that will only make the population poorer and see essential services cut even further to the bone. Nuclear weapons encourage proliferation and make nuclear use more likely. Our protest isn’t about taking jobs away from people. Towns like Barrow could, and should, be at the forefront of a dynamic green economy.

    Palestine Solidarity Campaign National Secretary Ben Soffa said:

    Weapons and components manufactured in Britain – including by BAE Systems – are being used to murder Palestinian men, women and children in Gaza. Despite it being acknowledged that components made in North West England were part of the Israeli F-35 plane that killed 90 Palestinians in a single attack on the so-called ‘safe zone’ of Al-Mawasi, these exports continue. Now is the time for a thorough reassessment of whether exports from the UK’s weapons producers are in reality contributing to growing global instability and breaches of international law, including attacks on civilians.

    No more war from Labour (or BAE)

    Scientists for Global Responsibility Executive Director Dr Stuart Parkinson said:

    The two greatest threats to the world are nuclear war and climate change. We could tackle both by disarming nuclear weapons and diverting the engineering jobs to green energy. This is where Britain and the world need to focus their efforts. Britain’s green economy now employs about 900,000 people – far more than the arms industry – and it is expanding. Barrow could and should be part of this just transition.

    Coordinator of South Lakeland and Lancaster District CND Philip Gilligan said:

    Like many residents of Westmorland and Furness I am delighted that CND will be in Barrow on Saturday calling for a future which is not dependent on investment in weapons which would kill millions of people and threaten all our futures. Barrow deserves better.

    Spokesperson from the campaign Paper Not Planes: Stop Croppers F35 James Aigh said:

    Paper Not Planes: stop Croppers F35 aims to stop the Burneside-based business, James Cropper PLC, supplying parts for F35 war planes, dozens of which are currently being used by Israel in their war on Gaza. No one wants a job supplying arms to a genocidal army, or building weapons of mass destruction. We can meet the needs of people in Barrow and Burneside through a redistribution of wealth.

    Featured image via the Canary

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Protesters to support Holocaust survivor as police interview him over his opposition to genocide

    Stephen Kapos is a Holocaust survivor. But because he opposes Israel’s genocide in Gaza, UK police want to question him “under caution” today (Friday 21 March). This is specifically in relation to the 18 January protest in solidarity with Palestine, which authorities sought to repress.

    However, protesters will be outside Charing Cross police station at 2pm to show solidarity with 87-year-old Kapos, whom police aim to cross-examine at 2.30pm. The Stop the War coalition said:

    That a Holocaust survivor is being pursued by the police in this way underlines the unjustifiable extremes to which the police are prepared to go to restrict the right to public protest and silence the Palestine solidarity movement.

    It added that Kapos is:

    among a number of activists sent police letters calling them in for questioning by the Met. All those who received the letters were simply carrying flowers to lay down in commemoration of the tens of thousands of civilians, the majority of them women and children, slaughtered by Israel since October 2023.

    Another show of solidarity with Kapos has come from forty Holocaust survivors and their descendants, who have denounced the persecution of the 87-year-old in a letter. They said:

    Any repression of the right to protest is bad enough – but to persecute a Jewish 87 year old whose Holocaust experiences compel him to speak out against the Gaza genocide, is quite appalling.

    This very concerning development makes it even more important for Jews to speak out against the genocide.

    Police harassment of Jewish anti-war voices

    Jewish anti-war campaigner and anti-apartheid veteran Andrew Feinstein, meanwhile, has revealed that the police have been harassing people like Kapos even away from street protests. As he said this week:

    At the @STWuk meeting to defend the right to protest tonight, the police turned up & wanted to know who had organised the meeting, who was speaking, who was attending. In the meeting a Holocaust survivor, who should know, warned us about the rise of fascism.

    Carolyn Gelenter, whose father was a Holocaust survivor, previously told the Canary about how frightening it is that police officers “have lost their humanity” in their aggressive persecution of people opposing genocide. She also worried about “what it’s doing to us as a society” to see our government deny genocide and crack down on those who oppose it. And responding to police officers who say they’re ‘just following orders’, she said:

    We all commit acts of evil by obeying orders.

    Other Holocaust survivors and their descendants have also expressed their serious concerns about the political agenda of trying to suppress anti-genocide voices using police intimidation. And as those expressing solidarity with Kapos have insisted, the more authorities try to silence voices of humanity, the more important it is for us to speak out and resist.

    Featured image supplied

    By Ed Sykes

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • The ‘Drax 15’ plead not guilty as the state turns the screws for the UK’s most polluting power station

    Fifteen people have pleaded not guilty to “going equipped to lock on”, after they were preemptively arrested in a £3 million police operation in August 2024 that stopped a peaceful climate camp against Drax, the UK’s most polluting power station.

    Drax: burning the planet

    Bioenergy giant Drax operates the world’s largest wood pellet-burning biomass power station near Selby, Yorkshire. The UK’s single largest carbon dioxide emitter, in 2023, it belched out 11.5m tonnes of the greenhouse gas driving the climate crisis.

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

    What’s more, the company has situated its wood pellet production sites predominantly in environmental justice communities. These include majority Black communities in places like Mississippi and Louisiana. There, Drax’s facilities emit large amounts of pollutants that cause respiratory and pulmonary health impacts.

    The corporation has repeatedly made the bold claim that it produces renewable energy. Unsurprisingly, this does not wash. Because as it turns out, cutting down forests is not so sustainable. On top of this, burning wood pellets produces more carbon emissions than the dirtiest of fossil fuels: coal. Not so green then either.

    However, because the UK government counts woody biomass ‘carbon neutral’ (it’s clearly not), it throws enormous renewable energy subsidies at Drax anyway. These amount to over £600m a year. Little wonder then that the company raked in over a billion in profits for 2023 alone.

    Courts and cops complicit

    It was in the context of all this that a group of climate protesters planned to take the major greenwashing corporation to task. Predictably however, the criminal justice instruments of the state closed ranks to shield Drax from peaceful, public scrutiny and protest.

    First, the company sought an injunction against them ahead of their planned ‘climate camp’ at the site. On 25 July, the High Court granted this draconian injunction to Drax. It meant that protesters would be relegated to a small strip of land near the power station. Despite this, protest groups proceeded in preparations for their peaceful demonstration undeterred.

    Then, on 8 August, North Yorkshire police, led by the Met, conducted a raid.

    It involved 1,070 officers from 39 forces of the 44 forces in Britain, and the seizing of accessible toilets, wheelchair trackway, and tents. This happened in the same week the police claimed their resources were too “stretched” to provide protection for asylum seekers being attacked in their accommodation by far right rioters.

    They pre-emptively arrested 22 climate protesters purportedly for conspiracy to interfere with key national infrastructure. Of course, this was before the protesters had done anything. As the Canary’s HG reported:

    A protester who has been helping to coordinate the camp told the Canary that North Yorkshire Police are essentially acting as Drax’s own private security firm. Repeatedly they said they are not opposed to peaceful protests. However, they have still taken away the kit the protesters were using to ensure the camp was both peaceful and safe. Essentially, they are being silenced for speaking out against greenwashing.

    North Yorkshire Police’s response only made this complicity glaringly apparent.

    Drax: protected by the state

    This policing operation stopped the planned climate camp from starting. Over 100 organisations, including Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace, condemned Drax for “using the police as their own private security”.

    Laurie, who was arrested in a van containing wheelchair trackway on 8 August, said:

    The fact I am facing charges for carrying wheelchair trackway to a climate camp is ridiculous, and shows the power Drax holds over the government, police and courts. Corporations like Drax can use the police as security and the state for billions in pocket money, all while our public services like schools and hospitals continue to crumble. We need to shut down Drax and take the power back from their shareholders.

    Kat Hobbs, a spokesperson for Network for Police Monitoring (Netpol) said:

    The Drax mass arrest was a clear abuse of police power. Netpol’s new “State of Protest” report documents an alarming package of state-supported measures designed to impose social control on protests, and it documents the growing use of conspiracy charges against protesters. It is a worrying symptom how emboldened the police feel by the political rhetoric demonising climate protesters that they targeted Reclaim the Power. While major polluters such as Drax are allowed to continue their dirty business, the police are shutting down protest before it can even happen by confiscating access ramps and compost toilets to stop climate protesters from gathering.

    Featured image supplied

    By Steve Topple

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Palestine protestors are going to be at BBC HQ this weekend

    Thousands of protestors from all over the country are expected to march to the BBC headquarters in London this weekend for this year’s Al-Quds Day demonstration in support of Palestine.

    BBC propaganda

    The BBC has been instrumental in misrepresenting the genocide and trying to create a climate in which it can be publicly accepted. Police have banned recent protests from gathering outside the organisation’s offices.

    The turnout is expected to surpass last year’s record attendance in view of the continuing genocide in Palestine which has so far seen at least 50,000 Palestinians slaughtered, most of them women and children.

    Israel’s savage onslaught has continued in wilful breach of the ceasefire reached in January, with massive aerial bombardments this week which have claimed hundreds of victims and a suffocating siege that has prevented food and other essentials from entering the beleaguered Gaza Strip.

    At the same time, Israeli forces have besieged and invaded many West Bank towns and villages causing huge loss of life and damage to infrastructure.

    Determined marchers

    This year, participants will assemble at Marble Arch on Sunday 23 March at 2.30pm before marching to the headquarters of the BBC in Portland Place. The national broadcaster has been instrumental in misrepresenting the genocide and trying to create a climate in which it can be publicly accepted.

    The Al-Quds Day demo has taken place peacefully in London for over 40 years without a single arrest. One of its attractions has always been its inclusiveness with demonstrators coming from all walks of life. Jews, Christians and Muslims, and people of other faiths and none all march in common cause side by side. The event also attracts many women and children.

    Coalition

    Al-Quds Day is being supported by a much larger number of organisations this year at the BBC protest:

    • ABSocforJustice, Ahlulbayt Islamic Mission
    • Ahlulbayt Sisters Association
    • Black Activists Rising For Justice
    • Black Lives Matter Coalition UK
    • Cambridge Stop the War Coalition
    • Campaign Against Misreprentation in Public Affairs and the News (CAMPAIN)
    • Campaigns Against Sanctions
    • Military and Imperial Interventions
    • Cardiff Ahlulbayt Islamic Society
    • Christians for Palestine
    • City Friends of Palestine
    • Convivencia Alliance
    • Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC)
    • Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism!
    • Hands Off Uhuru Hands Off Africa
    • Hertfordshire Ahlulbayt Islamic Society
    • Hindus for Human Rights UK (HIHR UK)
    • Innovative Minds Human Rights Group (InMinds)
    • Islamic Human Rights Commission
    • Islamic Society of Heriot-Watt University
    • Jewish Network for Palestine
    • Manchester Ahlulbayt Islamic Society
    • Muslim Public Affairs Committee UK (MPAC)
    • Neturei Karta
    • No2NATO
    • Palestine Pulse
    • Palestinian Youth Movement
    • Peacekeeper Trust
    • Scotland Palestine Solidarity Campaign (Scottish PSC)
    • Sisters Circle
    • Spinwatch
    • UAL Islamic Society
    • University of Aberdeen Palestinian Solidarity Society

    Featured image via the Canary

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • House of Lords in SHOCK as protesters take direct action in the chamber

    Assemble is a group which has been helping to set up local community assemblies around the country. And it has just rained leaflets down onto the House of Lords calling for a House of the People.

    The leaflets said:

    NEVER MIND THE LORDS LETS HAVE A HOUSE OF THE PEOPLE

    ARISTOCRATS & OLIGARCHS: OUT

    POSTIES, MUMS, NURSES, AND NEIGHBOURS: IN

    REPLACE THE HOUSE OF LORDS TO SAVE THE UK

    The assemblies that Assemble has been supporting encourage local people to deliberate on important local, national, and international issues, and on the potential solutions to them. And in 2024, Assemble launched the House of the People to bring together representatives from local assemblies in different parts of the country.

    Building the House of the People – not the House of Lords

    An Assemble press release said six individuals “showered members of the House of Lords with 1,000 handbills” from the viewing gallery. The group is “inviting members of the public to take part in the inaugural House of the People in Summer 2025”, and:

    There is an open call on Thursday 27th March for members of the public interested in taking part in a House of the People.

    It added:

    Today’s action has been taken in support of the abolition of the House of Lords in favour of a House of the People – a new institution where any adult in the UK may be selected to serve, like a jury, to set the political agenda and balance the House of Commons. This action mirrors one undertaken by Suffragettes on October 28th 1908, where they took direct action by raining handbills onto the House of Commons, demanding suffrage for women in the UK.

    “We need to hand the power back to the people with participatory politics”

    Quoting Christina Jenkins, a care worker who took part in the protest, insisted:

    We need a People’s House, not a house of wealthy elites. Lords: give up your seat! How can we [have] a real democracy when we’re only given the chance to vote once every five years? Even then, so many people don’t vote because their voices still go unheard.

    And she stressed:

    We need to hand the power back to the people with participatory politics like citizens’ assemblies if we stand any chance of addressing the real issues facing Britain.

    Fellow protester Árainn Justin Hawker, meanwhile, explained:

    I am taking action today because I believe British politics is broken and our democracy desperately needs renewal. The current system is dominated by corporate interests and I see a “House of the People” as our best hope for change.

    Featured image and additional images/video supplied

    By Ed Sykes

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • Six Just Stop Oil supporters not guilty as M25 conspiracy trial scrapes the evidence barrel

    Six Just Stop Oil supporters have been found not guilty while two were convicted of conspiracy to cause public nuisance in relation to the 2022 actions that blocked the M25 to demand an end to new oil and gas.

    Ian Bates and Abigail Percy-Ratcliffe were found guilty and have been bailed until sentencing at a later date. Tim Hughes, Daniel Juniper, Karen Matthews, James Skeet, Alexander Wilcox and Christopher White were all acquitted of conspiracy to cause a public nuisance.

    Just Stop Oil: not guilty (obviously)

    Abigail Percy-Ratcliff (25, from Brighton), Tim Hewes (74, from Oxford), Karen Matthews (63, from Northampton), Ian Bates (65, from Northampton), Christopher White (31, from Somerset), Alexander Wilcox (24, from Northampton), James Skeet (37, from Manchester) and Daniel Juniper (30, from Bristol) were accused of criminal conspiracy in connection with the M25 gantry action in November 2022. They were tried by a 12-member jury in a four-week trial at Southwark Crown Court, presided over by Judge David Tomlinson.

    On 7 November 2022, police officers forcibly entered a property on Wricklemarsh Road, London, arresting Ian Bates, Karen Matthews, Christopher White, and Alexander Wilcox. Four days later, on 11 November, officers arrested James Skeet and Daniel Juniper at a property on Kentmere Road. Tim Hewes was arrested at his home in Oxford on 6 November 2022.

    With no direct evidence of an agreement among the defendants to block the M25, the prosecution relied heavily on circumstantial evidence, using everyday items recovered during arrests. From an address on Kentmere Road, police recovered an outdoor jacket and trousers belonging to James Skeet, along with empty packaging for work gloves, a high-visibility jacket, and Ultraglue.

    At Tim Hewes’ home, officers seized similarly commonplace objects like an umbrella, party poppers, sanitiser wipes, duct tape, string, an Extinction Rebellion-branded vest, a sticker reading “The planet burns, Boris fiddles”, and a screwdriver. These items were portrayed by the prosecution in as signs of a carefully orchestrated plan to disrupt the M25. Significant resources were allocated to this case, including extensive police efforts since 2022 and a four-week trial involving multiple prosecution barristers.

    ‘Fiddling while Rome burns’

    James Skeet, speaking after the verdict, said:

    This trial has been nothing more than four weeks of fiddling while Rome burns.

    In closing, the prosecution said that the law should be applied ‘equally without favour or prejudice.’ On that we agreed. Yet if the law were truly applied in that way, those driving new oil and gas projects—despite their clear violation of Article 30 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court—would be held to account.

    Government officials, whose net zero strategy has been ruled unlawful twice, would be made to answer for it. And farmers who have openly conspired to commit public nuisance would also find themselves dragged through the courts for three years.

    Instead, since 2022, we have had the resources of 6 police departments mobilised against us in a Kafka-esque case where mere proximity to a protest and possession of party poppers or the wrong type of trousers has been regarded as sufficient evidence to waste vast sums of public money. To quote another admission from the prosecution, they ‘aren’t just scraping the bottom of the barrel, they are digging through the bottom of it’.

    A toxic culture

    During the trial, the Crown prosecution acknowledged the findings of the 2020 Net Zero Interim report, which stated:

    Climate change is an existential threat to humanity. Without global action to limit greenhouse gas emissions, the climate will change catastrophically with almost unimaginable consequences for societies across the world.

    Additionally, the prosecution agreed upon the established scientific consensus that warming exceeding 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels poses ‘catastrophic’ and ‘irreversible’ risks to humanity. It was further accepted that the average global temperature rise for the year ending 2024 was 1.65 degrees Celsius, with projections indicating that warming would permanently surpass 1.5 degrees Celsius before 2030.

    In his closing speech to the Jury Ian Bates said:

    In fact, you are now part of history. Unknowingly, unwittingly. You 12 good people have been thrust into the unfolding history of the end of humanity. I’m not being dramatic here. It’s in the agreed facts – the facts that the judge, the prosecution, and all the defendants and their legal representatives have agreed.

    The climate crisis has been growing for 200 years. Oil companies knew in the 70s but buried it to keep their huge profits, using top PR companies. That decision, that choice, has been perpetuated ever since and is being perpetuated here in this court, at this precise moment in history, here before your very eyes.

    It’s a small but hugely significant example of the culture we find ourselves living in—a culture which puts profit before people. This trial is all about what we are doing about this existential threat – a threat to existing.

    Just Stop Oil: telling the whole truth

    This trial follows the trial of the ‘Whole Truth Five’ in July 2024, convicted for conspiracy to cause a public nuisance due to their participation in the M25 gantry action.

    Their convictions relied heavily on evidence from a Zoom meeting recorded by Scarlett Howes, a journalist from The Sun newspaper. Initially, Judge Christopher Hehir sentenced Roger Hallam to five years in prison, while Daniel Shaw, Lucia Whittaker De Abreu, Louise Lancaster, and Cressida Gethin each received four-year sentences—marking the longest custodial sentences for non-violent protest in UK history.

    On 7 March 2025, the Court of Appeal found that Judge Hehir had improperly excluded consideration of the defendants’ rights under Articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights, as well as their conscientious motivations in his sentencing.

    Consequently, the original sentences were judged excessive and reduced. Roger Hallam’s sentence was reduced from five years to four, Daniel Shaw and Louise Lancaster’s sentences were lowered to three years each, and Lucia Whittaker De Abreu and Cressida Gethin each had their sentences shortened to 30 months.

    Featured image supplied

    By The Canary

    This post was originally published on Canary.

  • In Return to ‘War on Terror’ Propaganda, Murdoch Cheers Suppression of Protest

     

    In These Times: My Name is Mahmoud Khalil and I Am a Political Prisoner

    Mahmoud Khalil (In These Times, 3/18/25): “At stake are not just our voices, but the fundamental civil liberties of all.”

    The arrest and possible deportation of Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, a Green Card holder with a student visa, for his organizing role at Gaza solidarity protests last year has sent shockwaves throughout American society.

    As I wrote at Haaretz (3/11/25), Khalil’s arrest is an intense blow to free speech, as punishment for speech and other First Amendment-protected activities will create a huge chilling effect. In a piece denouncing Khalil’s arrest, New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg (3/10/25) quoted American Civil Liberties Union senior staff attorney Brian Hauss saying, “This seems like one of the biggest threats, if not the biggest threat, to First Amendment freedoms in 50 years.”

    In a letter (In These Times, 3/18/25) dictated over the phone from an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Louisiana, Khalil said, “My arrest was a direct consequence of exercising my right to free speech as I advocated for a free Palestine and an end to the genocide in Gaza.”

    While a judge blocked his deportation, as of this writing, Khalil is still in ICE custody (Al Jazeera, 3/19/25). AP (3/9/25) reported that his arrest is the first known “deportation effort under Trump’s promised crackdown on students who joined protests against Israel’s war in Gaza that swept college campuses” last year. The Trump administration argues, according to the news service, that people like Khalil, whose Green Card was revoked by the State Department, “forfeited their rights to remain in the country by supporting Hamas.”

    Alarms raised

    Intercept: The Legal Argument That Could Set Mahmoud Khalil Free

    The Intercept (3/13/25) points out that the law being used against Khalid Mahmoud says one can’t be deported based on “past, current or expected beliefs, statements or associations, if such beliefs, statements or associations would be lawful within the United States.”

    Many in the media have raised alarms about the extreme threat to free speech represented by Khalil’s arrest. Even the editorial board (3/12/25) of the increasingly Trump-pandering Washington Post warned, “If the secretary of state can deport a legal resident simply because he dislikes his or her views, whose First Amendment rights are next?” Other corporate newspapers and outlets (Bloomberg, 3/11/25; USA Today, 3/13/25; Boston Globe, 3/14/25; Financial Times, 3/14/25) published similar defenses of Khalil’s First Amendment rights, arguing that his arrest fundamentally threatens American liberty.

    There is a good reason for the outcry. Khalil has not been charged with a crime, but the executive branch, without consulting a judge, revoked his legal status based on his political speech. As the Intercept (3/13/25) described, the federal government is invoking the Immigration and Nationality Act, in which the secretary of state has

    the authority to request the deportation of an individual who is not a US citizen, if they have “reasonable ground to believe” the individual’s presence in the country hurts the government’s foreign policy interests.

    The Department of Homeland Security justified the arrest on its claims that Khalil “led activities aligned to Hamas.” In other words, the Trump administration has revoked Khalil’s Green Card, arrested him and intends to deport him based on his constitutionally protected protest activities.

    Rupert Murdoch’s outlets, rather than speak out against this shredding of the First Amendment, have been promoting the Trump administration line. The Murdoch press has been celebrating the misery visited upon Khalil in a way that hearkens back to the “War on Terror” days.

    ‘Inimical to the US’

    New York Post: ICE Knowing You!

    The New York Post (3/10/25) cheers on “President Trump’s crackdown on unrest at colleges.”

    The New York Post (3/10/25) ran the cover headline “ICE Knowing You!” Its editorial board (3/9/25) childishly wrote that “ICE has put fresh teeth on President Donald Trump’s crackdown on campus hate. Hooray!” It said that the anti-genocide protest “movement was never merely about protest.”

    Two scholars at the right-wing Manhattan Institute, Ilya Shapiro and Daniel DiMartino, took to the Post op-ed page (3/11/25) to counter the free-speech defense of Khalil. They deemed the Gaza protests “illegal,” saying that stripping permanent residents of the legal protections for those “who reject our values or are hostile to our way of life” doesn’t threaten constitutional freedom.

    While admitting “we don’t know the details of the due process he’s been given”—which is a crucial consideration when it comes to constitutional protections—the duo said, “But one thing is clear: the executive branch has the authority to vet noncitizens based on their views, thanks to the laws Congress has passed and the Supreme Court has upheld.”

    The Post piece repeats a point Shapiro made at the conservative City Journal (3/7/25): “While the government can’t send foreigners to jail for saying things it doesn’t like, it can and should deny or pull visas for those who advocate for causes inimical to the United States.” Who decides what are “causes” that are “inimical”? Secretary of State Marco Rubio, apparently.

    Fox News (3/12/25) also referred to Khalil as “pro-Hamas,” reporting that the Department of Homeland Security said “that Khalil ‘led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization.’” The link between Khalil’s participation in protests and supporting Hamas is spurious on its face. If demanding a ceasefire in Gaza is pro-Hamas, then a lot of Americans would be guilty, too. Younger Americans, in particular, stand out for their support of Palestinians in the current war (Pew Research, 4/2/24).

    Not ‘really about speech’

    WSJ: If You Hate America, Why Come Here?

    Matthew Hennessey (Wall Street Journal, 3/12/25) is an extreme example, but many right-wing journalists seem to revile free expression.

    The more erudite but no less fanatically right-wing Wall Street Journal editorial board (3/12/25) said, “A Green Card comes with legal obligations, including the disavowal of terrorism,” and that “Khalil seems to have violated that obligation.” The board matter-of-factly stated, “The case against Mr. Khalil will depend on the facts of his support for Hamas.”

    ​​Matthew Hennessey, the Journal’s deputy editorial features editor (3/12/25), also called him a “pro-Hamas Columbia agitator,” adding, “If he didn’t love [the US], why didn’t he leave it? The world is big. It has many elite universities.” Hennessey added, “When you’re a guest, it’s more than bad manners to cheer the slaughter of your host’s friends.” There’s no proof offered that Khalil did anything illegal, only that he said some things Hennessey didn’t like.

    Journal columnist William McGurn (3/10/25) also dismissed the free speech concerns, saying that these protests went beyond speech—again, offering no evidence other than that the president said so. And he warned that pesky judges who stick too close to the Bill of Rights and the rule of law will get in the way of Khalil’s deportation. He said:

    “So I bet what will happen,” says Berkeley law professor John Yoo, “is that even though the immigration law says the alien students can be deported, there will be a district judge somewhere who says that the president cannot use that power to punish people based on their First Amendment–protected beliefs and speech. But the Supreme Court will ultimately uphold the law.”

    These “protests” weren’t really about speech. If all the “protesters” had done was stand outside waving Palestinian flags and chanting anti-Israel slogans, no one would be talking about deportation. Mr. Trump laid out his rationale on Truth Social: “We know there are more students at Columbia and other Universities across the Country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, antisemitic, anti-American activity, and the Trump administration will not tolerate it.”

    ‘War on Terror’ playbook

    Extra!: Whistling Past the Wreckage of Civil Liberties

    Janine Jackson (Extra!, 9/11): “Elite media’s fealty to official rationales and their anemic defense of the public’s rights have amounted to dereliction of duty.”

    Feeling some déjà vu? The right-wing media’s defense of arresting and deporting a Green Card holder for engaging in protest rests on simply labeling him and the protests as “pro-Hamas,” the idea being that any criticism of Israel’s assault on Gaza is an endorsement of the Palestinian militant group that the US State Department designates as a terrorist organization.

    As I told CNN International’s Connect the World (3/12/25), the situation feels similar to the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, when it was common for supporters of George W. Bush, including his allies in the right-wing press, to label antiwar protesters as endorsers of anti-American terrorist violence.

    Oppose the invasion of Afghanistan? You must be pro–Al Qaeda. Oppose the invasion of Iraq? You must be supportive of Saddam Hussein’s regime. This helped brand any questioning of the administration as treasonous, helping to build consensus not just for aggressive military imperialism at abroad, but in curtailing civil liberties for Americans at home (Extra!, 9/11).

    So it’s a pretty old trick for both a Republican administration and its unofficial public relations agents in the Murdoch press to simply label free speech as out of bounds because it “supports terrorism.” Calling Khalil and the anti-genocide protests, which include thousands of supporters of many backgrounds—prominently including Jews—“pro-Hamas” is just another tired trick in the “War on Terror” propaganda playbook.

    To understand how shallow this tactic is, keep in mind that Khalil has been on record about his politics and the issue of antisemitism. As a key negotiator for the protests, he had appeared on CNN and was asked about the protests and their impact on the Jewish community. The network (CNN, 4/29/24) summarized:

    “I would say that the liberation of Palestine and the Palestinians and the Jewish people are intertwined. They go hand in hand. Antisemitism and any form of racism has no place on campus and in this movement,” Khalil said, noting that some members of Columbia’s encampment are Jewish and held Passover seders earlier this week, led by Jewish Voices for Peace.

    “They are an integral part of this movement,” Khalil said of the organization.

    Helping to crush dissent

    Guardian: Trump consults Bush torture lawyer on how to skirt law and rule by decree

    The Guardian (7/20/20) more helpfully IDed John Yoo as a “Bush torture lawyer.”

    Note that the Journal‘s McGurn sought comments from Yoo, who is identified only as a law professor, and not a Bush administration attorney who notoriously supported the torture of detainees in the “War on Terror” (NPR, 2/23/10), or as an advisor to the first Trump administration on its aggressive anti-immigration methods (Guardian, 7/20/20). Yoo is also a proponent of applying the unitary executive theory to the Trump administration, which for Yoo, according to the Los Angeles Review of Books (11/1/20),

    becomes a springboard to justify Trump’s authoritarian policies on war, immigration, deregulation, executive branch appointments, pardons and the supervision of Justice Department investigations.

    Israel’s own record on respecting freedom of speech is spotty, and has gotten worse since it launched the assault on Gaza (Democracy Now!, 11/9/23; CBC, 5/30/24; 972, 6/24/24; Freedom of the Press Foundation, 10/25/25; Times of Israel, 3/12/25). Israel, however, does not have a constitution, and activists and scholars have chronicled the nation’s erosion of democratic norms (Human Rights Watch, 4/27/21; Journal of Democracy, 7/23; Haaretz, 8/1/23; Deutsche Welle, 11/28/24). The United States is supposed to be governed by a constitution that, at least on paper, sets the gold standard among nations in protecting freedom of speech.

    Alas, in the name of patriotism, the Murdoch press wants to erode that part of America’s tradition in order to help the Trump administration amass power and crush dissent.

     

    This post was originally published on FAIR.

  • In Return to ‘War on Terror’ Propaganda, Murdoch Cheers Suppression of Protest

     

    In These Times: My Name is Mahmoud Khalil and I Am a Political Prisoner

    Mahmoud Khalil (In These Times, 3/18/25): “At stake are not just our voices, but the fundamental civil liberties of all.”

    The arrest and possible deportation of Columbia University graduate student Mahmoud Khalil, a Green Card holder with a student visa, for his organizing role at Gaza solidarity protests last year has sent shockwaves throughout American society.

    As I wrote at Haaretz (3/11/25), Khalil’s arrest is an intense blow to free speech, as punishment for speech and other First Amendment-protected activities will create a huge chilling effect. In a piece denouncing Khalil’s arrest, New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg (3/10/25) quoted American Civil Liberties Union senior staff attorney Brian Hauss saying, “This seems like one of the biggest threats, if not the biggest threat, to First Amendment freedoms in 50 years.”

    In a letter (In These Times, 3/18/25) dictated over the phone from an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Louisiana, Khalil said, “My arrest was a direct consequence of exercising my right to free speech as I advocated for a free Palestine and an end to the genocide in Gaza.”

    While a judge blocked his deportation, as of this writing, Khalil is still in ICE custody (Al Jazeera, 3/19/25). AP (3/9/25) reported that his arrest is the first known “deportation effort under Trump’s promised crackdown on students who joined protests against Israel’s war in Gaza that swept college campuses” last year. The Trump administration argues, according to the news service, that people like Khalil, whose Green Card was revoked by the State Department, “forfeited their rights to remain in the country by supporting Hamas.”

    Alarms raised

    Intercept: The Legal Argument That Could Set Mahmoud Khalil Free

    The Intercept (3/13/25) points out that the law being used against Khalid Mahmoud says one can’t be deported based on “past, current or expected beliefs, statements or associations, if such beliefs, statements or associations would be lawful within the United States.”

    Many in the media have raised alarms about the extreme threat to free speech represented by Khalil’s arrest. Even the editorial board (3/12/25) of the increasingly Trump-pandering Washington Post warned, “If the secretary of state can deport a legal resident simply because he dislikes his or her views, whose First Amendment rights are next?” Other corporate newspapers and outlets (Bloomberg, 3/11/25; USA Today, 3/13/25; Boston Globe, 3/14/25; Financial Times, 3/14/25) published similar defenses of Khalil’s First Amendment rights, arguing that his arrest fundamentally threatens American liberty.

    There is a good reason for the outcry. Khalil has not been charged with a crime, but the executive branch, without consulting a judge, revoked his legal status based on his political speech. As the Intercept (3/13/25) described, the federal government is invoking the Immigration and Nationality Act, in which the secretary of state has

    the authority to request the deportation of an individual who is not a US citizen, if they have “reasonable ground to believe” the individual’s presence in the country hurts the government’s foreign policy interests.

    The Department of Homeland Security justified the arrest on its claims that Khalil “led activities aligned to Hamas.” In other words, the Trump administration has revoked Khalil’s Green Card, arrested him and intends to deport him based on his constitutionally protected protest activities.

    Rupert Murdoch’s outlets, rather than speak out against this shredding of the First Amendment, have been promoting the Trump administration line. The Murdoch press has been celebrating the misery visited upon Khalil in a way that hearkens back to the “War on Terror” days.

    ‘Inimical to the US’

    New York Post: ICE Knowing You!

    The New York Post (3/10/25) cheers on “President Trump’s crackdown on unrest at colleges.”

    The New York Post (3/10/25) ran the cover headline “ICE Knowing You!” Its editorial board (3/9/25) childishly wrote that “ICE has put fresh teeth on President Donald Trump’s crackdown on campus hate. Hooray!” It said that the anti-genocide protest “movement was never merely about protest.”

    Two scholars at the right-wing Manhattan Institute, Ilya Shapiro and Daniel DiMartino, took to the Post op-ed page (3/11/25) to counter the free-speech defense of Khalil. They deemed the Gaza protests “illegal,” saying that stripping permanent residents of the legal protections for those “who reject our values or are hostile to our way of life” doesn’t threaten constitutional freedom.

    While admitting “we don’t know the details of the due process he’s been given”—which is a crucial consideration when it comes to constitutional protections—the duo said, “But one thing is clear: the executive branch has the authority to vet noncitizens based on their views, thanks to the laws Congress has passed and the Supreme Court has upheld.”

    The Post piece repeats a point Shapiro made at the conservative City Journal (3/7/25): “While the government can’t send foreigners to jail for saying things it doesn’t like, it can and should deny or pull visas for those who advocate for causes inimical to the United States.” Who decides what are “causes” that are “inimical”? Secretary of State Marco Rubio, apparently.

    Fox News (3/12/25) also referred to Khalil as “pro-Hamas,” reporting that the Department of Homeland Security said “that Khalil ‘led activities aligned to Hamas, a designated terrorist organization.’” The link between Khalil’s participation in protests and supporting Hamas is spurious on its face. If demanding a ceasefire in Gaza is pro-Hamas, then a lot of Americans would be guilty, too. Younger Americans, in particular, stand out for their support of Palestinians in the current war (Pew Research, 4/2/24).

    Not ‘really about speech’

    WSJ: If You Hate America, Why Come Here?

    Matthew Hennessey (Wall Street Journal, 3/12/25) is an extreme example, but many right-wing journalists seem to revile free expression.

    The more erudite but no less fanatically right-wing Wall Street Journal editorial board (3/12/25) said, “A Green Card comes with legal obligations, including the disavowal of terrorism,” and that “Khalil seems to have violated that obligation.” The board matter-of-factly stated, “The case against Mr. Khalil will depend on the facts of his support for Hamas.”

    ​​Matthew Hennessey, the Journal’s deputy editorial features editor (3/12/25), also called him a “pro-Hamas Columbia agitator,” adding, “If he didn’t love [the US], why didn’t he leave it? The world is big. It has many elite universities.” Hennessey added, “When you’re a guest, it’s more than bad manners to cheer the slaughter of your host’s friends.” There’s no proof offered that Khalil did anything illegal, only that he said some things Hennessey didn’t like.

    Journal columnist William McGurn (3/10/25) also dismissed the free speech concerns, saying that these protests went beyond speech—again, offering no evidence other than that the president said so. And he warned that pesky judges who stick too close to the Bill of Rights and the rule of law will get in the way of Khalil’s deportation. He said:

    “So I bet what will happen,” says Berkeley law professor John Yoo, “is that even though the immigration law says the alien students can be deported, there will be a district judge somewhere who says that the president cannot use that power to punish people based on their First Amendment–protected beliefs and speech. But the Supreme Court will ultimately uphold the law.”

    These “protests” weren’t really about speech. If all the “protesters” had done was stand outside waving Palestinian flags and chanting anti-Israel slogans, no one would be talking about deportation. Mr. Trump laid out his rationale on Truth Social: “We know there are more students at Columbia and other Universities across the Country who have engaged in pro-terrorist, antisemitic, anti-American activity, and the Trump administration will not tolerate it.”

    ‘War on Terror’ playbook

    Extra!: Whistling Past the Wreckage of Civil Liberties

    Janine Jackson (Extra!, 9/11): “Elite media’s fealty to official rationales and their anemic defense of the public’s rights have amounted to dereliction of duty.”

    Feeling some déjà vu? The right-wing media’s defense of arresting and deporting a Green Card holder for engaging in protest rests on simply labeling him and the protests as “pro-Hamas,” the idea being that any criticism of Israel’s assault on Gaza is an endorsement of the Palestinian militant group that the US State Department designates as a terrorist organization.

    As I told CNN International’s Connect the World (3/12/25), the situation feels similar to the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, when it was common for supporters of George W. Bush, including his allies in the right-wing press, to label antiwar protesters as endorsers of anti-American terrorist violence.

    Oppose the invasion of Afghanistan? You must be pro–Al Qaeda. Oppose the invasion of Iraq? You must be supportive of Saddam Hussein’s regime. This helped brand any questioning of the administration as treasonous, helping to build consensus not just for aggressive military imperialism at abroad, but in curtailing civil liberties for Americans at home (Extra!, 9/11).

    So it’s a pretty old trick for both a Republican administration and its unofficial public relations agents in the Murdoch press to simply label free speech as out of bounds because it “supports terrorism.” Calling Khalil and the anti-genocide protests, which include thousands of supporters of many backgrounds—prominently including Jews—“pro-Hamas” is just another tired trick in the “War on Terror” propaganda playbook.

    To understand how shallow this tactic is, keep in mind that Khalil has been on record about his politics and the issue of antisemitism. As a key negotiator for the protests, he had appeared on CNN and was asked about the protests and their impact on the Jewish community. The network (CNN, 4/29/24) summarized:

    “I would say that the liberation of Palestine and the Palestinians and the Jewish people are intertwined. They go hand in hand. Antisemitism and any form of racism has no place on campus and in this movement,” Khalil said, noting that some members of Columbia’s encampment are Jewish and held Passover seders earlier this week, led by Jewish Voices for Peace.

    “They are an integral part of this movement,” Khalil said of the organization.

    Helping to crush dissent

    Guardian: Trump consults Bush torture lawyer on how to skirt law and rule by decree

    The Guardian (7/20/20) more helpfully IDed John Yoo as a “Bush torture lawyer.”

    Note that the Journal‘s McGurn sought comments from Yoo, who is identified only as a law professor, and not a Bush administration attorney who notoriously supported the torture of detainees in the “War on Terror” (NPR, 2/23/10), or as an advisor to the first Trump administration on its aggressive anti-immigration methods (Guardian, 7/20/20). Yoo is also a proponent of applying the unitary executive theory to the Trump administration, which for Yoo, according to the Los Angeles Review of Books (11/1/20),

    becomes a springboard to justify Trump’s authoritarian policies on war, immigration, deregulation, executive branch appointments, pardons and the supervision of Justice Department investigations.

    Israel’s own record on respecting freedom of speech is spotty, and has gotten worse since it launched the assault on Gaza (Democracy Now!, 11/9/23; CBC, 5/30/24; 972, 6/24/24; Freedom of the Press Foundation, 10/25/25; Times of Israel, 3/12/25). Israel, however, does not have a constitution, and activists and scholars have chronicled the nation’s erosion of democratic norms (Human Rights Watch, 4/27/21; Journal of Democracy, 7/23; Haaretz, 8/1/23; Deutsche Welle, 11/28/24). The United States is supposed to be governed by a constitution that, at least on paper, sets the gold standard among nations in protecting freedom of speech.

    Alas, in the name of patriotism, the Murdoch press wants to erode that part of America’s tradition in order to help the Trump administration amass power and crush dissent.

     

    This post was originally published on FAIR.