“[UK] Met[ropolitan] police refuse to say if it shared classified documents with Israel lobby groups”

by HG in The Canary

@thecanaryuk
@thecanary
@uk_politics

“The Met Police is refusing to admit the existence of a classified document, which pro-Israel groups used to lobby the government over the proscription of Palestine Action”

https://www.thecanary.co/uk/2026/02/06/%e2%81%a0met-police-israel-lobby-groups/

#Press #SocialMedia #UK #MetPolice #Israel #IsraelLobby #PalAction #Proscription #Terrorism #Labour #Starmer #WeBelieveInIsrael

“The jury were right to acquit the Palestine Action defendants. Here's why”

by Jonathan Cook on Substack

@uk_politics
@palestine
@Palestine
@[email protected]

“Jurors bravely set aside social conditioning, the natural instinct we all share to defer to authority, and expectations fomented by establishment media. Instead they considered the actual evidence”

https://open.substack.com/pub/jonathancook/p/the-jury-were-right-to-acquit-the

#Press #SocialMedia #UK #PalAction #UKPolitics #Elbit #Filton6 #Proscription #Acquittal #Charges #Terrorism

Victory for Palestine Action as “Filton 6” Acquitted

Six Palestine Action activists who broke into an Israeli arms factory in the UK have been acquitted or not convicted of all charges against them.

Campaigners told The Electronic Intifada on Wednesday that the result was a “monumental” and “total” victory.

After eight days of deliberation in January and February, the jury either acquitted or refused to convict Charlotte Head, Samuel Corner, Leona Kamio, Fatema Zainab Rajwani, Zoe Rogers and Jordan Devlin of all charges.

Five out of the six were released on bail Wednesday evening.

All six were found not guilty of aggravated burglary, the most serious charge which could have led to life sentences.

The six activists were arrested on site in August 2024 and held on remand for 17 months.

They were the first of a total of 24 defendants to face trials relating to the invasion and smashing of a factory in Filton, near Bristol in the west of England, owned by a subsidiary of Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer.

The group of 24 includes some of the prisoners who recently went on a hunger strike.

Once inside, the group destroyed Israeli quadcopter drones, which have been used frequently to massacre Palestinians in Gaza.

During the trial, acquitted defendant Fatema Zainab Rajwani (a third-year film student at the time of the action) was open that, “I damaged drones which is what I went in to do.” She commented on video footage shown to the court, saying, “That is me dismantling a quadcopter drone with a crowbar,” and explaining that the group wanted to “document the presence of quadcopters and [Elbit’s] crimes.”

Fourteen other defendants were rounded up by Britain’s feared Counter Terrorism Police, in a series of violent pre-dawn raids in November 2024 and July last year.

A Palestine Action source told The Electronic Intifada on Wednesday that the remaining Filton 24 prisoners will now appeal to be released on bail.

Such prisoners can usually be held on remand before trial for up to six months. But the politicization and fallacious government “terrorism” campaign against the group – in connivance with Israel – meant that the campaigners have been held on remand for as long as 17 months.

Not guilty

In addition to beating the most serious charge, the jury acquitted Fatema Zainab Rajwani, Zoe Rogers and Jordan Devlin of violent disorder. It refused to convict Charlotte Head, Samuel Corner and Leona Kamio of the same charge.

Samuel Corner was also not convicted of “grievous bodily harm with intent” for allegedly striking a police officer.

Crucially, the jury refused to convict any of the defendants of criminal damage.

Yet five of the group had admitted in court to destroying Israeli weapons and equipment belonging to Elbit at the factory.

That the jury could not reach a majority verdict on some of the lesser charges means in theory that there could be retrails in some cases – though that is not expected to have a realistic chance of success.

That is why the sixth defendant, Samuel Corner, was not immediately released on bailed on Wednesday. Government prosecutors asked the court for more time to decide if they wanted to pursue a retrial in relation to the grievous bodily harm charge.

The Palestine Action source also said that certain issues relating to matters under reporting restrictions imposed by the judge in this trial meant that the verdict was the best possible outcome for the group.

The source said that the verdict represented a “total victory” for the six Palestine Action campaigners.

Most of the remaining “Filton 24” group have been held on draconian remand for months – for more than a year in some cases.

But one, Sean Middlebrough, escaped during a short-term release in November last year. In an exclusive statement, he told The Electronic Intifada that he was not on the run, and was instead “refusing to be held as a prisoner of war of Israel in a British prison.”

Government ministers such as former Home Secretary Yvette Cooper attempted to portray the Filton activists as violent criminals who assaulted a police officer. The British press for the most part obediently parroted such claims and insinuations.

But during this “Filton 6” trial, body-cam footage released to the jury – some of which can be viewed in the video above – showed the exact opposite: Elbit security guards apparently assaulting the activists with sledgehammers.

In a statement released on Wednesday the Filton 24 Defence Committee said the result was a “monumental victory.”

The committee detailed how the trial unfolded.

According to the committee, the verdicts demonstrated that “the jury did not accept the prosecution case that the defendants entered the Elbit weapons factory with the intention of using the items they carried as weapons.”

They said that instead the “jury agreed with the defense argument, that the defendants’ sole intention was to use the items, including sledgehammers, as tools to disarm Israeli weapons … The jury understood that it is not those who destroy Israeli weapons which are guilty, rather the guilty party is the one that deploys such weapons to commit genocide in Gaza.”

The trial also revealed that footage went missing from a number of Elbit’s internal CCTV cameras covering key angles, the committee said. The security guards’ body-worn videos had also been repeatedly turned off and on, as well as edited by Elbit.

Twenty-first century suffragettes

Defense lawyer Rajiv Menon compared the six to the suffragettes – women who demanded the right to vote. In the early 20th century, the suffragettes were routinely denounced as “terrorists and extremists,” although “the reality of course is very different,” Menon said.

The lawyer also said that Judge Jeremy Johnson tried to exclude evidence on Elbit Systems, and interrupted when counsel for the defense asked questions about the Israeli weapons manufacturer.

Menon said that the judge “has restricted what the defendants have been allowed to tell you … what they knew about Elbit’s role in the Israeli attack on Gaza. The consequence of that is that you do not know everything that the defendants knew about Elbit before” they took action against the factory.

The lawyer told the jury that Elbit is a “massive weapons company that has played a critical role in the killing of tens of thousands of Palestinians.”

At the end of the evidence, the judge told the jury that the “situation in the Middle East” and Elbit’s operations are “not relevant” to the case and directed the jury to “follow the legal directions I’ve given you and not anything else.”

The judge also issued a series of reporting restrictions on the case. As a result, I am still prevented from reporting certain details here.

Nonetheless, because the case was heard in open court, I am able to report the following.

During the trial, a juror asked whether they were allowed to acquit because the defendants genuinely believed that they were destroying weapons to prevent their use in genocide.

The judge’s response was “no.”

Trials of the remaining Filton 24 prisoners are still due to happen at some point in the future.

Blow to UK and Israel

Clare Rogers, the mother of defendant Zoe Rogers and a relentless campaigner in her own right said in the committee’s statement that “these are six young people of conscience … They had tried everything else – marches, petitions, writing to MPs, encampments … They felt they had no option but to take action themselves, to try to save as many lives as they could.”

The verdicts are a severe blow to the UK government’s attempt to smear Palestine campaigners as violent criminals and “terrorists.”

In a controversial move last July the home secretary banned Palestine Action as a “terrorist” group, marking the first time ever a non-violent protest group had been outlawed under Britain’s draconian Terrorism Act of 2000.

Activist lisa minerva luxx, from the Filton 24 Defence Committee, criticized the government for prejudicing the trial: “This was a trial by media. Yvette Cooper and [Prime Minister] Keir Starmer took evidence in this case out of context and broadcast it on televisions and tabloids across the country in order to justify proscribing Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation.”

With the result of a legal challenge to that ban expected any week now, the verdict also represents a serious blow to the credibility of that proscription.

This is despite the government – and even the legal system – going to the greatest lengths to try and stitch up this case.

There are also serious implications for the continuing right to trial by jury in the UK.

The fact that a jury of their peers acquitted or refused to convict the first six of the Filton 24 shows the importance and the democratic potential of jury trials.

It is exactly for those reasons that the UK government is seeking to abolish, or seriously erode, the right to trial by jury in the UK. In large part, these so-called “reforms” seem to be targeted precisely at supporting Israel and preventing juries from acquitting according to their conscience.

source: Electronic Intifada

“Palestine Action Judicial Review”

by Craig Murray in Craig’s Substack on Substack

@uk_politics

“I attach the full text of Lord Young’s decision granting the Scottish judicial review of the proscription of Palestine Action. [..] we have a realistic chance of success on our three grounds - failure to consult, disproportionate limitation of freedom of assembly, disproportionate limitation of freedom of speech”

https://open.substack.com/pub/craigmurrayorg/p/palestine-action-judicial-review

#Press #UK #PalAction #Scotland #JudicialReview #Murray

Pal Action Prisoner Umer Khalid Refuses Water in Escalating Hunger Strike

Umer Khalid, a Palestine Action activist on hunger strike plans to start refusing fluids as well as food, tstating that he hopes his “drastic action” pressures the government into engaging with his protest demands.

Khalid stopped eating 13 days ago. He is currently receiving fluids with electrolytes, sugars and salts but said he will stop drinking altogether from Saturday.

While the body can survive for weeks without food, dehydration is certain to have fatal consequences in a far shorter time.

The escalation comes days after three other hunger-striking remand prisoners affiliated with Palestine Action ended their protests, claiming victory.

“The only thing that seems to have any impact, whether that is positive or negative, is drastic action,” Khalid, 22, told bourgeios media from prison via an intermediary. “The strike reflects the severity of this imprisonment. Being in this prison is not living life. Our lives have been paused. The world spins, and we sit in a concrete room. This strike reflects the severity of my demands.”

Khalid is calling for immediate bail; an end to alleged censorship in prison – authorities have been accused of withholding mail, calls and books and denying visitation rights; an inquiry into British involvement in Zionist military operations in Gaza; and the release of surveillance footage from Royal Air Force (RAF) spy flights that flew over Gaza on April 1, 2024, when British aid workers were killed in a Zionist fascist attack.

Khalid is among five activists accused of breaking into the United Kingdom’s largest airbase, RAF Brize Norton, in Oxfordshire in June and spray-painting two Voyager refuelling and transport planes. The incident, which was claimed by Palestine Action, caused millions of pounds worth of damage, according to the British government, which later absurdly proscribed the protest group as a “terrorist” organisation.

Critics have condemned the ban as illiberal overreach, given that Palestine Action’s stated objective is to use nonviolent means to counter the Zionist genocidal war against Palestinians and what it says is British complicity in it.

Khalid denies the charges against him of conspiracy to commit criminal damage and conspiracy to enter a prohibited place for purposes prejudicial to the safety or interests of the UK.

He is part of a collective of eight remand prisoners linked to Palestine Action that began a rolling hunger strike in November. Last week, three of them – two of whom were on the brink of death – ended their protests. Khalid is the only one still refusing food.

Those now refeeding said improved prison rights signalled a concession. The UK’s reported denial of a defence contract to Elbit, Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer, is also being interpreted by them as a win.

Throughout the hunger strike, the British government said it has no power over the issue of bail because it is a matter for the judiciary to decide. The government also insisted that prison welfare procedures are being followed.

As for Khalid’s other demands, last year, the opposition Labour Party blocked a bill tabled by the left-wing lawmaker Jeremy Corbyn backing an official inquiry into Britain’s involvement in the war on Gaza.

And in April, the Ministry of Defence told The Times newspaper that it had video footage from an RAF surveillance plane that had flown over Gaza on the day of the Zionist strike that killed the aid workers but could not disclose any further details, citing national security.

Britain has said it flew spy planes over Gaza during the occupation’s onslaught to locate missing captives, but critics have raised questions about possible intelligence sharing with the Zionist entity.

Asim Qureshi, research director at the campaign group Cage, told Al Jazeera that the government’s refusal to meet with Khalid to negotiate on his demands “indicates their lack of concern for the life of this man, who is acting based on his principles within the context of a genocide”.

Three Hunger Strikers End Their Strike After Elbit Denied British Contract; Umer Khalid Continues Strike for 6th Day

On 14 January 2026, three of the Prisoners for Palestine — Heba Muraisi, Kamran Ahmad and Lewie C. — announced that they were ending their hunger strike (as they approached imminent death), following the announcement by the British government that Elbit Systems had been denied a £2 billion army training contract with the Ministry of Defence, after widespread reporting that Elbit would receive the contract. Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network salutes the Prisoners for Palestine and all of the hunger strikers on this important achievement and upon their sacrifice in the struggle for Palestinian liberation.

At the same time, Umer Khalid, another Prisoner for Palestine and one of the Brize Norton 5, has resumed his hunger strike. He has been repeatedly held in solitary confinement and denied his religious rights, while being held on remand for a trial that is not scheduled until January 2027. Umer says, “We must now continue to crush the protective skull of Zionism, which is the UK’s political and military support, under the weight of our collective mobilisation and action. Are you on the outside afraid of consequences when this life is so short? So let them keep us here as long as they want, because you can’t imprison resistance and you can’t kill a revolution. Liberation is a promise and victory is coming insha’Allah.” Umer previously conducted a hunger strike from 4-16 December 2025. It is urgent that we continue to support Umer Khalid and all of the prisoners for Palestine in British and other imperialist jails, imprisoned as part and parcel of imperialist complicity with Zionist genocide in Palestine.

STATEMENT – PRISONERS 4 PALESTINE – 14 JANUARY 2026

After 73 days of hunger strikes which began on Balfour Day, 2 November 2025, as some prisoners are facing imminent death, Heba Muraisi, Kamran Ahmed, and Lewie have ended their hunger strikes.

The decision to end their hunger strikes came as it was revealed that Elbit Systems UK was denied a vital £2 billion army training contract with the Ministry of Defence, a key demand of the hunger strikers.

The contract, which would have seen Elbit Systems provide training to the British Army over ten years, was lost despite the best efforts of officials in both the Ministry of Defence and the British Army, who it was revealed had been colluding with both Elbit Systems UK and its parent company Elbit Systems in backroom meetings and ‘tours’ to the capital of Palestine, Jerusalem, in a desperate attempt to further entrench their genocidal alliance and help them win the contract.

The abrupt cancellation of this deal is a resounding victory for the hunger strikers, who resisted with their incarcerated bodies in order to shed light on the role of Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer, in the colonization and occupation of Palestine. Since 2012, Elbit has won 25 public contracts in the UK totaling more than £333 million; the loss of this £2 billion contract marks a significant shift in this sordid “strategic alliance.” With this victory, it has never been clearer that Elbit’s days in Britain are numbered.

In addition to this key demand being met, we want to take this opportunity to celebrate the various victories achieved throughout the duration of the hunger strike:

In the past few weeks alone, hundreds of people have signed up to take action against the genocidal military-industrial complex, more than the number of people who took action with Palestine Action over its five-year campaign. During that five-year campaign, Israeli weapons factories were shut down. Elbit Systems is living on stolen time—we will see it shut down for good, not because of the government, but because of the people.

Heba Muraisi’s transfer to HMP Bronzefield has been accepted by HMP New Hall, where she is currently being held in intentional isolation from her family and friends.

T. Hoxha has been offered a meeting with the head of JEXU (Joint Extremism Unit) at her prison, the very same organization that orchestrates the prisoners’ treatment as ‘terrorists’.

Despite the cruel and constant medical neglect of the hunger strikers, including not logging food refusals, refusal of ambulances in life-threatening emergencies, and degrading treatment in hospitals, the national heads of prison healthcare have met with us at the behest of the Ministry of Justice.

During the hunger strike, some of the prisoners started receiving bulk packages of withelped mail, and in one case received an apology from prison staff for a letter that was delayed by six months. Books on topics of Gaza and feminism have also been given after months of waiting.

In pursuit of a fair trial, the hunger strikers demanded disclosure of export licenses for the last 5 years from Elbit Systems. After repeated requests, this information was disclosed to an independent researcher by the Department of Trade during the hunger strike.

The continued printing of the blood will remain on the stain on Britain’s facade of being a “democratic” country, with no sliver of law and order.

This pathetic and cowardly British government cannot resist authoritarianism; it uses fear to deter rightful protest and dissent, echoing the use of administrative detention against the Palestinian people.

The hunger strike has cemented this fact to the country, and across the world: Britain has political prisoners in service of a foreign genocidal regime. In a time of worsening political repression and widespread propaganda about a non-existent ‘ceasefire’ in Gaza, the hunger strike stands as a testament to continued defiance.

The hunger strikers have allowed those of us who were fearful of state repression to be brave—to go out once again onto the streets and fight for justice. The government should know they cannot ban a concept. Cowardly banning one group cannot stop a belief, a movement, a people. This is only the start of our collective fight to free us all, and the road to freedom runs through Palestine.

At the end of his hunger strike, on Elbit losing the £2 billion contract, Lewie said:

It is definitely a time for celebration. A time to rejoice and to embrace our joy as revolution and as liberation… We do this because of Palestine, because we’ve been inspired, because we’ve been tempted to take action and to try to realize our dreams for a free Palestine, for an emancipated world.

As these victories are declared, we turn our efforts and attention to Umer Khalid, the last remaining hunger striker, who continues to use his body as a weapon against the state in pursuit of justice.

source: Samidoun

Irreversible Damage: Palestine Action Hunger Strike Nears 70 Days

Twelve days into the new year, two of the imprisoned members of Palestine Action, Heba Muraisi and Kamran Ahmed, have entered what doctors describe as the most dangerous and medically irreversible phase of the hunger strike. Their protest has become a matter of survival, placing unprecedented pressure on the British prison system, now facing one of its most serious political hunger strikes in decades.

Medical professionals, including Dr. James Smith, warn that after two months without sustenance, the human body begins cannibalizing itself to sustain basic organ function. Fat reserves are exhausted, muscle tissue is broken down, and the risk of organ failure escalates rapidly. According to doctors who have either examined the prisoners or reviewed their conditions, the hunger strikers’ bodies are now “breaking down”, with some experiencing severe neurological impairment.

Several activists have already been forced to suspend or end their strikes in recent weeks after reaching the brink of death. Teuta Hoxha was among those who halted her protest following acute medical deterioration.

Reports from inside the prison system and from visiting physicians describe conditions that are increasingly dire. Activists have suffered partial loss of vision and hearing, tremors, and loss of motor control. Heba Muraisi, the longest fasting member of the group, is reportedly struggling to breathe. This suggests that the muscles responsible for respiration are beginning to fail. Last week, Kamran Ahmed was transferred to hospital after his condition became life-threatening.

Observers have increasingly drawn parallels between the current hunger strike and the 1981 Irish Republican hunger strike, the largest and most politically charged prison protest in modern British history. That strike, which led to the deaths of ten prisoners, including Bobby Sands, reshaped British and Irish politics and forced international attention onto the conditions inside UK-controlled prisons.

The current strike is now widely regarded as the most prominent in UK prisons since 1981, both in terms of duration and the scale of political implications it carries. As in 1981, prisoners have turned to their own bodies as a final means of protest after legal and institutional avenues failed to produce relief.

On New Year’s Eve, Belfast saw hundreds of Irish people gathering in solidarity with the starving activists whose struggle serves as a reminder of what happened 44 years ago. Standing beneath a mural of Bobby Sands, Pat Sheehan, a survivor of the 1981 Irish Republican hunger strike, warned in comments to Al Jazeera that history is once again approaching a deadly threshold. Sheehan, who spent 55 days on hunger strike before it was called off, said he was “in theory… the next person to die” when the protest ended. By that point, he recalled, his liver was failing, his eyesight had deteriorated, and he was vomiting bile. “Once you pass 40 days, you’re entering the danger zone,” he said, adding that those currently fasting for more than 50 days “must be very weak now.” Yet Sheehan noted that hunger strikes often harden resolve as they continue, explaining that if participants are psychologically prepared, “their psychological strength will increase the longer the hunger strike goes on.”

Appeals from lawyers, doctors, and MPs to British ministers to intervene have been met with outright refusal. Government officials argue that engaging with the hunger strikers would “create perverse incentives that would encourage more people to put themselves at risk through hunger strikes.” The government has attempted to normalize the situation by suggesting that hunger strikes are routine within the prison system. According to The Guardian, officials have claimed that “over the last five years we have averaged over 200 hunger strike incidents every year,” implying that no extraordinary response is warranted. However, the figures cited refer primarily to short-term food refusals by individual prisoners, a fundamentally different phenomenon from a prolonged, collective hunger strike that now presents an imminent risk of death by starvation.

Frome police raids of pro-Palestine marches, to the alienation of activists and the cowardly official response, a non-surprising pattern takes shape as the United Kingdom continues to uphold a legacy of imperialism and genocide affiliation. Yet the hunger strikers remain intent on carrying on until their demands are met.

source: Al Akhbar

“36 Minute Trial And No Jury - Starmer’s Fascist Mass Court”

by Craig Murray in Craig’s Substack on Substack

@uk_politics
@UKLabour

“Those charged with terrorism for supporting #PalestineAction will have no jury in trials limited to 36 minutes each, with prison sentences up to six months. These are the plans for Starmer Courts for mass trials of anti-Genocide protestors”

https://open.substack.com/pub/craigmurrayorg/p/36-minutes-trial-and-no-jury-starmers

#Press #UK #Starmer #Terrorism #Trials #PalAction #Labour #Dictatorship #Fascism #Protest