David Polden
On 29 January, after six days of trial, the court of appeal in London overturned the convictions of the activists known as ‘the Stansted 15’, saying they should never have been prosecuted on counter-terror charges in 2019.
After they prevented the departure of a deportation flight from Stansted airport in 2017, the Stansted 15 were prosecuted on the charge of ‘endangering the safe operation of an aerodrome’, under section 1(2)(b) of the Aviation and Maritime Security Act 1990.
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In December, the Bristol police charged four people with criminal damage to the statue of Edward Colston. The bronze statue was removed from its plinth and tipped into the harbour by anti-racist demonstrators on 7 June 2020. No arrests were made at the time.
Rhian Graham (29), Milo Ponsford (25), Jake Skuse (32) and Sage Willoughby (21) appeared for a plea and directions hearing on 25 January.
Bristol city council, who recovered the statue of the 17th-century slave trader from…
On 8 December, police and security staff cleared an anti-HS2 protest camp in Denham Country Park in West London. They made four arrests on suspicion of attempted assault on the police.
The Protection Camp has been in woodland there for the past six months.
Half the woodland is due to be taken over for works in connection with the high-speed HS2 rail line from London to Birmingham and beyond.
Well-known environmental activist Dan Hooper, known as ‘Swampy’, was removed…
On 11 December, protesters from Extinction Rebellion Bristol and Christian Climate Action blockaded the headquarters of the defence equipment and support organisation (DE&S) at Abbey Wood, near Bristol.
Sita Ruskin of Bristol XR told the Bristol Post: ‘We’re here to say to our government: “spend our money on combatting climate change – not on putting weapons into combat”.’
DE&S supplies both lethal and non-lethal equipment to the navy, army and air force.
…
On 4 January, district judge Vanessa Baraitser, sitting at the central criminal court in London, refused an application for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to be extradited to the US to face charges of espionage.
However, the judge also ruled that Assange would have committed an offence under UK law if the acts complained about by the US had taken place in the UK. Judge Baraitser refused extradition on the grounds that Assange would be a suicide risk if extradited.
Two days…
On 3 November, retired judge sir John Mitting asked the question we all want to know the answer to. On the second day of the public hearings into undercover police officers sent in to spy on political groups, Mitting, the head of the inquiry, asked the QC for the Metropolitan police whether the spying was continuing.
The QC avoided giving an answer.
Mitting said he would insist on an answer... but no such answer has yet emerged.
We now know that the Metropolitan police…
The home office’s ‘hostile environment’ immigration measures were a breach of the ministry’s public sector equality duty under the Equality Act 2010. That was the conclusion of the British government’s own equality and human rights commission (EHRC) in a report published on 25 November.
The EHRC also found that the home office had a ‘perfunctory’ approach to its legal duty to ensure its policies complied with equality legislation.
The Oxford dictionary says that ‘perfunctory’…
Under the regulations for the second lockdown in England, published on 3 November, protests outdoors of more than two people are in effect banned.
This is a change from the regulations previously in operation. These specifically allowed public gatherings of up to 30 people for political purposes provided a thorough risk assessment had been carried out and reasonable steps had been taken to limit the risk of transmission.
No such exception appears in the new regulations, which…
On 23 October, a jury at Dublin circuit court acquitted peace activists Colm Roddy and Dave Donnellan of criminal damage to the security fence and runway at Shannon airport, on the west coast of Ireland, in May 2016.
At the nine-day trial, Colm (78) and Dave (60) were alleged to have cut through the airport perimeter fence and painted crucifixes on the runway.
They were arrested after asking soldiers and gardaí (police officers) surrounding a US military C-21 jet to search it…
On 2 September, the US government imposed economic sanctions on two senior officials of the international criminal court (ICC): chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda, and Phakiso Mochochoko, director of the court’s prosecution jurisdiction division.
The sanctions include the freezing of any assets they hold in the US and barring them from any access to the US financial system.
Announcing the sanctions, shortly after returning from Israel, US secretary of state Mike Pompeo said: ‘We…
On 7 September, Julian Assange faced a new extradition hearing in London, set to last four weeks.
The US had been demanding his extradition to face charges of conspiracy to receive, obtain and disclose classified US diplomatic and military documents – because of his work with WikiLeaks.
If found guilty on all charges, Julian could face up to 175 years in jail.
Clive Stafford-Smith, founder of the legal charity Reprieve, told the court that documents published by…
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s full extradition hearing is scheduled for 24 February at Woolwich crown court in South London.
The investigative journalist was arrested at the Ecuadorean embassy last April, having spent seven years there after claiming asylum to avoid possible extradition to the US via Sweden.
Sexual assault charges Julian was facing in Sweden have since been dropped, but he has been kept in Belmarsh high security prison because of an extradition request…
Young people who speak emotionally about climate change might be extremists who need to be reported to the authorities. That was the message of a regional police ‘counter-terror’ guide labelling nonviolent campaigning groups as ‘extremist’. A second (national-level) police document which warned of groups like CND and Greenpeace is being challenged by CND, Trident Ploughshares and others.
The first guide, Safeguarding young people and adults from ideological extremism, was…
In January, European activists were arrested as they attempted to break the illegal Israeli siege of Gaza by cutting the fence separating Gaza from Israel.
The campaigners were from ‘Gaza 2020 Breaking the Siege’, a new international movement whose aim is to challenge Israel’s ‘inhumane’ blockade of two million Gazans.
Previous attempts to break the siege have been by sea, including the Gaza Freedom Flotilla of May 2010, in which nine unarmed Turkish solidarity activists were…
Movement for the Abolition of War’s eye-catching banner ‘War causes climate change – Climate change causes war’ caused an international stir in December when it travelled to Madrid to take its message to the UN climate conference COP25.
The banner was seen and photographed by thousands of delegates and visitors entering the conference centre – and by many more on the 500,000-strong Friday evening climate march through Madrid (led by Greta Thunberg).
MAW has long believed that…
