Appreciated joining @FrancoisF24 yesterday in Paris to discuss a difficult status quo and the paths civil society is building to break out of it -- including delivering concrete action steps to #G7 and world leaders. f24.my/Bz4q

btw few will appreciate how grimly funny it is that this judge both issued a gagging order so that the filton 4 could not explain their motivation to the jury, and then also sentenced them according to a specific intent provision requiring them to have had a specific motivation

Derbyshire Police Officer investigated for using AI to create evidence. news.sky.com/story/derbyshir…

Judge Jeremy Johnson has established a new precedent... "Any protest action that is now determined as trying to "change government policy" can have this applied. So today it's Palestine Action, but next it'll be immigration protests, farmers protests, NHS, tax etc etc."

I spent all day in Woolwich Crown Court yesterday for the Filton activists' sentencing hearing with my colleague @daniaakkad. The court heard that the Terrorism Act was never intended to cover direct action protest. It heard that all of the defendants had been cleared of violent intent and sentencing them as terrorists would mark a historic first for charges of criminal damage. It heard that the Suffragettes, who did "a bit of smashing themselves", would have been labelled as terrorists but have now been vindicated by history. It heard the activists' goal was to stop the supply chain of drones and weaponry to Israel as it commits genocide in Gaza. It heard that attaching a terrorism connection to a case without it ever being heard by a jury was unconstitutional and posed a threat to the criminal justice system itself. It heard that the "terrorism connection" has been disproportionately used against minority groups and those advocating for them while not being used for neo-Nazis and white supremacists, including the man who killed Jo Cox MP. It heard that the law has been reinterpreted since the action took place, meaning the activists could have had no idea that what they did could have been caught up in terrorism laws at the time of the protest. It heard that the prosecution submitted key evidence just eight days before the hearing, giving the defence no time to review it or even discuss it with their clients. Despite all of this, Judge Jeremy Johnson, who has already tried to refer the defence's lead barrister for contempt of court and been forced to apologise for it, sentenced the defendants as terrorists. The judgment was handed down within minutes, indicating Judge Johnson had already made his mind up before the hearing had begun. Being in court yesterday felt akin to witnessing a colonial crime: punishing activists with terrorism offences in order to set a precedent that taking direct action to stop a UK-backed genocide will not be tolerated.

👇

Dude he literally running New York like the average joe in a movie who gets elected into office as a gag and then fixes everything simply because he is not a politician and an earnest regular guy.

A pair of Cornish Choughs photographed near St Ives last week. 🖤❤️ Iconic birds of Cornwall, featured on the Cornish coat of arms and once extinct in the county. Great to see them thriving again. #Cornwall #Chough #Wildlife @ILoveCornwallUK #birding #stives

Civil society organizations play a vital role in advancing dialogue and laying the groundwork for lasting peace.

“The wild briar rose and elder are the flowers which most distinctly speak of June and midsummer” (What to Look for in Summer, 1960) Artist: CF Tunnicliffe writer: EL Grant Watson

Jeremy Johnson - in 50 years time this will be the only 1.39 minutes of your life you'll be remembered for. It'll be played in genocide museums to sum up the complicity and callous brutality of the British state in the face of the slaughter of the Palestinian people - and the courage of those who opposed it.

Beautiful

"Scarborough, yesterday. *Taken by Fred Brown."

Moorland edge North West Durham Superb encounter captured by Michael Eccles during May A female with x4 healthy youngsters @JohnDodswo23239 #Scolopax26 (images lifted from our FB Group)

Phonics teaches that there is one sound 'ee'. Now listen to yourself saying these 3 words: 'peace', 'lead' (rhyming with 'feed') and 'fee'. The so-called 'ee' sound in each of the three examples may be different in length but our spelling system doesn't distinguish lengths.

Justice Jeremy Johnson will go down in history alongside Percy Yutar who sent Mandela & his comrades to jail for life, alongside all the apartheid South African judges who shamefully jailed activists for opposing the system. Despicable & indefensible

There are lots of people on here drinking the security services Kool Aid over the sentencing of the Filton Four. They believe the judge was right to overturn the jury's decision to convict four anti-genocide activists of criminal damage and make it a terrorism offence instead, overturning centuries of legal precedent. Why? Because, they claim, the four activists broke / smashed / shattered a police woman's spine. But that obviously can't be the explanation because three of the activists had nothing to do with that incident and yet they were convicted as terrorists by the judge anyway. Even Samuel Corner, the activist who was convicted over this incident (which left the police woman with a minor fracture, according to the medical authorities who testified), shouldn't have been sentenced as a terrorist for it because that is not what the jury, which heard the actual evidence, decided. The jury convicted Samuel Corner of grievous bodily harm *without intent*. The prosecution had charged him with GBH *with intent* because they needed that as his conviction to build a public mood in support of the proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation. If Corner could be presented as having entered Israel's Elbit weapons factory with intent to commit violence, then the implication would be that the other activists were in on that plan – a conspiracy – and the government would be off the hook of violating fundamental legal norms by proscribing Palestine Action. By stripping out intent, the jury pulled the rug from under the government's feet. Judge Johnson's task was put the rug firmly back in place by riding roughshod over the jury's decision and sentencing them as terrorists anyway. The timing couldn't be more convenient. On Monday, the Appeal Court will be deciding on the government's appeal against the High Court declaring its proscription of Palestine Action unlawful. If you're peddling the "But they smashed the back of a police woman" line you've been fed by the Daily Mail and BBC, it's because that is exactly what the government needs you spouting as it upends our age-old rights to jury trials, as it stamps out an honourable tradition of direct action dating back to the Suffragettes and before, and as it gives itself cover for continuing complicity in a genocide. Stop being a cuck. Don't fall for this psy-op.