Joined November 2021
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Next Wednesday sees the launch of Double Down Newswatch, a new weekly magazine programme that will showcase the best of independent media. Here I explain why it's needed. youtube.com/watch?v=O8OBmdrB…
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Richard Sanders retweeted
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.
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My thanks to Terry Edge and Karim Mussilhy for coming in to the Double Down Newswatch studio to talk about the 9th anniversary of the Grenfell Fire - a shocking tale of the decline and degradation of the British state. youtube.com/watch?v=rxsHermv…
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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.
Here’s injustice Jeremy Johnson handing down the sentences at today’s disgusting stitched up Palestine Action trial. Any faith I ever had in the fairness of the British justice system is completely is dead.
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As @TrevorPTweets scuttles off to take his place at the right hand of disgraced propagandist @bariweiss at CBS, let's recall his enduring contribution to anti-racist discourse in the UK.
This is what would happen if you replace the word "Muslim" with "Jews" in Trevor Phillips quotes:
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Richard Sanders retweeted
Remember what the Filton actionists did They decommissioned the machinery of genocide The moral equivalent of destroying Zyklon B canisters at Auschwitz A British judge is now sentencing them as 'terrorists' for it
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This is barbaric. They were not permitted to explain to the jury why they carried out the attack on the Elbit factory - which makes the weapons that kill Palestinian children. And the jury was never told they would be sentenced as terrorists. /1
🚨 BREAKING: Four Palestine Action activists have been jailed for a total of 22 years for causing £1.2m worth of damage and fracturing a police woman's spine at an Israeli weapons factory
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To understand just how much of a stitch up this is - watch our interview with the 2 defendants who were found not guilty on Double Down Newswatch last month.
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Richard Sanders retweeted
🚨BREAKING -- A judge has ruled that four Palestine Action activists will be sentenced with a "terrorism connection". Samuel Corner, Leona Kamio, Fatema Rajwani, and Charlotte Head appeared in Woolwich Crown Court today after being convicted of criminal damage at an Elbit Systems factory in 2024. Judge Johnson ruled: "I am sure each of the defendant's offence involved serious damage to property, was designed to influence the UK government, to intimidate a section of the public, and was for the purpose of advancing a political or ideological cause". The section of the public referred to by Johnson was employees of and companies linked to Elbit Systems, which he said constitutes a "section of the public". Johnson added: "It follows I am bound by this legislation to find that the offence in each case had a terrorist connection and apply that as an aggravating factor in increasing the seriousness of the offence". This is the first time in British history that terrorism provisions have been used against direct action activists.
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Richard Sanders retweeted
Meet the new Leader of Lambeth Council! @Martin_Abrams has big plans for the borough... 📖 Opening up the council, listening to resident voices 🏠 Tackling the housing emergency 🌎 Putting climate and social justice at the heart of everything we do 👀 Watch this space
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Richard Sanders retweeted
Let's be honest. There is a political hierarchy of racism in this country where shocking attacks on one Community get widespread condemnation and COBRA meetings whilst violent programs and attacks on other communities get next to no response. Shocking

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Martin Forde KC speaks to Double Down Newswatch about the racist riots and the backlash following the Henry Nowak verdict. A rare voice of santiy amidst the hysteria. youtube.com/watch?v=tvt8GI0d…
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Western media coverage of Gaza was, and is, criminally inept - a powerful denunciation from @jeremyscahill and Sharif Abdel Kouddous of @DropSiteNews - whose own coverage was a model of what should have been. From @PDeepDive
The assassination of Shireen was a trial run for the systematic targeting of hundreds of journalists and media workers in Gaza, the West Bank, and now Lebanon, and it was the Biden administration that gave the green light for all of it.
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On Friday 4 young Palestine Action activists will likely be sentenced as terrorists - something the jury was not informed of. Last month Double Down Newswatch interviewed the 2 volunteers who were acquitted - and exposed the shameless manipulation of the trial.
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This is a vital project. The Labour Together/McSweeney demeaned and diminished British public life. Plse share.
CALL FOR EVIDENCE: THE LABOUR TOGETHER PARLIAMENT Please share widely and help us expose the hyper-factional remaking of the Parliamentary Labour Party by the Labour Together/Morgan McSweeney project. Submissions to be made to research@shadowworldinvestigations.org Shadow World Investigations (SWI) and Paul Holden - author of The Fraud: Keir Starmer, Morgan McSweeney and the Crisis of British Democracy – are today announcing a new investigative project about the transformation of the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) under the Labour Together Project. This long-germinating project is soliciting evidence about how Labour Party processes were used (and abused) to manipulate the selection of Labour MP candidates who now make up the majority of the PLP. Sir Keir Starmer was the frontman for a scandalous political project that spent the best part of a decade remaking the Labour Party along rigidly factional and exclusionary lines. The most consequential transformation was of the Parliamentary Labour Party. Two thirds of the Labour MPs currently sitting in the House of Commons were selected through a process tightly controlled by Morgan McSweeney and his allies, allegedly with direct (albeit informal) input from Peter Mandelson. Labour Together, and its key donors, then spent over £2 million on getting this intake of MPs elected. The selection process that McSweeney oversaw was beset by allegations of misconduct and irregularities so widespread that veteran journalist Michael Crick warned of potential ‘corruption’. One MP selection has resulted in criminal charges being filed against Labour officials. These are the MPs that not just determine the future of the country but will play a key role in either making or breaking the political fortunes of whoever next succeeds Starmer. In a follow up to The Fraud, SWI, Paul Holden and Jessica Murray will be embarking upon ‘The Labour Together Parliament’ project to examine the legitimacy of the process that resulted in the current Parliament, upon which any Labour government will rest. What we need as a first step is information. We would like evidence of any wrongdoing or stitch-ups during the selection process. We would like to build a collection of evidence about the ways in which bureaucrats forced through or manipulated the selection process, including in the finalisation of longlists and shortlists, and, where it happened, the decision being removed from local democratic decision making altogether. We are particularly interested in the vote tallies from every Labour candidate selection between 2022 and 2024. These have not been routinely published. We are particularly interested in tallies that distinguish between postal/online/and in-person votes. These different vote tallies would have been provided to losing candidates. Sometimes they were only read out in selection meetings. We are not only looking for results that seem ‘dodgy’ – but all vote tallies, including those that are not in the least suspicious. This will allow us to build a holistic database and rigorously test different hypotheses. We would also like tallies from candidate selections in seats that weren’t Labour targets and didn’t result in any MP. Ideally, it would be great if we could be provided with contemporaneous evidence of these vote tallies – such as a screenshot of a message or email relaying the result. We would also be interested in narrowing down which CLPs used Anonyvoter for MP selection, even if the vote tallies are not available. Please send any information you think is relevant to the selection of the current PLP toresearch@shadowworldinvestigations.org. And please share this call for evidence widely!
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Apologies ....@medialens
Yes, you missed a few... 😄 Next month, we'll be celebrating our 25th anniversary.
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Welcome @mehdirhasan to what is actually already a vibrant independent media scene in the UK - @DoubleDownNews @declassifiedUK @MiddleEastEye @thenerve_news @intifada @PDeepDive @BylineTimes @TheCanaryUK @tribunemagazine @M_Star_Online @openDemocracy @ScotNational @novaramedia @democracyforsale @worstlobby - to name just a few.
👏 🇬🇧 Zeteo UK is here to disrupt Britain’s broken media! We’ll be bringing fearless, independent journalism to the UK - no bowing to political pressure, no corporate interests, just fearless journalism.
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