There is a stunning contrast between the access given by the UK to the Israeli Embassy to influence prosecutions of anti-Genocide journalists and protestors, and the repudiation by the UK of United Nations querying such prosecutions.\u00a0 The UK has rebuked the UN for \u201coutside interference\u201d.<\/p>\n
I cannot state enough how unusual it is for the UK to give direct access to the Israeli Embassy to the Police and the Crown Prosecution Service, in order for the Israeli government to influence the prosecution of UK citizens. This is not about extradition, in which case there may be treaty arrangements for direct contact between prosecutors. It is just not normal nor right for an Embassy to be involved with domestic prosecutions in this way.<\/p>\n
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This is one of a series of heavily redacted emails seen by the Guardian, Middle East Eye and lawyers for Palestine Action.\u00a0 They show the Israeli government being granted direct influence with UK police and prosecutors, to urge the prosecution of UK citizens protesting in the UK, against a genocide for which Israel stands accused at the International Court of Justice, with her leaders indicted before the International Criminal Court.<\/p>\n
There is no British precedent for this situation and it is very much against international practice, although comparators may be found in influencing prosecution decisions in Vichy France or the Eastern European communist bloc by Nazi Germany or the Soviet Union\u00a0 \u2013\u00a0 though there were instances of pushback even there.\u00a0 By contrast the UK system is openly influenced by the Israelis.<\/p>\n
There is no reticence from the UK government in\u00a0 forwarding Israel influence. Although all released correspondence has been heavily redacted, it is plain that individual cases have been discussed\u00a0<\/a> with the Israelis, including those of Palestine Action<\/a>.<\/p>\n The United Nations has written<\/a> to the UK on the subject of its treatment both of pro-Palestinian protestors and journalists and the abuse of anti-terrorism legislation. It is almost certain that some of the same cases the UN cites are those the Israeli Embassy has been involved in. The contrast between the UK\u2019s treatment of the Israelis and of the United Nations could scarcely be different. The Israelis are invited in, while the Starmer regime has repudiated the United Nations.<\/p>\n This is stunning hypocrisy. It is characterised as being in the interest of those being persecuted by the UK and Israel, to prevent \u201cinterference from international organisations\u201d such as the United Nations. This is beyond the pen of Orwell or Kafka. You can imagine the authors sniggering as they wrote it.<\/p>\n But the truth is the exact opposite of the UK government line. Unlike the Israeli Embassy, the United Nations really does have a right to interfere. The Special Procedures mechanisms by which the United Nations approached the UK are a well established part of international law, and the UK is a party to them. These are instituted by the Human Rights Council, and it has always been the position of the UK that all nations are subject to them.<\/p>\n In addition the UK is since 1971 a full party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which is monitored by the Human Rights Committee and to the provisions of which the UN Special Rapporteurs specifically referred<\/a> in querying the UK\u2019s actions in this matter.<\/p>\n So the Israel Embassy has no right to interfere, and the United Nations has a direct right to interfere; yet the UK has encouraged the illegitimate while repudiating the legitimate. This is a classic example of the way that zionism has fundamentally poisoned public institutions in the UK, and also of the profound zionist capture of New Labour.<\/p>\n Yesterday\u2019s revelation that David Lammy has lied to parliament and the country about suspending trade talks<\/a> with Israel, while UK \u201ctrade envoy\u201d Lord Austin is actually there, should be no surprise.<\/p>\n The hypocrisy does not even end there. The UK has been the most vociferous of countries in weaponising the UN Special Procedures against its own designated enemies, such as Russia and China. For the UK now to repudiate these UN investigations as \u201cinterference\u201d is precisely to adopt the position of those states it has long argued against.<\/p>\n I have no doubt that this has been duly noted by any dictatorship the UK may seek to criticise in future.<\/p>\n You will recall that I am among a number of journalists about whose detention under the Terrorism Act and the seizure of whose electronic equipment, and thus correspondence, the United Nations interrogate the UK. You can read the UK government reply in full here.<\/p>\n ukgovtreply<\/a><\/p>\n Since the UN wrote, there have been further high profile arrests of journalists, including Sarah Wilkinson and Asa Winstanley. The basic UK response is that the UK should not interfere, but one point of detail the UK states is particularly worth noting. Detentions and confiscations such as mine under the Terrorism Act specifically do not require the police to have any \u201creasonable grounds of suspicion\u201d.<\/p>\n What kind of state makes a point of empowering its police to act unreasonably?<\/p>\n But read this further from the UK government reply:<\/p>\n I was detained and my electronics seized under Section 7. That means the UK government is claiming that I was \u201cconcerned in the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism\u201d. Just digest that for a moment.<\/p>\n I might say that nothing in my questioning \u2013 which was roughly equally split between the subjects of Wikileaks and Palestine \u2013 related in any way to the potential commission of any acts of terrorism. Is the government really pretending that, in travelling home from an Assange campaign meeting in Iceland, they truly suspected I was preparing to commit terrorism? This is ludicrous.<\/p>\n It has often been noticed that despite Sarah Wilkinson, Asa Winstanley, Richard Medhurst, Johanna Ross, John Laughland, Vanessa Beeley, Kit Klarenberg, Ernest Moret, Richard Barnard, Tony Greenstein and Natalie Strecker all being swept up under the Terrorism Act in a campaign against journalists this last two years, there has never been a single mention in UK mainstream media of the UK\u2019s arrest of journalists under the Terrorism Act.<\/p>\n Even following the United Nations intervention to question the UK on the arrest of journalists the UK did not mention it. Even the UK\u2019s tiny number of licensed licensed anti-genocide voices in the mainstream media, such as Owen Jones, have never mentioned it.<\/p>\n Yesterday Asa Winstanley won an important legal victory<\/a> at the Old Bailey where a senior judge ruled that the police raid on his home and seizure of his equipment was unlawful. That is an important and rare legal victory, and I am tempted to attribute it part to the turning of the tide of Establishment opinion against sacrificing all principles of law to the interests of Israel.<\/p>\n You may perhaps not be surprised to learn that this victory, too, has not been covered by the mainstream media. This conspiracy of silence over extreme abuse of police power against journalists is deeply troubling.<\/p>\n \u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n My reporting and advocacy work has no source of finance at all other than your contributions to keep us going. We get nothing from any state nor any billionaire.<\/p>\n Anybody is welcome to republish and reuse, including in translation.<\/p>\n Because some people wish an alternative to PayPal, I have set up new methods of payment including a Patreon account<\/a> and a Substack account<\/a> if you wish to subscribe that way. The content will be the same as you get on this blog. 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