I was arrested yesterday with 27 other peaceful, silent anti-Palestine genocide protestors at the foot of the statue of Mahatma Gandhi in Parliament Square, London.
My crime?
I silently held up a sign stating, “Dear Police – I Love Palestine Action – No More Genocide”.
This is now an offence under Blair’s hated Terrorism Act, which has been further darkened by its abuse by the Zionist Prime Minister Starmer’s Zionist Home Secretary Yvette Cooper.
At midnight on Friday night, she proscribed the peaceful direct action group Palestine Action, who are trying to block UK-based arms manufacturers from arming the genocidal Tzahal (IDF). I am not a member of them.
Cooper has now legally declared that peaceful direct-action vandalism is “terrorism” and it is now illegal to express any support or love for Palestine Action’s efforts to stop the rivers of Palestinian children’s blood.
I was very briefly interviewed by Damien Gayle (who has heroically covered so many peaceful climate protections for the The Guardian).
This is what I said, which he kindly included in his report:
“An environmental campaigner, Donnachadh McCarthy, said:
“To proscribe an organisation of peaceful direct action as terrorists is a huge red line for our democracy.
It means that all the rest of us, whether we’re climate activists, Greenpeace, women’s suffragettes, disabled activists, it means that the government can now declare any act of property damage to be terrorism, which gives you a sentence of 14 years.”
“This is worse than Putin’s Russia. I don’t say that lightly. It’s 10 years for doing what we’re doing today in Russia;
It’s 14 years in the UK because of Yvette Cooper’s outrageous betrayal of democracy, liberalism, and what is, in my view, a step towards fascism.”
https://www.theguardian.com/…/palestine-action…
I loved the silent peacefulness of the ‘We Do Not Comply’ event.
Our peacefulness was respected by the police.
One of the arresting officers said, “This is not the work I came into the police to be doing. I would far prefer to be doing my proper job catching real thieves, etc.”
One of the station officers said “Normally a crime like yours would be really minor. But using the Terrorism Act does not make any sense. For Hamas, yes, but not for this!”
But it was one of the police station charging sergeants who moved me to tears.
As I was being released on bail, a broken white rose that a woman had gifted us at the civil disobedience event fell out of my bag.
The sergeant picked it up and turned to the other officers present and asked, “Do you know what this stands for?”
He continued, “This was the symbol they chose after world war two to symbolise the mass slaughter by Nazism.”
He then paused and lowered his voice and movingly said, “And so very pertinent in this moment….”
I lost it… hot tears overflowed and ran down my cheeks as I thought of all the times I have cried hot tears as I painfully saw another day’s coverage of the blood-drenched brutality unfolding in Palestine.
And the mountains of innocent beautiful children’s bodies, amputations, burnings, shootings, repeated mass homelessness, and the utter shocking levelling of everything in the Palestinian city of Gaza, not to mention the brutal ethnic cleansing in Eastern Palestine.
And it reminded me why I stood there being arrested.
It does my head in that we now have a Labour government legally determining that those peacefully opposing the Zionist genocide in Palestine are terrorists and the Tzahal (IDF) are the declared allies of our government, which has been colluding in the genocide from the beginning.
This is truly, truly Orwellian.
And I am saddened that the Liberal Democrats could only get themselves to abstain. But grateful that at least all the Green MPs stood by the large majority of people in this country who desperately want the genocide to stop and want our government to stop colluding with it.
I am so grateful to We Do Not Comply for organising this dignified, peaceful, silent act of civil disobedience.
It was a privilege to share their protest against the abuse of power by the Labour government and act in solidarity with the proscribed Palestine Action in their brave campaign to try and stop UK collusion with the barbaric daily genocide and ethnic cleansing in Palestine.
Please RT information about We Do Not Comply – would be amazing if 1000s of brave people joined their acts of civil disobedience. https://wedonotcomply.org/
It really is beyond time to peacefully end the Zionist terrorism that our political and media leaderships are so criminally colluding with.
Swamping the courts and jails with peaceful people carrying out a simple act of civil disobedience by saying the loving words – “I love Palestine Action – No More Genocide” would be powerful!
Mahatma Gandhi, under whose statue we peacefully and silently protected, would approve.
My dream is of a secular Israeli-Palestinian state where all can live in peace and equality.
Blessed be.
Love and courage
Donnachadh xx
PS: I forgot to add an important detail!
They arrested us under Section 13, not 12, of Blair’s Terrorism Act, which means IF they do charge us and do not change to Section 12, we would face a maximum of 6 months, rather than 14 years.
The genocide-backing Daily Mail already has a full-page article calling for our imprisonment…
