Office Hours 31-Pal Action's Legal Trials and UK Political Crises w/Huda Ammori

Speaker 1: Bismillahirrahmanirrahim. Salam, hello, peace to you all. Welcome to a special edition of Office Hours, our usually weekly live stream, although we've been a little irregular this month since I've been traveling, but we're back to our Friday open kind of discussion with guests. We're having it a little early this time. Hopefully some of you will be able to come live. So do like, share, and subscribe to the stream so that others can have it on their algorithm. Don't be miserly with a good thing. Share it. Share it with comrades, friends, family. even your enemies. They need to be educated and they might not hear the kinds of analysis, information and analysis that you're going to get in office hours, especially with my guest today, a returning guest, Huda Amori, who is co-founder of Palestine Action. Huda, welcome back to the program. It's really good to see you.

Huda Ammori: It's really good to be back. Thank you.

Speaker 1: Well, you had commented about our last stream that it was nice to be able to give more full and complete answers. I know you do a lot of media. And the last time we spoke, because of the high court ruling on the proscription and ban of Palestine Action as a Terrorist Organization, that ruling was quite interesting, quite controversial, and there was a lot of debate and discussion. And you had to do a lot of media. But I think anybody who watched our discussion got the benefit of you giving really full and complete analysis. And you'll have the space, hopefully, to do whatever you need to to explain what's happening now. And a lot has been going on. So I wanted to come right to it. and ask you, at the time that we spoke last time, the Filton case had started. But there was apparently a media ban on reporting on certain components and aspects of it. Since that time, there's been a trial and a retrial. And perhaps you can take us through the first trial and second and what you've come to learn about the instructions that the judge gave and the way in which this trial was framed and the larger context. I believe there might be a connection between the prescription ban and some of the special conditions that were brought about in this case.

Huda Ammori: Yeah, so for context, the Filton action happened before the ban, and it happened on August the 6th, 2024. And six activists were arrested on site, and they had raided, broken into an Elbit weapons factory. Elbit is Israel's biggest weapons manufacturer. And this factory was in Filton, Bristol. And once inside, they had destroyed Israeli quadcopter drones. And they were all arrested on site and then re-arrested for the very first time for anyone had been arrested for terrorism. They were re-arrested under the Terrorism Act. And at that point, what that meant was they could hold them for up to a week without charge, interrogate them repeatedly, keep them in solitary confinement. You know, it's a very distressing situation for them and their families and everyone, really, to be honest, because it was completely unprecedented. They had soon after that, they reminded them they had rounded up 18 more people over the next year or so after the action. And they're accused on a. joint enterprise basis, basically of being what you might know as accessories to the crime. Some of them are accused of being on site, some of them are not. So this first trial relates to the first six people who were arrested on site, and they had been in prison on remand for 18 months before the first trial. That's already three times above the pretrial custody time limit of six months. And when they were first on trial, they were facing really serious charges, aggravated burglary, violent disorder and criminal damage. And what had happened at the first trial was extraordinary in that none of them were convicted of a single offence. And there's also Samuel Corner, who was accused of grievous bodily harm against a police officer. none of them are convicted of anything. And in fact, half the charges, they were fully acquitted on. So that means that they were completely not guilty. And that was the aggravated burglary charge, which carried a life sentence and the violent disorder charges. So what happened at that point was five of them got bail because they'd already gone through one trial. They couldn't convict him of anything. They had to give him bail. They didn't really have a choice. They didn't give bail to Samuel Connor at that point, which to be honest is unusual, very, very unusual because even people accused of murder, if they have a home jury in the first trial, they often get bail ahead of the second trial. So in the retrial, what the judge wanted to do was to ensure that they were convicted. And the reason he wanted to do this was because there was a what they call a terrorist connection. And I'll probably go into more depth in a bit on that. And that means that if they were convicted of criminal damage, the damage element, then he could try and sentence them as terrorists. The jury were not aware of this terrorism sentence. They merely thought that they were just convicting them or deciding on a criminal damage charge, which is not that serious in the grand scheme of things. So because what he had done before the trial is he removed their ability to rely on any legal defenses. So normally we try and rely on the fact that these actions were taken to save lives. They destroyed Israeli helicopter drones, which otherwise, this was not a contested fact, would have been used to commit genocide in Gaza. And so the argument is that this is a lawful action because they had taken action to save lives. And the analogy is, you know, if there's like they fire, firemen and women if there is a fire they would have to break down a door in order to save the people inside you know you may say that's criminal damage but it's lawful and so that's it's an enshrined it's an enshrined defense of British law he said you can't rely on that and so the next point how he took it further was he said to them you are not allowed to talk about what motivated you, why you thought direct action was necessary. You're not allowed to give context on Albert systems, the target of the action. You're not allowed to talk about the genocide in Gaza, can't talk about the illegality of what Albert systems is doing. So they were completely gacked. And don't get me wrong, they managed to slip in a few things, but they were gacked. And so They couldn't really do that in the first trial as much. They did do it to a certain extent, but they couldn't do it as much because they had the aggravated burglary charge in the first trial. And that meant that they were being accused of going into that factory with the intention of using the sledgehammers, which were tools to destroy weapons. They were saying you were going to use that as a weapon to injure people. So they had to be allowed to talk about their intentions in the first trial. And the second, he ruled that out. So they were completely gagged throughout it. They couldn't even say the words genocide. They couldn't say the word ethnic cleansing. And, you know, people might wonder, well, why didn't they do it anyway? Or why didn't they tell the jury about the terrorist connection? If they had done that, the judge would have discharged the jury and then they would have to go to trial again. But in the meantime, the trial probably won't be until next year. And in the meantime, they would go back on remand. So they would serve another year in prison just for trying to tell the journey, the truth about what was going on. So they were battling within a very, very narrow space and trying to, you know, refusing to plead guilty in that situation and sticking to what they what we all know is is morally correct and You know, according to international law, genocide convention, even British law is legally correct. So at the end of that trial, four of them were convicted of criminal damage and two were acquitted of criminal damage. And Samuel Connor was acquitted of the most serious charge, which was grievous bodily harm with intent that he intended to do that. And, and instead he was convicted of doing that without intent, which is quite a crucial thing. And actually it takes his charge from a maximum of 20 years to a maximum of five years. And his would be on the lower end of that, which is a significant difference in terms of the potential consequences he faces. But the reality is that, you know, this whole time, the real The real thing that's been hanging over their heads is this terrorist connection that we are only now allowed to talk about because four have been convicted.

Speaker 1: Okay, so maybe you can clarify that a little bit. So the terrorism home office, as we covered in the last discussion that we had, the home office prescribed Palestine Action as a terrorist organization. However, these events took place before that prescription even took place. And Over the course of the trial, what you've explained, well, I guess the timing is sort of important. When was the first trial concluded for the Filton case? And how does that compare to the high court ruling on the prescription of Palestine action?

Huda Ammori: Yeah. So the High Court judgment was actually delayed because they were waiting for the verdicts in the first case. Not because it was going to affect the judgment, but because they were... This is assuming, but it's a logical conclusion to come to, that they didn't want to influence the jury. So as soon as the verdict came out in the first trial, which was in February, the next week we got the High Court judgment. But... So both the High Court judgment and the ruling of the prescription being unlawful happened irrespective of what happened in Filton. And the same thing for the Filton case. So the terrorist connection that the four people now face is happening irrespective of the ruling in the prescription. And I'll explain why that is. So we were prescribed in July 2025. This action happened in August 2024. First time anyone had been arrested for counterterrorism powers for an action. What we now know because of the prescription case is that there was a meeting in June 2024 where the counterterrorism police and the CPS had a meeting where they discussed prescribing Palestine action, which is insane because at that point, nothing that we had done had ever been treated as terrorism.

Speaker 1: CPS is what?

Huda Ammori: That's the Crown Prosecution Service. That's the prosecutors. They're the people who prosecute the counterterrorism police. And there's a background to this where we know the same bodies have met with Albert Systems, the Israeli government ministers. So there's, you know, there's a lot of collusion between Albert Systems, the state, and, you know, that shouldn't be happening because it's supposed to be separation of powers. But when it comes to political action, and probably most things, actually, it's completely corrupt. But they had met and they had discussed prescribing Palestine action before Filton had even happened. In order to prescribe it, they had to say we were concerned in terrorism. So in order to do that, they needed to start treating some actions as if they were terrorism. So when Filton happened, that was two months after this meeting, they needed to treat them as terrorists in order to say, look, they did this bit of terrorism. that we're accusing them of, there's still been no ruling on that. But we've got this action, and then they pointed out to a couple of other actions, that we believe meet the terrorism threshold, you need to ban Palestine Action. Without that, they couldn't have banned us. So it was very much manufactured in order to get the result they wanted, which was Palestine Action to be prescribed as a terrorist organization. How they justify the terrorism sentence, potential terrorism sentence, is there was basically, there was in the Filton case, there was a pretrial ruling where they had discussed if there was an appearance of a terrorist connection. It was more formality. They didn't rule that there was one. It's a very low bar, but the judge had a hearing where he discussed the potential of there being a terrorist connection, as they call it. And what they said was because there was serious property damage, which is under the Terrorism Act, and that they believed that there was serious property damage and that you have to, there's two elements. So one is the property damage and two is it has to be done to influence the government to meet the definition of terrorism. So rather than say they conceded that this wasn't to influence the British government, because the whole point of that action is to not try and appease to the oppressors, is to go straight to the source and shoot at that. Instead, he said this was trying to influence the Israeli government by restricting them of weapons. So their whole basis of trying to call them terrorists is that they restricted the Israeli government of weapons, of some weapons during a genocide. And yet in their trial, they could not talk about. They could not talk about genocide. They couldn't talk about Gaza. They couldn't talk about the illegality of Israel's actions. And so they manufactured this process where we'll try you for criminal damage. If you're guilty of that, we'll say you actually did an act of terrorism at sentencing, which the judge will decide who has been completely biased and very corrupt throughout this whole process.

Speaker 1: Well, that's quite extraordinary that... The judge ruled it impossible or disallowable to bring up the contextual situation. in one circumstance related to the case, but essentially is bringing it in for this pretrial kind of consideration of whether it constitutes terrorism or not, and then in the sentencing. So how can you have a trial where You're not allowed to talk about the conditions that have motivated these actions, but then you can use those conditions of the action meaningfully intending to prevent the Israeli government from its military options and supplies that allows you then to sentence in an extremely harsh manner. I mean, this seems like... not only illogical, but perversely oriented to advantage the prosecution and the state and to cruelly disadvantage the defendants. How has that been part of the discussion at all? And also, I am curious about how it is possible for the judge to try and set a sentence under kind of terrorism, the category of terrorism, when that was never established in the court and, in fact, was also not in the knowledge of the jury. They were prevented from knowing that. That seems also rather extraordinary and without precedent.

Huda Ammori: Yeah. Yeah, it is. It's the first time this has ever happened in a direct action protest case. It's actually the first time it's ever happened for a charge like criminal damage. I think there is some precedent of it happening in murder cases. what people may more traditionally associate with terrorism, it's never happened in this way. They are deliberately manipulating the whole system in order to manufacture the result they want. It really is a complete stitch up from start to finish. In terms of how is he able to do this? Well, it's a very good question and it shouldn't be allowed to happen. But the problem is when you get into this whole terrorism side of things, there is just no, you do not have rights. And that's why when they try and place that action into the terrorism bracket, they are able to manufacture things in a certain way. And in terms of how trials are supposed to work, the judge is supposed to decide on the law, and the jury is supposed to decide on the facts. But there is a lot of facts to consider and decide on when you decide if someone is a terrorist or not, even according to this very broad definition of serious property damage or if it's done to influence the Israeli government and if that's a legitimate way to use the terrorism act, especially given the genocide, especially given the war crimes, especially given the context, which he has completely stripped from the trial. it's a very messed up system and it's never been done before. So they are really trying to set a precedent here. And in the same sense, if they're trying to set a precedent, it does give us the chance to fight back against it, not only at sentencing, but whatever legal challenge may happen if it doesn't go their way at sentencing against the terror connection. But it's It's interesting as well, because when they say serious property damage, the reason that was included, it's a very criticized part of the legislation, but the issue is, a laugh that's extremely messed up. The issue is that no government, the political system is so fickle and the mainstream media don't have any analysis on just headlines. So no one will ever, I mean, we never say never, but will ever actually alter the terrorism act to define it even more or even challenge it. properly in terms of whoever comes into government because no one wants to be seen as being soft on terrorism because they have created this system where, you know, they've associated terrorism with with ISIS, etc. And so they never want to be seen that way. So it's just not, it's something that, you know, people don't even think about the terrorism laws. But now we are getting to a point where you're kind of more and more, it's becoming so prevalent that people are recognizing how messed up it really is. But the serious property damage thing was brought in mainly because of the IRA and the Irish Republican Army's bombing of the Arndale Centre in Manchester. And no one was killed during that bombing. They called it in and it was evacuated beforehand. So there was, I think it was hundreds of millions of pounds of damage. And that was the thinking behind the service property damage. So it's not just about the amount of damage that's caused, but also, you know, you'd argue the nature of the damage and how the damage is done. Yeah. And what's interesting in this case as well is that they haven't, uh, during the trial, they didn't produce an inventory of the weapons that were destroyed in the factory. They didn't show any of that, but they had every tool that the activists brought in. They had a whole list of it. They had the weight of it. It had how much it would cost all of that detail, but they didn't. So they're clearly they're doing that to protect Albert systems. And so it will be interesting to see what happens at sentencing in terms of that, because we don't have that information to challenge it.

Speaker 1: Right. Right. You know, I mean, you made a very important point about the way in which the issue of terrorism has become its own lacuna or, you know, in in law, like, you know, it just evacuates normal protections and allows the state extreme latitudes, national security questions. It's because of terrorism. The sentencing will be harsh. The rights of the defendant. extremely limited and so forth and of course this has happened since the global war on terror the whole mechanisms have been put in place and now we're seeing how it can be used as many activists and people who are concerned about it you know when they started putting in these new legal regimes under the aegis of terrorism warned that These would then expand t protests, suppression of evacuation and weakening Right now, this is advancing very rapidly in their use of it. But I wanted to come back to the first trial and something that happened there, which is that we understand that the defendants were acquitted i mean i can't remember if it was of all charges but i mean it was it was really uh quite stunning that under those circumstances where they were unable to explain their motivations unable to build a defense on the basis of you know intervening to protect and save lives under british law that defense um that nonetheless they managed, you know, it was a successful case in the sense that the defense achieved essentially its aims. And I believe, and I wonder if this is your view of it, I believe that part of that may have been due to a rather extraordinary defense and closing argument that really attacked some of the privileges or, you know, I don't know, arrogated by the judge to make it impossible to have a genuine defense and to rule out evidence. that nonetheless, the, you know, Rajiv men on one of the barristers for one of the defendants in the case was Charlotte Head. Yes, Charlotte Heads barrister challenged this idea that the judge could direct the jury essentially to convict, which if you're ruling out defense, all these defenses, and you're instructing the jury saying, well, the evidence says that they did do this damage, is essentially trying to bully them into feeling that they had no option other than to say, well, they're guilty of these crimes. And he managed to successfully challenge that, and for doing so, and for telling the juries that they do have the right of conscience, even if a case wasn't built around it. He mentioned that that's a principle in law. And it seems like that might have worked, but for his efforts, then he was charged by the judge with contempt of court. Perhaps you can talk a little bit about the outcome of the trial and the role that this technique in the defense's closing arguments may have had.

Huda Ammori: Yeah, so Rajiv Menon, absolutely brilliant barrister. And he actually went to bar school with the judge. But nevertheless, that didn't help. His chances are all in this courtroom. The judge and him were completely, you know, the judge was completely hostile to the defence in every way possible, not just legally, but, you know, in terms of how he acted towards them, you know. throughout it. So Rajiv had done a brilliant speech where he was, the judge made an order, which said that he is not allowed to tell the jurors that they can acquit on their conscience. So what Rajiv did was he explained how a judge cannot direct you to convict. And he explained the case of Penn and Mead, the Bushnell's case, they call it, which is a 600 year old case where there were two Quakers who were on trial and the jury refused to convict them and then they held them in prison for two days about food and water and they still refused to convict them and And on appeal, this established the principle that jurors can acquit on their conscience. So he explained this case, explained what those jurors did. He explained that you're not going to go to prison if you don't convict them because the judge cannot force you to convict and how they may be confused as to why that is. And he explained he did it in a brilliant way, absolutely brilliant. and he didn't defy the judge's order either but all he did was explain the law and as you said if you're a juror and you know they get a questionnaire at the end of a trial and you have to follow the questions to help you come to a verdict and the questions on damage are you know did they intend to do damage yes or no did they do damage and every single one of them goes yes i smashed up jones so It's not a hard question to answer. And they didn't have defenses. So, you know, it's a very fair assumption that there were the jurors did not convict them on the basis of their conscience. They didn't want to convict them because they believed what they did was morally, morally right. They didn't have. And yes, so that's that was an absolutely amazing result, which led to them all being freed, essentially. They all got bail apart from Sam. And actually, right after the speech, I think there was a bit of a back and forth about the speech and the prosecution wasn't happy, but they didn't do anything. It was just normal mumblings that the judge always did about everything the defense did. And after, and the trial continued, the rest of the defense viruses gave their closing speeches. And it was only after the verdicts And only after the verdicts that the judge said, I'm going to issue contempt of court proceedings, not at the time. And it's very clear, very clear that the reason he did this was because he was successful. completely believe, and I'm not the only one who believes this, that if there were convictions, he wouldn't have done it. But because he was so angry at the results, it was revenge for him against Rajiv. And also to try and send a message to other barristers that, you know, you can't defend these types of clients in this case and in this way. And yes, so That is completely unprecedented. It's the first time this ever happened to a barrister, a barrister's face contempt of court proceedings for the contents of his closing speech for just saying the law. And it was very vindictive, but Rajiv managed to win his case so he appealed it but what's very important to know is that throughout the retrial Rajiv was facing contempt of court proceedings and this isn't it's not it's not light it's not a light thing to face you know contempt of court is a very serious charge you can face up to two years in prison um and he would have lost his his job and he's a very experienced barrister 30 years in so it's a very stressful thing to go through and at the same time be back in front of the same judge and you know he didn't have to do that he could have passed on to someone else but you know he's extremely passionate and um didn't want to abandon his client or the the philton the the first six on on trial so he he went to trial again um but what this meant was Because the barristers, he had given a very strict ruling about the closing speeches in the retrial. And he even said at one point that you can't tell the jurors that a judge cannot force them to convict. So the defense were completely clipped. And after what happened with Rajiv, there was really only one choice, which was for the defendants to give their own closing speeches at that point apart from. Samuel Korner. Yeah.

Speaker 1: Right. Right. I mean, it does seem like it was retaliation. Frankly, I think it was embarrassing for this judge that he'd done all of these things to make sure to ensure that there was going to be convictions and then there were no convictions. And so I think it was a way of in some sense of trying to explain how it was that these mechanisms put in place to derail the jury from actually taking into account any genuine defense argument could still come and defy what was clearly the intended goal of the judge. I mean, so the only way to explain that is to say, oh, you cheated or you did something that was incorrect. You know, you weren't allowed to say these things. And then the fact that they ruled that out, I mean, that seems absolutely outrageous. I mean, it is obvious that a judge cannot. Otherwise, what's the point of a jury trial? And in fact, that is the larger question here, is that clearly they're trying to undermine, if not eliminate the discretion of juries and of jury trials, because they're very inconvenient when juries have the power to actually hear genuine testimony, what the reasons, what the motivations were. So what's the point of a jury trial if the judge is allowed to instruct the jury that they have to convict? I mean, this makes a mockery of, you know, of the jury system entirely.

Huda Ammori: Well, exactly, exactly. And I think that it's very clear that, you know, the main reason behind all of this, you know, the prescription, how they tried to, you know, detain them as terrorists, and what they're doing in this case, and how they ran this case, is because they want to protect the Israeli weapons industry. And, you know, it's really... it's really telling how far they are willing to go in order to achieve that aim of protecting a foreign genitizer weapons firm. And I think actually in all of this, through the prescription and through what they're doing and through Palestine Action being effective to the point where they had to go so far that they're using terrorism legislation for the first time against activists, that they're trying to imprison barristers for mounting illegal defense, just shows how it just exposes themselves to the British public, actually. And that's why they want to silence the truth behind this case for so long, because it exposes how far they're willing to go for a foreign genocidal regime. And I think when you're willing to get to that point, when you're going so far, um it's really it really shows that it's coming towards the end in terms of this relationship with the state and albert systems this is the last thing they have to throw at us and if we defeat this and i hope we do then you know they they really are they have nothing left

Speaker 1: Well, I want to come to that in a moment because I think that's politically where we need to be thinking about this in the overall strategy. But one quick question, why was there even a second trial? Like that seems pretty unprecedented. Patmos Revelator even asked this, you know, can we talk about how the second trial came about? Isn't the retrial itself unprecedented? I mean, they were acquitted by a jury of their peers. What's the basis for the retrial?

Huda Ammori: So they were acquitted of many of the charges, but on the criminal damage, it's what we call a hung jury. So it wasn't a majority verdict. And in those cases, they do have the right to retry them. It does happen. That's not extremely out of the norm, but it is an option to them. And if you consider as well in this case, that a uh that they have served 18 months in prison already um at this point of the the retrial at sam even longer that is you know in in britain i think even in in the us and in other places you don't actually serve the whole offense in prison so they deserve the equivalent of a four-year sentence basically which is the upper limit of a criminal damage conviction in the first place so But obviously, the difference here is the terrorism connection. And because that's only based on property damage, they had to ensure that they got a criminal damage conviction. But if you look at it in the whole, that's why it's so devastating, because not necessarily even though they should have been acquitted of criminal damage if they had a fair trial, they didn't. The worst thing about this case is what's been hanging over them is this potential terrorism sentence, because even if they're convicted of criminal damage, they shouldn't be in prison anymore. But that completely changes how the sentences look. So for example, normally you serve about 40% of your sentence in prison, And you can even be released six months before that 40% on tag. And that is normal for a wide range of offenses, very serious offenses as well. If you're a terrorist, then you have to serve at least two thirds of your sentence in prison. At that point, you can be released if parole board approves your release. Now, in order for them to approve your release, they have to believe you're reformed. that you no longer hold the same political beliefs as you did before. So you'd have to rescind, condemn your own actions. You'd have to condemn your political beliefs. And they would have to be convinced that was true. That's not going to happen. Very unlikely to happen. So, you know, what they're going to say, I support a genocide now. I've completely changed my beliefs since you've locked me up in here. You've really changed my mind about how, you know, fair this system is really and how they were the ones in the wrong. But anyway. And even when you're released, you are listed as a terrorist for the rest of your life. And you have to, for up to 15 years, you have to register any new device, any new relationship, any new bank account, any new address, et cetera, with the police for up to 15 years. And if you fail, you go back to prison. So it's very dramatic. It's not just a slightly longer sentence. It's completely dramatic. Changes the look of how you spend your time in prison, how long you spend and, you know, a significant portion of your whole life, um, treated as a, as, as a terrorist in that situation. So they weren't going to stop until they got a criminal damage conviction, but in the grand scheme of things, they walked in with 18 charges. if you exclude Sam's charge, extra charge with GBH, they ended up securing four out of those 18 convictions. This wasn't by any means a win for the prosecution at all, but yeah, they had to keep going until.

Speaker 1: Right, right. I mean, they were dead set on getting something out of it, setting precedents with the terrorism sentencing, which is in the judge's purview, but they have to have a conviction in order to do that. in order to apply that terrorism sentencing, they have to have some convictions that they didn't get enough in the first trial, so they would definitely pursue it so that they had something. And it seems like this is also part of trying to build a case for future prescription as well. even if they can't do it as directly, given the specificities of the High Court decision. It seems that there is an interrelationship between these two things to try and shore up the system against direct action against action as peaceful protesters on this on this issue. And that goes to what you had concluded in your previous answer. And I wanted to follow up on which is how successful both Palestine action in its direct actions and the organizing work around it, the media campaign, the actual disruption that has taken place and in the courtroom. has been that presents such a challenge that if they are going to continue to be complicit, the UK government and state, if it's going to be complicit with the israeli genocide in gaza it is having to take further and further measures to try and suppress it to disrupt it to bring you know the force of law even that wasn't working very well so now trying to rely on terrorism so what do you think is the kind of lesson that we should be learning about How to be successful, because in some ways it seems like it's not successful because like wow the state is going to try these people and they use that to intimidate people. But from a different analysis, you might have a different perspective on how successful. There's enormous costs for the individuals, and they're raising the costs on individuals. Yet there are people who are willing to do it, and they're finding that juries will acquit. They have to go to extraordinary lengths publicly to really undermine the legitimacy or destroy their democratic kind of jury system and legal rights basically for everybody or expose for everybody that these aren't real rights if they decide that they don't like your cause, your political view.

Huda Ammori: But exactly. I mean, This wouldn't be happening if Palatine action was not so effective. You know, we've never seen repression like this. And it's off the back of many juries acquitting, but not just that. It's off the back of permanently shutting down four Israeli weapon sites in Britain, making Albert lose... contracts worth billions of pounds in Britain. It's interesting because whilst the government is doing all of this in service of Elbit Systems and the Israeli government, they are not taking new contracts with Elbit. They are not getting these big contracts at all in the past couple of years. So they are really struggling, Elbit Systems as a company. But at the same time as that, more and more people were joining Palestine Action as a result of the genocide in Gaza. And even with the use of counterterrorism legislation, when people are witnessing a genocide, that was the whole purpose of Palestine Action. Direct action is effective. You go straight to the source, you shut these factories down, they're building these weapons on our doorsteps. And in order to actually contribute to the struggle for the liberation of Palestine, we need to be taking direct measures in order to stop their means to be able to commit the genocide against them in the first place, in order to damage the interest of the Zionist regime as they manifest in Britain, which is through Elbit's systems. And so instead of Instead of being successful, where it was a prescription of deterring people, because that's the aim of all of this, is to deter direct action. Instead, they had it backfired massively. I believe that's why they wanted to keep the terrorist connection very quiet, because they knew that would backfire massively. even more in their face, and I believe it will do as well. So they are having to go to these extraordinary lengths to repress people, to repress these activists, to repress the Filton case in order to try and deter Palestine action or any other direct action from taking place. But whilst they're doing that, as you said, they are exposing people the facade of democracy. They're exposing how corrupt the judicial system really is. And they need that. They need to keep up the facade that this is a country where you have rights, where you'll be treated fairly, where, you know, we have fair trials in this country. They're willing to throw that all down the kitchen sink in order to protect a foreign genocidal regime. And that's extremely dangerous for them. So whilst it's It's very testing and it's very difficult in terms of those who are facing potential terrorist sentences. This is really the last thing, the last thread they have to attack Darad action, to protect Albert and to protect the interests of a foreign genocidal regime. And that's why I think it's just, it's so important that, you know, as a movement, we stand up for the Filton trial You know, there's huge amounts of smear campaigns, attempts to turn people away. That's not working. And, you know, people can, if you're in Britain, mobilize on the June the 12th at Woolwich Crown Court to support them, post about it on social media, raise the profile. At the moment, it is extremely daunting what they are facing. I do have faith that they will defeat this one way or another, if not a sentencing further down the line. Um, and you know, the reason we were successful in the prescription case was because of the public outrage. It was, you know, the judges hates us and that's fine. You know, the judgment they wrote, they really detested me. They really hate Palestine action, but they still had to rule that the ban was unlawful. And it was because of the public outrage, the civil disobedience campaign, the backlash the state had suffered. And so there was a proven and tested model to fight back against this. And so we need to ensure that people are spreading the word on our, you know, matching this moment with the severity than it is. It is more outrageous than prescription, what they're doing in this case. And they're trying to set a precedent to do this in further cases. But that also means as it's the test case, they want to set a precedent, but this can also be the time that we can actually fight back against it because you know, this has been hanging over their heads for nearly two years now. Couldn't say anything about it publicly. Couldn't fight against it. Now that this is coming up, it gives us the opportunity to fight against it. It gives us the opportunity to present the real arguments against the terrorist connection, not only in the court, but to the public. And so it's, you know, when I started Palestine Action years ago, I remember saying at the time that they would throw every obstacle in our way in order to stop us. But every time we overcame that obstacle, we got closer to victory. We got closer to winning. And I couldn't have foreseen this happening and these being the obstacles, but, you know, beyond calling people terrorists, there's really not much else they can do. I don't want to test that theory, but if we overcome this, I truly believe that Albert would have to go. And that is what will cause seismic shifts. And it will not be because we be elected a slightly more lefty politician. It will not be because of that. It will be because the people fought for this. They sacrificed for this. They paid with their liberty. And, you know, their blood, sweat and tears in many cases. That's what is going to change the connection between Britain and the West and the Zionist regime. It's the only thing that can work, to be honest, in terms of breaking that link, because we've just seen how corrupt the political system really is, how allied they are with the Zionist regime. And that's why Palestine Action existed in the first place.

Speaker 1: Absolutely. I mean, this has been such an enormous contribution to our political imaginations, inspiring a real hopeful sense, because as you say, none of this would be happening if it wasn't so effective. And the work that Palestine Action did even before the Gaza genocide, but especially redoubling those efforts and recruiting many others, to committed and concerted action during the genocide has led to this point. So this is a precedent-setting moment. It's an opportunity, now that we can freely discuss it and talk about it, to organize around it the June 12th hearing you mentioned is for the sentencing of the Filton Six. And so that's something to organize around to show public support for light sentencing, for rejecting the terrorism component. But I think, you know, also it has, even though, as you say, it's not going to happen, you know, breaking this relationship, this unholy relationship of complicity in genocide is not going to happen, you know, really by one or two politicians who are slightly better being elected. But I think the work of Palestine Action is possibly having some transforming effect on the wider political culture within the UK and sharpening these divisions between those who want to protect people's rights, liberty and stand against slaughter of, you know, civilian human beings and those who seem quite comfortable with profiting from it or accommodating it. And, you know, I'm wondering if you think this is an interesting time in the UK politics. political scene with local and municipal elections, the rise of the Greens to some extent, although even more disconcerting rise of reform. And I'm just wondering what you think the work of Palestine Action has contributed to and might contribute to reshaping kind of the British political landscape in conventional or unconventional ways. How would you kind of describe that?

Huda Ammori: Yeah, I mean, the banning of Palestine action was such a political earthquake in so many ways. And, you know, it's interesting because before that, you know, we hadn't really engaged MPs or anything like that before because it was just, we were focused on direct action. And occasionally we got support from the odd MP who'd comment. But what happened, because there was such a huge backlash and there was such a strong civil disobedience campaign, A lot of politicians had, well, interestingly, a lot of politicians, you know, I think we only had 22 people, it's insane, vote against the ban of Palestine Action because we were, I don't know if you remember this, but they put us with the maniac murder call, this made-up grieve. They basically made it so you had to, you couldn't vote against just banning Palestine Action, you had to vote against banning Palestine Action, this group called the Maniac Murder Cult and the Russian Imperialist Front to try and ensure this thing passed. But, you know, the Greens were incredibly strong from the very beginning against the prescription of Palestine Action. And the same with a lot of, you know, maybe more lefty MPs, but even, there were a lot of people who I noticed when the ban was ruled unlawful said, uh that that they regretted abstaining you know they abstain this is what it cowards me absolute cowards but so many of them abstained you know i remember one of politicians called ibtisar muhammad a labor mp and she actually commented one of my posts and said you know i was wrong to abstain on that on the vote and I don't have much time for these people, to be honest, because, you know, you're in power. You get into power and you don't even like abstaining really actually annoys me more than voting for it in some ways because. you know, you're really not taking a stand at all. It's a complete coward's way of just saying, don't look at me in this situation and not be accountable for your actions. But it has generated a huge conversation about people's rights and even further than maybe even the pro-Palestine movement. And it's going to be extremely costly. I think that, you know, partially there's a lot of reasons people hate labor, partially contributed to the fall of labor, but also You know, Shabana Mahmood is going to be gone. Like, how are you... Maybe they'll move her to a different seat. I don't know. I don't think there's any Labour safe seats. But how can you... Because she comes from such a pro-Palestinian constituency. You know, a lot of Muslims in that area. She relies on the Muslim vote, as they call it, in that area. How are they going to... support Shabana Mahmood after after you know the prescription and her alliance with the Zionist regime because describing Palestine actually really shows where their alliance is and how far they're willing to go for it because a lot of these um a lot of these politicians tried before to claim well I abstained on the vote for ceasefire but I've called for this ring for guards and they tried to play this middle line but with the prescription it was so extreme and moved for them to make against people in Britain, British citizens, that it really exposed just how aligned they are to the Zionist regime. And I look forward to seeing Shabana Mahmood lose her seat, which is most definitely going to happen. I'm sure it has a huge, it has a significant impact in that sense. Yeah.

Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, I think the most important thing is that even these court cases and the news around them, even though it seems like in some ways it takes the discussion away from the direct action against Elbit Systems and the fact that that is an Israeli war manufacturer that is supplying the genocide taking place, that is continuing. And we don't hear so much about that in the news. And even in kind of activist circles, It's at a low ebb, and at least what Palestine Action has done and is doing is it's preventing Palestine from being completely sidelined as the mainstream politics would wish from any corner of any part of the political discussion. Palestine which is the reason why Palestine action exists is to stop the occupation the you know genocide of Palestinians and you know I mean I think people think that Because there's been a lower kind of level of violence in Gaza, you can just look and see what's happening in the West Bank now. It's absolutely horrific, the levels of land expropriation taking place. So there's going to be a need to keep doing actions that actually gain the public attention and put a stop to the military. you know, system of Israeli war manufacturers. So what do you look forward to in the future for Palestine actions, activities? And, you know, what is it kind of going to be focusing on? Is it going to continue this against Elbit Systems, does it have other targets? We've talked about how other companies have provided finance and so forth. Where do you see this going to broaden and continue the movement? Because it's still very much needed.

Huda Ammori: So, you know, at this point in time, the high court rules on lawful were still prescribed. We just had the appeal, it was two weeks ago, I think, Two weeks ago, we were in the Court of Appeal challenging the ban. I believe that went well. So I'm quietly confident that that will hopefully go our way. And then we should have a result of that perhaps within the next month. It's unclear. They only tell you a few days before when it's going to come out. But, you know, as before Palestine Action, we were targeting companies, not just Albert Systems, but companies who aided Albert Systems in order to target their supply chain and to isolate them because they rely on contractors, subcontractors, financiers, landlords, suppliers in order to be able to function. And I'm sure that, you know, if the banner is lifted, that the Palestine Actions campaign to shut Aba down is going to continue. And I think as well, one of the big fights is going to be against this use of terrorist connection. We are successful in that, but that's going to really take so much, a lot of time. a lot of people mobilizing and organizing against it to be successful in defeating that. And then I really believe it's just a matter of time. And I think, you know, a short amount of time, really, hopefully within a year or so that Albert systems, will be gone from Britain. And then at that point, it's really assessing what is the political landscape and what's the most strategic way of using that action as a tool against the British involvement with the Zionist regime. But as you said, the massacres in Gaza are continuing. They're using the same weapons against the people in Lebanon. The attacks on the West Bank are amplifying. And for us, you know, we started this in 2020. We can't rely on as a movement just acting when it's the most in the news because they obviously see a lot of this stuff. And the point about targeting Elbit is to target the source. One of the manifestations of the Zionist regime is going to the source of the issue. It's undermining their ability to produce weapons, but also with that, their ability to then test weapons on Palestinians and the profitability that comes from that. because that is how Albert's business model works. They have to test their weapons first. And so as long as Albert exists, they will continue to massacre more Palestinians because they need to. This whole business model is built on the destruction of Palestine. One action is put it this way. It's the corporate arm of the Israeli military. And in many ways, it is infuriating that Albert's system is able to operate in Britain and across the west but that's also a very viable target and opportunity for people across the world and palestine action is now a global movement to target alban system and to directly contribute to the struggle for uh a liberated palestine and you know we all have to contributes to that struggle. And the repression is increasing, but that is what happens when you're close to winning or when you are posing a real challenge. It's not necessarily the time to retreat. It's the time to go even more on the offensive as a movement, as a collective.

Speaker 1: Amen to that. That is a wonderful thing to conclude on. Advice that all of us should be taking, listeners, watchers, pro-Palestine solidarity members, is this is the time to raise the stakes, to redouble our efforts. The repression is an index of the success of the resistance, and we all can be part of the resistance in various ways. Palestine Action has shown us many ways that we can. And Huda, I have to say just on behalf of everyone, how much we appreciate the work of Palestine Action. You and Richard Barnard as co-founders of really one of the only things in some ways that I feel really has redeemed activism in the kind of imperial core in the West. has been uh direct action by by i mean of course we have all these other things that we do but uh even bds these all contribute but something that has raised the stakes forced the confrontations and actually materially disrupted the Israeli war machine. That is a huge, huge outcome. We wish you the best. We wish all the actionists the best. And we hope that there are ways that this movement can expand and become more capable, more effective, and achieve victory, as you've put it. And I want to thank you in your busy day in life for taking time to be able to talk to people. You know, a lot of people on this show would agree generally, but we need with what Palestine Action has done, they're pro-Palestine, but we need to hear what's happening in the movement in its most vanguard dimension so that we can learn from it, try and incorporate it and support it. So if there's anything you want people to know about how they can get involved and support beyond what you just mentioned about trying to expand you know the forms of palestine action affiliates or people who are targeting elbit systems even if they leave the uk they may move somewhere else we have to be vigilant globally to stop them wherever uh wherever they are you know let let listeners know how both they can follow you and um you know any recommended actions for support they can do thank you so much i really um

Huda Ammori: I really appreciate you and your support and also this platform. I said it last time, but it's really a rarity to be able to go into this much depth and actually truly explain the situation and the depth of it as well and go into the right amount of depth on it. Palestine Action is a global movement. So if you are outside of Britain, you can see Palestine Action Global. It's the... The website I believe is global.palestineaction.org. So you can get involved and see how you can get involved that way. There are people still taking direct action. It's not Palestine action. People are taking direct action. in Britain, and I believe the website for that is directactiontraining.org, and you can get involved that way. And you can also follow the Free the Filth in 24 campaign on social media. The key date is the 12th of June, Woolwich Crown Court in South East London. But if you can't get there, they are calling for protests at British embassies across the world so people can attend and support that way as well.

Speaker 1: That's a great point. I'm sure that gets back. They always have to report, how are the British perceived in this country, etc., these consular officials? So you can register your dissent in that way. Again, Hoda, I want to thank you, and I want to thank all of the people who've been in the chat raising good points and questions and showing their support. I didn't get a chance in this to begin with, reminding you that we are always doing fundraisers for Palestinian organizations and for support. In Palestine, we successfully concluded our fundraiser for students in Gaza so that they can take the course that I and some other professors are teaching this summer online for students in Gaza. I thank you for that. But we've moved on to supporting Dahnoun Mutual Aid. The link is in... It's a Gazan-led... mutual aid organizations supplying water and cash support to families in Gaza. The link is in the description. You can go to Instagram and, you know, support through that, but also check out and I will put some of the links that Huda mentioned in the video description so that you can go follow up with Palestine Action. And of course, we're going to continue talking about this issue in the UK. And in fact, actually, we will be having a talk with Rajiv Menon And he's going to come on at some point in June, perhaps. And you will enjoy everyone hearing from him as well on this. He's a vivid, charismatic, and wonderful kind of social justice barrister and lawyer. And so he will be coming on soon. And of course, we hope we'll keep up to date with future developments with you, Huda. And you're welcome anytime to come back on the program and talk about what's happening in Palestine action. So until next time, to everyone, peace with justice and solidarity to you all. Free Palestine and free victory to the free peoples of the world.

Huda Ammori: Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Raheem.

Speaker 1: Thanks, Odessa.