Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! is actively supporting the Gaza Demonstrators Support Campaign (GDSC), set up to defend those criminalised for demonstrating in 2008/09 against the barbaric Israeli onslaught on Gaza. On 18 May the FRFI society at the London School of Economics hosted a meeting entitled ‘Defend the right to defend Palestine!’ Manal from the FRFI society spoke about the current situation in Palestine; Taherali Gulamhussein spoke on behalf of GSDC, relating the current cases to the 2001 Bradford uprising, and Hicham Yezza spoke about his wrongful arrest under terror laws in 2008, and the crucial importance of solidarity and resistance. Martin Askew, who has since been imprisoned for 18 months, told the meeting about how Israeli brutality drove him to take action, explaining also how his experiences growing up London’s East End had made him aware from an early age of the role of the British state in persecuting and framing Irish people. A representative of the Gaza Demonstrators Support Campaign reports below on the background to the trials.
On 27 December 2008, Israel initiated a 22-day military assault on Palestinians in Gaza. Over 1,400 people were killed, including over 400 children. Schools, hospitals, mosques, factories and homes were destroyed. Throughout the attack, hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated across the world. In London there were repeated protests outside the Israeli Embassy against the horrific scenes in Gaza and the British government’s complicity.
From the start of the demonstrations the police did not facilitate peaceful protest. They used force against demonstrators, including children and elderly people, who were pushed, hit, stormed and hemmed in. I myself was ‘kettled’ for several hours on the first demonstration, along with my friend’s 10-year-old son, while police ‘gathered information’. On another occasion I was among several hundred protesters who were attacked by police in the Piccadilly underpass.
On many occasions the Territorial Support Group were deployed. Equipped with balaclavas, visored ‘NATO’ helmets, long riot shields, shin, elbow and knuckle protection, incapacitant spray and extendable batons, they are well known for their aggressive pit-bull style of policing. These same officers then claimed in court that they feared for their safety from a crowd of unprotected protesters.
Naturally some protesters did react, especially to being trapped in confined areas. Some pushed and moved the barriers; others threw sticks. According to many of those now caught up in the court system, they returned home at the end of the protest thinking they had given as good as they got and expected to hear no more about it.
In the following months, 115 people were arrested, often in dawn raids. Families were handcuffed, computers and passports seized and defendants questioned extensively about their political views. 75 people were charged with public order offences: the vast majority with violent disorder, which carries a maximum sentence of five years’ imprisonment.
Many of those charged were advised to plead guilty and told that this would result in a reduced sentence. Fear and lack of knowledge about their rights meant that many younger, less experienced protesters took up this offer. So far around 40 cases have been heard and 25 have resulted in prison sentences of between four months and two and a half years. For the vast majority this is their first offence and at least eight of those imprisoned are under 18.
In almost every case no people or property were damaged by the protesters’ actions; many of the convictions relate to throwing lightweight placard sticks or entering a shop where the window was already broken. Some defendants were badly beaten by the police: one was left needing 70 stitches to his forehead after being struck, in the words of the officer, ‘as hard as I could’ for ‘distracting the police line’.
The judge has repeatedly recognised that defendants are of previous good character and pose no threat to society. However, in the early sentencing hearings he stated that he was giving prison sentences as a ‘deterrent’ to other people who may act similarly.
Of the six completed cases where protesters pleaded not guilty, only one has been found guilty by the jury. Several cases have been thrown out before even getting to court due to insufficient evidence and in one case it was proven that a police officer lied to the court, claiming that an injury he had reported months earlier was caused by one of the defendants.
The Gaza Demonstrators Support Group has been monitoring the hearings and organising demonstrations at court, publicising the cases, liaising with solicitors and barristers, supporting the defendants and their families.
To get involved, go to http://gazademosupport.org.uk/
FRFI 215 June/July 2010
