On 21 August, a jury at Kingston Crown Court delivered a unanimous Not Guilty verdict after the four-day trial of Tony Greenstein, PSC co-founder and suspended Green Party member. Greenstein was charged in November 2024, under Section 12 of the Terrorism Act (TA) 2000 for a tweet he made a year prior, stating ‘I support the Palestinians that is enough and I support Hamas against the Israeli army’. This was deemed by the Crown Prosecution Service to be ‘expressing support for a proscribed organisation’.
The tweet was posted not long after the Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on 7 October 2023. At the time Greenstein expressed support for Palestinian Resistance and reaffirmed this during his trial, describing the historic military action as ‘justified’. More of Greenstein’s tweets were used as supporting evidence by the prosecution to attempt to prove his alleged support for Hamas. However, the defence responded with other articles and blog posts by Greenstein which exhibited his aversion to Hamas and its politics, asserting that there is a distinction between support for an organisation itself and principled support for resistance against oppression.
Over the course of the trial, the jury was sent out at least four times by the judge, each time the defence tried to present evidence that ran contrary to the prosecution narrative. This included the evidence of Greenstein’s many critiques of Hamas over the years, as well as the defence questioning why Greenstein’s police interview transcript was so heavily redacted. The jury was also sent out whenever Greenstein attempted to provide political context for his statements. Judge Sarah Plaschkes was apparently unable to see the irony in claiming this trial shouldn’t be treated as a ‘political forum’ and that the jury shouldn’t be ‘concerned with events in the Middle East’. This attempt to divorce the political context from the actions on trial is a recurring feature in the trials of pro-Palestine activists.
FRFI stands in solidarity with Tony Greenstein and our comrades attended the court protest on the first day of his trial. We stand with all political activists charged with spurious terror offences due to their support of Palestine and its resistance against genocide and imperialism. We must continue to fight for the scrapping of the Terrorism Act. This legislation is actively utilised by the state to prevent people from showing solidarity with those resisting imperialism and to stifle meaningful discussion of serious international political issues.
Our comrade Sarah Cotte, of the SOAS 2, faces a retrial at the Old Bailey Central Criminal Court on 14 September for similar ridiculous charges under Section 12 of the TA. In her first trial in June, Sarah made no concessions to the state’s attempt to criminalise solidarity with the Palestinian struggle, and stood firm on the right of an oppressed people under attack to resist by armed struggle. On the same day, and at the same court, members of the Filton 25 will also have a hearing determining whether they face too face a retrial. Both the resounding Not Guilty verdict in Tony Greenstein’s case and the ‘hung juries’ which could not agree in the SOAS 2 or Filton 25 cases show that the state is finding it impossible to convince the ordinary people who make up juries that solidarity with Palestine is a crime. As Greenstein told his jury in the closing speech he chose to make in person, rather than via his barrister: ‘That is why successive governments have slowly whittled away at the right to trial by jury.’ Organising the fightback against political repression is more critical than ever before.
JS Gupta
