August 4, 2025
Four days ago, in a footnote to Palestine Action set to challenge UK ban, I noted that Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori …
… had won her high court bid for leave to appeal the UK home secretary’s unprecedented listing of a non violent direct action group as a terrorist organisation, making membership punishable by up to fourteen years in prison, and public expressions of support also jailable under Sections 12 and 13 of the Terrorism Act 2004.
Given the implications for other groups, including environmental direct activists, the precedent being set has sounded alarm bells beyond pro-Palestinian circles. Indeed, the August 9 action is organised not by any such group but by Defend Our Juries.
What I hadn’t realised is that Huda’s lawyer had further asked for a suspension of the ban – interim relief – pending the outcome in September of her appeal. After repeatedly ignoring the request, he denied it.
Enter Craig Murray. You may recall he was Britain’s Ambassador for Uzbekistan until Blair fired him for going public with the fact its leader was a nepotistic kleptocrat who boiled political opponents alive. This irked Teflon Tone since the crook in question, the late and unlamented Islam Karimov, was permitting the Coalition of the Willing to use his fiefdom’s former Soviet air bases to launch bombing raids on Iraq.
You may further recall Craig’s six month stint as a guest of HM the Q, after his conviction for the “jigsaw” identification of protected witnesses in the witch hunt collapsed trial of Scotland’s former SNP leader/First Minister, Alex Salmond. Or my posting his court reports at the Julian Assange appeals against his extradition to the USA. These were rather good, splicing from-the-trenches titbits with an overarching take on a British establishment well versed, on matters of non negotiable importance to class rule and empire, in suspending the much vaunted principle of the separation of powers – in this case of executive from judiciary.
Well guess what. Craig was in court for the Huda Ammori/Palestine Action hearing. Here are a few early highlights from his first hand account.
Judge Chamberlain breezed in and went immediately into a summary of his judgment. In this extraordinary abuse of process, the security services are allowed to bring alleged “intelligence” material into proceedings, which Huda Ammori and Palestine Action are not permitted to see. Nor are their lawyers allowed to have any idea what allegations have been made.
Instead a court-appointed “Special Advocate” is supposed to represent their interests, without being allowed to tell them what the accusations are. Nor can they tell the special advocate what points to make, as in “we absolutely have no foreign funding and have never had any contact with any foreign intelligence agencies”.
Nobody is ever allowed to know what a “Special Advocate” actually does or says in the closed session, nor what the government lawyers or those giving evidence on behalf of the security services do or say …
… I have never seen anybody quite as self-satisfied as Chamberlain; he radiates assurance. It is worse than smug: there is a palpable gloat about him …
… Chamberlain then suggested to Raza Husain, lead KC for Huda Ammori, that he suspected he would wish to seek interim relief and expedition of the case. Raza Husain stood and said the claimant wished to request interim relief, which would suspend the proscription pending the judicial review.
Chamberlain did not answer … Raza Husain then tried again, but …
… Raza Husain then stood and said again that the claimant wished to renew the application for interim relief – with great patience and as though he had not said it four times already.
Chamberlain said he had expected this, as though it were the most tiresome thing in the world. He then ignored Raza …
… Raza Husain noted this and then said the claimant wished to apply for interim relief. Chamberlain was somewhere else …
Since the first request for interim relief a fortnight ago, over 1,000 more Palestinians had been killed in Gaza. 80 children had been starved to death. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, had made a detailed statement criticising the proscription of Palestine Action and specifically asking for it to be revoked.
Chamberlain asked what precisely he was seeking in law. Raza Husain replied it was a stay of Article 2 of the Order, the proscription of Palestine Action.
Chamberlain said that his previous judgment against an interim stay had already accepted there was a serious issue to be heard, on the effect upon freedom of speech. But that was insufficient reason for a stay …
Read Craig Murry’s report in full …
* * *
Firstly, this part of Murray’s report also draws attention:
Secondly, Liverpool Pensioner Audrey White has just issued a statement about her treatment and bail conditions……
https://skwawkbox.org/2025/08/04/a-statement-from-audrey-white-on-her-arrest-and-bail-for-pro-palestine-protest/
…….which are extraordinary.
What seems to be becoming problematic here is that a significant amount of energy, time and resources is, by external force of necessity, having to be focussed away from the main issue of the Genocide and the support of the Corporate/Oligarchic State for that Genocide towards simply defending and protecting the right to actually challenge what is going on.
Playing Devil’s advocate the thinking of the Establishment may well be to neutralise the protests by arresting as many as possible, setting Draconian bail conditions, and permanently extending the date of the trials citing pressures on the system. Effectively turning protestors own homes into prisons via the bail conditions.
It seems reasonable to ask those who have organised this particular protest this coming Saturday what strategies are being considered to counter this very obvious lawfare approach?
At present the only thought that does occur is, putting it bluntly, to put as many Boomers/retirees on the front line as possible who are prepared to refuse such bail conditions and insist on being placed in HM custody on full board and lodgings until trial to fill the gaols up rather than being picked off piecemeal in this way.
Kafkaesque is right. Or Catch-22? Audrey may not leave the home she may not live in!
Meanwhile, coming back to matters Lawfare, Monty Python finally meets Franz Kafka:
https://skwawkbox.org/2025/08/05/jewish-anti-zionist-weinstein-to-be-charged-with-incitement-to-join-a-protest/
“Jewish anti-genocide activist Sam Weinstein is to be charged tomorrow at Westminster Magistrates’ Court with “incitement to join a protest outside the BBC in January….”
Coming soon to a “democracy” near you:
– Incitement to go shopping
– Incitement to visit the doctors
– Incitement to avoid buying Israeli produce
– Incitement to criticise mass murder
– Incitement to offend Zionism
– Incitement to holding a different opinion other than the Officially Approved Opinion.
– Incitement to contradict The Official Narrative
– Incitement to contribute to Palestinian charities
– Incitement to not be a Zionist
– Incitement to being a ‘useless eater’
– Incitement to waving a proscribed flag
– Incitement to dissin’ the Chosen People
– Incitement to not being Kosher
– Incitement to being a Goyim
– Incitement to being Amalek
– Incitement to being a Gooner
– Incitement to not being a Genocidal Maniac
– Incitement to agreeing with Norman Finkelstein
– Incitement to not belonging to Friends of Israel
– Incitement to using the wrong pronoun
Additional charge of ‘aggravated by terrorism’ in each case.