A prominent human rights lawyer in the United Kingdom has been charged with criminal contempt for his closing speech in the trial of his client, Charlotte “Lottie” Head, one of four Palestine Action activists who were sentenced as terrorists over their involvement in a 2024 protest and raid on an Israeli weapons factory. Their sentencing marked the first time a British judge issued terrorism…
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U.K. Labour Party leader Keir Starmer announced his resignation on Monday, after just 23 months as prime minister and a rapid decline in popularity. Under Starmer’s leadership, the Labour Party suffered repeated and record defeats in local elections to the right-wing Reform Party. Starmer’s rapid unpopularity rested on his austerity policies and, among the left, his repression of Palestine…
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UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is expected to announce as soon as Monday that he will resign, according to new reports, as Labour supporters abandon the party. But many on the left remain skeptical that his likely replacement, Andy Burnham, will truly bring the “change” he promises. Britain’s Observer newspaper reported on Saturday that the prime minister appeared “resigned” to stepping…
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As Justice Jeremy Johnson sentenced her to six years in prison last Friday, Leona Kamio spoke from the dock: “In order to hear the birds, the drones must be silent.” The line was adapted from a passage by Palestinian poet Marwan Makhoul: “In order for me to write poetry that isn’t political, I must listen to the birds. And in order to hear the birds, the warplanes must be silent.
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On Tuesday, a London court convicted four of six Palestine Action activists of criminal damage for their break-in of an Elbit Systems factory in August 2024. The four activists — Samuel Corner, 23, Charlotte Head, 29, Leona Kamio, 30, and Fatema Rajwani, 21 — were found guilty of smashing drones and computers at the Israeli defense firm’s U.K. site in an attempt to shut the factory down.
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The British High Court ruled Friday that the United Kingdom government’s ban on the anti-genocide advocacy group Palestine Action was unlawful, a decision that campaigners cheered as a major victory while also demanding the dismissal of all charges against those arrested and imprisoned for backing the group. The UK-based Stop the War Coalition noted that roughly 3,000…
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