The posters’ depiction of Hamas paragliders supposedly indicated the women supported the group - a crime in the UK
Two British women have been charged with terrorism offenses for carrying posters showing Hamas militants paragliding at a pro-Palestine demonstration, the Crown Prosecution Service announced on Friday.
“Heba Alhayey, 29, and Pauline Ankunda, 26, have been charged with single counts of carrying or displaying an article, namely an image displaying a paraglider, to arouse reasonable suspicion that they are supporters of a proscribed organization, namely Hamas,” the prosecutor stated, describing the actions as violations of Britain’s Terrorism Act 2000.
Both women could face up to six months’ prison time for bringing the posters to the protest, which took place in central London last month.
Pro-Palestine demonstrations spearheaded by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign have drawn thousands into the streets of London since Israel’s declaration of war on Hamas.
Protesters continued to wave Palestinian flags and chant lines like “from the river to the sea” despite a warning from Home Secretary Suella Braverman that both could potentially constitute criminal offenses.
They're trying to scare off ppl from protesting.. These are our so-called democracies every lib loves so much. In school I once learned protesting was one of our most important rights under democracies. Whatever happened to that o.O
Meanwhile incredible activists around me are losing their jobs for standing up to genocide. Hearing abt these cases just makes me wanna raise my voice even further.
Tho I wouldn't know what I'd do if I literally lost all my job opportunities. Literally only cuz I stood up against the cowardly slaughter of babies. At least I did the right thing then.
You can protest as long as it support the Western narrative. Anything other than that will be labeled illegal or terrorist or something like that.
Over here in Belgium a new law is proposed that will make it illegal for everyone that has ever been labeled a 'threat' of some sort at previous protests. The law is so vague that people like several of my Union leaders, who have been convicted of bullshit charges, will not be able to protest ever again. They were arrested while fighting for better labor laws.
Meanwhile we have actually Nazis going around calling for violence in their speeches, but the are somehow not the target for this law.
..my condolences. I didn't know shit was hitting the fan like this in Belgium. This sounds so fckn illegal fr. Was that in response to the actions of the harbor unions?
In Austria the terrorism threat has been hightened; that's all I know abt. Like there's gonna be more soldiers stationed at the parliament and whatnot. Oh and it's illegal to cover your face significantly for a few years now. So at unauthorized demonstrations what might happen is police reminding ppl it's illegal to cover ones face and once the demonstrators are kettled, they might get an additional fine to the normal one. Tho if every protestor would object, any lawsuit would prolly be retracted; that is if enough ppl r affected.
They want to implement the law to tackle 'people rioting or doing other harmful activities' or some bullshit like that. But the definitions are so vague that someone blocking a road during a strike can also be arrested an trialed. So it basically limits the actions you can take while protesting or striking. And even then, someone who has been arrested during a protest or strikes loses their rights to do it in the future, regelardless of their motive. You'd effectively strip people of the right to stand up for themselves.
Now they are crumbling and the new enemies rises, so they are cracking down on even such ridiculous crap as this, paradoxally accelerating the entire process.