Thunberg’s arrest for supporting Palestine Action prisoners is a mistake because it will not result in a successful prosecution, the reasons for which I discuss below.
Greta Thunberg has been arrested as you might know for supporting the Palestine Action hunger strikers at a demonstration. In short she is supporting the prisoners and she was holding a sign that read: “I support the Palestine Action prisoners. I oppose genocide.”
Clearly, Thunberg is supporting the welfare of these prisoners. That is her concern because they are on a hunger strike and potentially dying. Although some of them have decided to end their strike and are now being treated in hospital.
When police arrest someone like Thunberg in a protest like this it does not mean that Thunberg is guilty of a crime. The police often get it wrong. We know that Palestine Action is a prescribed organisation under the Terrorism Act 2000. But Thunberg is not supporting the organisation per se.
The often stupid police decided to arrest her but they know that what they’ve done is very uncertain and quite possibly wrong. I would strongly argue that it is wrong and that she will be released once the police have received advice from the CPS.
She will be released without charge after review i.e. after police have received CPS advice or the charge will be dropped before trial or she will be acquitted should there be a jury trial.
Thunberg is very popular with the majority of the population in Britain in my view and her intentions are very genuine. So if it went to a jury trial the jury would in my view a acquit her.
It is not a crime to the best of my knowledge to support prisoners who are in prison because they publicly supported Palestine Action. It might be a crime by association. The argument being that if you support supporters who are part of a proscribed organisation you impliedly support the organisation itself.
In this instance these brave people are on hunger strike and risking their lives. To support them on the basis of their welfare is a different matter.
The CPS have to decide if there is a realistic prospect of conviction and if a conviction is in the public interest. Is a conviction be proportioned and justified? These tests are strained in this instance.
To convict her the CPS would have to persuade a jury that her conduct amounted to support for a prescribed organisation not just concern for people in custody. Further, there would have to prove that she was capable of encouraging others to support an organisation and that she intended or was reckless as to their encouragement.
The defence will simply have to create reasonable doubt that she should be convicted. The onus, as usual, is on the prosecution to defeat that criteria.
In my view it is going to be very hard to prove their case beyond reasonable doubt. The prisoners have been a hunger strike for over 40 days and in one instance 52 days at the time of dictating this. These brave individuals are risking their lives as mentioned. To be concerned about their welfare is entirely normal, natural and admirable. You don’t have to support Palestine Action to have those sympathies.
It is my view that the jury would think along these lines and also have sympathies for the hunger strike protesters/prisoners.
The police often conflate symbolic speech with operational support. Courts do not always accept that conflation.
Historically, many protest-related arrests under terrorism or public order powers do not result in charges. Sometimes the trial collapses because the legal threshold has not been met.
I have to express my admiration for Greta Thunberg once again. She takes risks to make a point. She is brave and for me an impressive woman of 22 years of age. And I am sure her placard was very carefully worded to avoid a charge! She knows what she is doing.
She demonstrated outside the central London offices of Aspen Insurance which the group Prisoners for Palestine claims provide services to the Israeli-linked defence firm Elbit Systems. The hunger strike prisoners invaded Elbit Systems and sprayed red paint on aircraft as I recall causing criminal damage which resulted in their conviction and incarceration.
In the protest outside this insurance business, two activists are believed to have used fire extinguishers to cover the front of the building with red paint before gluing themselves in place. It’s reported in The Times that Thunberg was sitting cross-neck outside plastic fencing apparently in support of the protesters with the handwritten placard.
P.S. She’ll get off and her case will be a focus for the battle for freedom of speech in the UK which has been curtailed by this failed government. The Palestine Action protests in general are about freedom of speech. This Labour government has become autocratic. There is something wrong with Starmer. I think he is terrified and he is behaving like a dictator to curb freedom of speech. We have not seen such violations of human rights in the country for many years.
