Yesterday the Resistance Kitchen marked 53 days that 10 courageous souls – 6 women and 4 men, the #Filton10, have been unjustly imprisoned by the state. They are accused of trying to stop genocide by smashing Israel’s Elbit arms research and production facility in Filton, Bristol. Elbit openly boasts of its central role in the genocide of Gaza, they supply 85% of the weapons used in the slaughter. The drones the #Filton10 are seen smashing on video are verified as one of the very same models used in the commission of genocide in Gaza.
The UK as a signatory to the Genocide Convention has legal obligations. Article 1 of the convention legally obliges the UK to “confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and to punish.” Instead of shutting Elbit down to “prevent” genocide and “punish” its members by arresting and prosecuting them for the “crime” of genocide, the British state is instead protecting Elbit, collaborating in the crime of genocide.
When ordinary people – the #Filton10, at great personal sacrifice, are forced by their conscience to act to try to stop genocide, by shutting Elbit down, they are brutally arrested and accused of being terrorists! Held under anti-terror powers, they are caged in solitary confinement, interrogated for a week without charge, without allowing them to contact their families.
Knowing no jury will accept the #Filton10 are terrorists, the state drops the formal terrorism charges, but still treats then as terrorist! So they are denied bail, and imprisoned under remanded for 15 months without being found guilty of any crime. In prison they are treated as terrorists with their basic rights as prisoners severely restricted.
When their trial finally comes in 15 months, there is every indication (judging from similar trials happening right now) that they will be denied any defence. They will not be allowed to explain to the jury why they did what they did, and the jury will be instructed by the judge that there is no defence for their actions – they must find them guilty!
If the jury obeys the judge’s orders and finds them guilty, then they will be handed disproportionately harsh sentences to deter future conscientious protestors, as we witnessed on Friday when two young women, Just Stop Oil eco-activists, were given two years and 20 months sentences for their protest of just throwing soup on the thick protective glass covering a van Gogh painting which was not, and could not have been, damaged. This is what goes for justice in Britain today.
