Jailed for protest: a political prisoner speaks from the English Gulag
JVL Introduction
This is a blog about his incarceration in prison by Roger Hallam, co-founder of Extinction Rebellion. He was given a five-year prison sentence for “conspiracy to cause a public nuisance” after speaking at a planning meeting to gain public attention for looming climate catastrophes by occupying the gantries over the M25. A Sun journalist had infiltrated the session and sent a recording to the police.
We publish it after a weekend when the Metropolitan Police (which a recent report found to be institutionally racist, misogynist and homophobic ), deliberately ensured the arrest and potential imprisonment of protesters against Israeli genocide and then concocted a story that has been backed by the government and media.
Roger Hallam is one of 34 political prisoners held in UK Jails for non-violently attempting to mobilise an interruption to increasing global climate catastrophes or to limit genocide by direct action against companies supplying weapons to Israel.
These issues are connected. The war on Gaza lays waste to the environment. It pumps the amount of greenhouse gasses into the air equivalent to the combined annual output of many small countries and this will be multiplied by the embodied emissions in concrete if reconstruction starts.
Here he blogs the appalling conditions in which all inmates of UK prisons, including non-violent protesters, are kept. Our dysfunctional, brutal prison system is a blot on successive governments. The present Labour government has nothing to say about the most privatised prison system in Europe involving companies whose shareholders have an interest in increased crime. In living with our toxic atmosphere, Hallam suggests, provocatively that we are all inhabiting a prison, a vast gas chamber, threatening life on earth.
TB
This article was originally published by Blog post on Sun 29 Dec 2024. Read the original here.
The English Gulag
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The case seems to be simple in that a meeting took place in which the convicted,Roger Hallam, spoke about disrupting traffic by speaking at a planning meeting to occupy gantries over the M25:
“This is a blog about his incarceration in prison by Roger Hallam, co-founder of Extinction Rebellion. He was given a five-year prison sentence for “conspiracy to cause a public nuisance” after speaking at a planning meeting to gain public attention for looming climate catastrophes by occupying the gantries over the M25.2
If the Meeting took place and the convicted did indeed speak of plans to occupy the gantries, Which I am sure evidence will have shown then he is indeed guilty of conspiricy. Meetings take some planning( conspiricy) and the meeting was to plan( again conspiricy) to cause a public nuciance by disrupting traffic on a very busy Motorway. Public nuciance is not merely playing Knock-a-Door -Run or pulling faces at people in the street. It involves much more disruptive behaviour. and possibly endangerment of life.
In UK law, a public nuisance is an act that causes serious harm to the public, or obstructs the public’s rights. It can also involve environmental danger, offensive behavior, or loss of amenity.
What is a public nuisance?
A public nuisance can be caused by an act that endangers the public’s health, life, property, morals, or comfort
It can also be caused by an act that prevents the public from exercising their rights
A public nuisance can be caused by an act that creates a risk of serious harm to the public
What are some examples of public nuisance? Disrupting a major event with a large number of spectators, Stopping an airport from functioning, Creating environmental danger, and Causing offensive public behavior.
What law covers public nuisance?
The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 replaced the common law offense of public nuisance with a new statutory offense
(capped at the 300 word limit)
“A Sun journalist had infiltrated the session and sent a recording to the police.
We publish it “. Great but where? I can’t find it.
It’s shocking beyond measure. This is the penalty for speaking out of turn and note the role of the Scum in this. The British press acts as informers for the Police. And then they call it a free press.
Please join the pickets of the Royal Courts of Justice on 29 and 30 January
This will happen more and more. Those who oppose the state will get targeted and crushed. If this happened in Russia or China it would be all over the news. This is what they do. Roger Hallam is suffering but he is largely right.
Thanks for publishing. That is a very powerful read
Brave person.
We need to defend Roger Hallam but use of the term “Gulag” is ridiculous and betrays a wilful ignorance of that the Gulag was in the former Soviet Union, particularly during the Stalinist period,