Mass arrests provoke further outrage
JVL Introduction
Author, journalist and researcher Anne Alexander writes on her arrest at the Defend our Juries demonstration on 9 August and the state of authoritarian repression in the UK.
She writes:
“On one placard I wrote ‘UCU opposes genocide and condemns the proscription of Palestine Action’ at just before 1pm. My other placard said ‘Stop arming Israel. I support Palestine Action’s campaign against proscription.’
“Less than an hour later, I was sitting in a police van on the side of the square, under arrest for an alleged breach of the Terrorism Act by apparently showing ‘support’ for a proscribed organisation. In fact, I was showing support for my own trade union’s national policy, and for efforts by a proscribed organisation to reverse proscription.
Her arrest is, obviously, not about “terrorism”.
This government is trying to create a state of perpetual anxiety about whether citizens have crossed an imaginary ‘red line’ into criminality or not.
We have to stand firm against it.
This post is a useful complement to one we posted earlier, Why has the destruction of Gaza been allowed?
RK
This article was originally published by Verso Blogs on Fri 15 Aug 2025. Read the original here.
Mass arrests will only fuel the campaign of defiance against genocide and repression
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Since the Verso blog doesn’t seem to have comments enabled, I’ll say this here.
Anne Alexander writes:
“On one placard I wrote ‘UCU opposes genocide and condemns the proscription of Palestine Action’ … My other placard said ‘Stop arming Israel. I support Palestine Action’s campaign against proscription.’ … I was showing support for my own trade union’s national policy, and for efforts by a proscribed organisation to reverse proscription.”
She was wrongfully arrested. Section 10 of the Terrorism Act 2000 states that anything done “in relation to” an application for deproscription “shall not be admissible as evidence in proceedings for an offence under any of sections 11 to 13, 15 to 19 and 56”. (The ‘expressing/showing support’ offences are in sections 12 and 13.)
“I support the deproscription of Palestine Action. Under the terms of section 10 of the Terrorism Act 2000 this is not evidence of support for a proscribed organisation.” – bit unwieldy for a placard, perhaps, but it would cover the bases.
There is nothing more dangerous to the people of a democratic nation than a government that cynically abuses accepted language by re-defining it for their own political ends. First, we had the illogical extension of the concept of anti-semitism to include criticism of a state’s violent behaviour, not a people or race, in order to silence alternative voices. Now we have the term ‘terrorism’ dangerously applied to peaceful protest. Political integrity vanishes when governments abuse normally accepted meanings for authoritarian gain.