Why The Jury Were Right To Acquit Palestine Action
Even before the trial began, the British government had done its utmost to prejudice the proceedings against six Palestine Action activists.
It declared that they belonged to a terrorist organisation and that they were engaged in a terrorist enterprise in breaking into an Israeli weapons factory in Filton, Bristol – one, British officials avoided mentioning, that makes drones used to kill children in Gaza.
In the months before the trial, the home secretary of the time, Yvette Cooper, explicitly said her decision to proscribe Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation was, in part, based on the events that had unfolded at the Filton factory.