On 12 June, the four Palestine Action activists known as ‘the Filton 4’ – Charlotte Head, 29; Samuel Corner, 23; Leona Kamio, 30; and Fatema Rajwani, 21 – were told by Judge Mr Justice Johnson they would be sentenced as having a ‘terrorist connection’ following convictions for criminal damage arising out of their involvement in direct action at the Elbit Systems factory in Filton, near Bristol.
In response to the judge’s announcement, Kerry Moscogiuri, Amnesty International UK’s Chief Executive, said:
“The defendants in this case were sentenced as terrorists because prosecutors want to make an example of them and set a precedent for how direct action protesters could be treated in the future.
“Criminal damage has never been treated as terrorism within the UK justice system before and it is dangerous to treat them as the same thing. We should all be worried about what this means for other individuals taking direct action in protest of a genocide or any other issue.
“The right to protest is one of the most effective tools we have to hold our leaders to account and today is another step in the ongoing crackdown in this country against it.
