warned<\/a> was a misuse of counter-terrorism powers.<\/p>\n\u2018Deep flaws\u2019<\/p>\n
Defendants and supporters said they feared the earlier decision had set a dangerous precedent. <\/p>\n
If a terrorism connection was applied in their case, they could have faced lengthy prison sentences and treatment as terrorists for decades following their release.<\/p>\n
But after the ruling which followed a two-hour hearing, the five activists celebrated with around 200 supporters who beat drums and carryied placards outside. Trucks, buses and cars passed by, honking support.<\/p>\n
Addressing the crowd, Atiqnisar said that, while she was relieved by the ruling, she had not sought victory in the courtroom.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are not victorious in the court rooms of a state that is protecting and sustaining the most monstrous entity in modern history and its biggest weapons supplier,\u201d she told the crowd.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are victorious when we silence the drones before they occupy the skies of Gaza and before they turn Palestinian men, women and children into pieces.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ruth Ehrlich, director of external relations at rights group Liberty, welcomed the news, but said the fact that \u201ca terror connection could even be considered highlights deep flaws in the UK\u2019s laws\u201d.<\/p>\n
She said the consideration alone is likely to have a chilling effect on people\u2019s willingness to exercise their right to protest and stand up for what they believe in.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat makes this case all the more shocking is that the jury and defendants were unaware that the terrorism connection could be applied after the verdict had been reached,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
She called for an urgent update to the current definition of terrorism \u201cto enable current and future governments to uphold their duty to safeguard the public, whilst protecting people\u2019s rights and preventing overreach\u201d.<\/p>\n
The five are scheduled to be sentenced on 4 September.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Judge rules that damage caused during protest at bank branch not enough to merit terrorism sentencing Five activists…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":108741,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[21264],"tags":[3343,141,9918,30,32,5958],"class_list":["post-108740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-barclays","tag-barclays","tag-courts","tag-elbit-systems","tag-israel","tag-palestine","tag-palestine-action"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@UnitedKingdom\/117138877483612691","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108740\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}