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UK Lawyers Report Roger Waters to Counterterrorism Police for Supporting Palestine Action Terrorist Group
Former Pink Floyd bassist and cofounder Roger Waters on stage in Italy. Photo: Reuters/Mirko Fava
An organization of lawyers who support Israel in the United Kingdom has reported former Pink Floyd bassist and cofounder Roger Waters to counterterrorism police in the UK for expressing support for the newly proscribed terrorist group Palestine Action, it was announced on Sunday.
The ban against Palestine Action went into effect on Saturday, after a judge denied a request to delay the UK government from proscribing it as a terror group. Palestine Action uses direct action, mainly targeting Israeli arms companies since the start of the Israel-Hamas war. Under the UK’s Terrorism Act 2000, being a member of or expressing support for the group is now a criminal offense that could lead to up to 14 years in prison.
On Saturday night, Waters, 81, posted a video on social media of himself saying he supports Palestine Action “and I always will because that is the right thing to do.” He claimed Palestine Action is a “great organization” that is non-violent in any way, and also displayed a handwritten sign that accused the UK Parliament of being “corrupted by agents of a genocidal foreign power.”
Waters has been a longtime critic of Israel and supporter of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement. He has also defended the US-designated terrorist organization Hamas for orchestrating the deadly massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) has alleged that Waters is in breach of the Terrorism Act 2000 for expressing support for Palestine Action on Saturday. The pro-Israel organization noted that even if the musician was outside the UK when he posted the video, rules of the Terrorist Act still apply to him as a British citizen in accordance with section 17 of the Terrorism Act 2006.
“Palestine Action have been anything but a non-violent organization, using sledgehammers to smash windows and machinery, and causing millions of pounds of damage over the past few years in order to intimidate the public and certain companies, and to advance their own ideological cause,” UKLFI Director Caroline Turner said in a released statement. “Their activities fell squarely within the definition of Terrorism under the Act. We hope that the police will act in this case and investigate [Waters’] ill-judged words and actions.”
The UK government moved to ban Palestine Action after the group claimed responsibility for an estimated £7 million ($8.2 million) worth of damage that was caused to planes last month at the Royal Air Force Brize Norton air station in Oxfordshire. British Home Secretary Yvette Cooper announced the move to proscribe Palestine Action after the incident and called damage to two military aircrafts “disgraceful.” Cooper claimed Palestine Action had a “long history of unacceptable criminal damage.”
On Saturday, Metropolitan Police arrested 29 people for protesting in London’s Parliament Square in support of the banned group. Police said the arrested individuals were being held on suspicion of criminal offenses under the Terrorism Act 2000, according to the BBC.
Palestine Action is reportedly the first direct action protest group to be banned under the Terrorism Act. Other organizations banned in the UK include al Qaeda, Islamic State (ISIS), Hezbollah and the far-right group National Action. Palestine Action cofounder Huda Ammori will seek permission for a judicial review to call off the ban during a hearing scheduled for July 21.
The post UK Lawyers Report Roger Waters to Counterterrorism Police for Supporting Palestine Action Terrorist Group first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Iran Says Eight Arrested for Suspected Links to Israel’s Mossad Spy Agency
The Mossad recruitment ad. Photo: Screenshot.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Saturday they had arrested eight people suspected of trying to transmit the coordinates of sensitive sites and details about senior military figures to Israel’s Mossad, Iranian state media reported.
They are accused of having provided the information to the Mossad spy agency during Israel’s air war on Iran in June, when it attacked Iranian nuclear facilities and killed top military commanders as well as civilians in the worst blow to the Islamic Republic since the 1980s war with Iraq.
Iran retaliated with barrages of missiles on Israeli military sites, infrastructure and cities. The United States entered the war on June 22 with strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.
A Guards statement alleged that the suspects had received specialized training from Mossad via online platforms. It said they were apprehended in northeastern Iran before carrying out their plans, and that materials for making launchers, bombs, explosives and booby traps had been seized.
State media reported earlier this month that Iranian police had arrested as many as 21,000 “suspects” during the 12-day war with Israel, though they did not say what these people had been suspected of doing.
Security forces conducted a campaign of widespread arrests and also stepped up their street presence during the brief war that ended in a US-brokered ceasefire.
Iran has executed at least eight people in recent months, including nuclear scientist Rouzbeh Vadi, hanged on August 9 for passing information to Israel about another scientist killed in Israeli airstrikes.
Human rights groups say Iran uses espionage charges and fast-tracked executions as tools for broader political repression.
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Body of Idan Shtivi, Murdered on Oct. 7, Retrieved from Gaza in Special IDF Operation
Idan Shtivi. Photo: Courtesy of the family
i24 News – The body of Idan Shtivi, a 28-year-old murdered by Palestinian jihadists at the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023, was recovered in a joint operation by the IDF and Shin Bet in central Gaza, it was cleared for publication on Saturday.
Shtivi’s remains were returned to Israel alongside the body of Ilan Weiss, another hostage killed during the October 7 massacre.
“Idan Shtivi was abducted from the Tel Gama area and brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists after acting to rescue and evacuate others from the Nova music festival on October 7th, 2023. He was 28 years old at the time of his death,” read an IDF press release.
“Following an identification process conducted at the National Center for Forensic Medicine, along with the Israel Police and the Military Rabbinate, the Hostages and Missing Persons Headquarters notified his family.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Shviti “was a gifted student of sustainability and governance, and a courageous individual” who acted heroically on October 7, helping others flee.
“He was killed in the process and his body was abducted to Gaza by Hamas. My wife and I send our heartfelt condolences to the Shtivi family. So far, 207 hostages have been returned, 148 of them alive. We will continue to act tirelessly and decisively to bring back all our hostages—living and deceased.”
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Woman Stabbed at Ottawa Grocery Store in Latest Antisemitic Attack
A social media post by the alleged attacker, Joseph Rooke of Cornwall, Ontario. Photo: Screenshot via i24
i24 News – The stabbing of a Jewish woman at an Ottawa grocery by a man with a long history of antisemitic posts on social media, the latest antisemitic hate crime in Canada, sparked outrage and prompted condemnation from officials including the prime minister.
Both the victim and the attacker are in their 70s. The woman is reportedly in serious condition.
The suspect was identified as Joseph Rooke, who has authored a series of lengthy rambling screeds on social media, ranting against Israel and Jews.
“Judaism is the world’s oldest cult,” he writes in one post, going on to say “over time jews have become insidious in governments, businesses, media conglomerates, and educational institutions in order to do what they do better than anyone else. Jews are the world’s masters of propaganda, gaslighting, demonization, demagoguery, and outright lying. Using their collective wealth they have become masters of reprisal.”
“I am under no obligation whatsoever, legal, moral, or otherwise, to like jews and I do not. If that means I meet the jewish definition of an anti-semite, so be it.”
Canada has seen a steep spike in antisemitic attacks over the past two years, including a recent incident in Montreal where a Hasidic Jew was beaten in front on his children.
After Prime Minister Mark Carney condemned the incident, many, including former Israel’s ambassador the US Michael Oren, pointed out that Carney’s rhetoric and policies contribute to the increasing insecurity of Canada’s Jewish community through uncritical embrace of outrageous and easily disprovable allegations that Israel and its supporters were guilty of the worst crimes against humanity.