It is legal in U.K. law to support Israel’s genocidal and illegal acts of colonial occupation, but illegal in U.K. law to support Palestine’s legal acts of armed resistance to colonial and racist occupation.
Richie Medhurst on his X feed on Aug. 19, 2024, announcing details of his arrest. (X)
By Craig Murray
CraigMurray.org.uk
We were waiting for Richard Medhurst to arrive and join our panel at the Beautiful Days festival, when he was arrested and imprisoned for 23.5 hours last Thursday. Obviously we were all worried sick about him.
It is now becoming easier to list the truly dissident U.K. journalists who have not been arrested for terrorism than those who have! This fascist ploy of labeling journalists as terrorists is incredible.
Richard’s case is slightly different to that of other journalists including myself, John Laughland, Vanessa Beeley, Johanna Ross, Kit Klarenberg and many more to suffer the same treatment, in that Richard was specifically held under Section 12 of the Terrorism Act — which outlaws support for a proscribed organisation.
Yes, you are reading that right. You can go to jail for 14 years for expressing an opinion in support of a proscribed organisation.
UK v. International Law
We now have an extraordinary conflict between U.K. domestic law and international law.
The International Court of Justice has just last month stated definitively to the U.N. General Assembly that the Israeli occupation is illegal and it is the duty of states not to support it.
“Moreover, the Court considers that, in view of the character and importance of the rights and obligations involved, all States are under an obligation not to recognize as legal the situation arising from the unlawful presence of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. They are also under an obligation not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by Israel’s illegal presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
It is for all States, while respecting the Charter of the United Nations and international law, to ensure that any impediment resulting from the illegal presence of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory to the exercise of the Palestinian people of its right to self-determination is brought to an end. In addition, all the States parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention have the obligation, while respecting the Charter of the United Nations and international law, to ensure compliance by Israel with international humanitarian law as embodied in that Convention.”
Members of the International Court of Justice on July 19, the day they delivered they opinion on the legality of Israeli policies and practices in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem. (ICJ)
Yet it is perfectly legal in U.K. domestic law for Zionists to state that they support the Israeli Defence Force and they hope that the IDF kill every Palestinian in Gaza.
Indeed Zionists state this all the time, supporting an action that is entirely illegal in international law, and no action is ever taken against these Zionists by the U.K. state.
Members of the IDF who have actually participated in the genocide are able to come and live in the U.K. unmolested.
In stark contrast to the illegal acts of the occupying power, the Palestinian people do have the right of armed resistance in international law.
This right is founded on the right of self-determination in the U.N. Charter and is encapsulated in the First Protocol of the Geneva Convention (1977) Article 1 Para 4:
“The situations referred to in the preceding paragraph include armed conflicts in which peoples are fighting against colonial domination and alien occupation and against racist regimes in the exercise of their right of self-determination, as enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations and the Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Co-operation among States in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations.”
Yet under U.K. law it is legal to express support for the completely illegal operations of the IDF (illegal even without considering the question of Genocide!) while it is illegal to express support for completely legal acts of resistance by certain Palestinian groups.
Let me spell this out again.
It is legal in U.K. law to support Israel’s genocidal and illegal acts of colonial occupation, but illegal in U.K. law to support Palestine’s legal acts of armed resistance to colonial and racist occupation.
I was arrested at Heathrow Airport under the Terrorism Act, Sec 12 because of my reporting.
6 police officers were waiting for me at the entrance of the aircraft.
I was held for almost 24 hours and questioned.
I believe I'm the first journalist to be arrested under this… pic.twitter.com/pbf6q5dXIf
— Richard Medhurst (@richimedhurst) August 19, 2024
The Protocol to the Geneva Convention makes clear that those engaged in armed resistance against occupation are both entitled to the same humanitarian protections, and obliged to respect the same humanitarian law, as other combatants.
There is a fascinating twist here from the days when Robin Cook was foreign secretary and I was deputy head of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s Africa Department. In 1998 the First Protocol of the Geneva Convention was incorporated into U.K. law, and the United Kingdom made a very telling reservation.
British law stipulates that the First Protocol’s recognition that a person not wearing uniform may still be a lawful combatant, and entitled to the full protections of the Geneva Convention provided he carries his arms openly, applies it only in occupied territory or when engaged in fighting colonial or racist occupation.
Let us look at that more closely.
Schedule H of the U.K. Geneva Conventions Act (First Protocol) Order 1998 states that
“ARTICLE 44, paragraph 3
It is the understanding of the United Kingdom that:
the situation in the second sentence of paragraph 3 can only exist in occupied territory or in armed conflicts covered by paragraph 4 of Article 1;”
Which means that this provision of the First Protocol:
“Recognizing, however, that there are situations in armed conflicts where, owing to the nature of the hostilities an armed combatant cannot so distinguish himself, he shall retain his status as a combatant, provided that, in such situations, he carries his arms openly:
(a) During each military engagement, and
(b) During such time as he is visible to the adversary while he is engaged in a military deployment preceding the launching of an attack in which he is to participate.
Acts which comply with the requirements of this paragraph shall not be considered as perfidious within the meaning of Article 37, paragraph 1 (c).”
Only applies in U.K. law where:
“The situations referred to in the preceding paragraph include armed conflicts in which peoples are fighting against colonial domination and alien occupation and against racist regimes in the exercise of their right of self-determination, as enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations and the Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Co-operation among States in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations.”
So, and it is absolutely important this is understood, the right to fight against colonial domination and alien occupation and against racist regimes is not only an absolute right in international law, it is also a specific right in U.K. law.
And U.K. law further specifically recognises that when fighting colonial domination, alien occupations and a racist regime you do not have to wear uniform.
Applying this to Oct. 7 means that those armed Palestinian combatants who were not members of a proscribed organisation (see below) were engaged in legal armed struggle in terms of U.K. law, provided they respected international humanitarian law in so doing.
Hamas rocket attack from Gaza into Israel, Oct. 7, 2023. (Tasnim News Agency, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0)
Which makes the recent clarifications that the majority of civilian casualties were killed by the IDF and that the mass rapes and beheaded babies stories were a total fabrication, still more important.
Every colonial or racist power that has ever faced armed resistance has always characterised the native peoples resisting as “terrorists,” “savages” or similar. Asymmetric warfare is by nature unconventional. The systematic and often legalised atrocities of the coloniser will indeed often spark uncontrolled acts of rage that rightly fall outside what international humanitarian law will condone.
So we now have the situation that Richard Medhurst is arrested for allegedly supporting armed resistance that is not only undeniably legal in international law but is also specifically legal in British law.
The source of this conundrum is the extraordinarily arbitrary power of proscribing an organisation.
Now to proscribe an organisation the government does not have to prove its actions were illegal, either under international law or U.K. law. An organisation is proscribed simply on the basis that the government says so.
If the government proscribed the Girl Guides, you could get up to 14 years in jail for expressing support for the Girl Guides, and no amount of argument in court that the Girl Guides is not in fact a terrorist organisation would help you.
Hamas and Hezbollah are acting legally in U.K. law in terms of the Geneva Convention First Protocol Order of 1998, but expressing support for them is nevertheless illegal because the proscription of an organisation is an entirely arbitrary power of the executive.
Nelson Mandela statue outside the Union Buildings in Pretoria. (South African Tourism, Flickr, CC BY 2.0)
When I ran the Foreign and Commonwealth Offices’s South Africa political desk in 1985, it was the firm position of the Thatcher government that the ANC was a terrorist organisation and that Nelson Mandela was rightly and correctly imprisoned as a terrorist.
The notion that governments can fairly and impartially designate “terrorists” is very obviously nuts.
It is important to add that this analysis of the legal position in no way implies that I do, or do not, approve of Hamas or Hezbollah. In general I am not in favour of mixing the state and religion, so I come from a very different place and have my criticisms.
But it is also important not to be scared to state that the proscription of Hamas as a terrorist organisation does not align with the U.K. legal position in the First Protocol Order that specifically recognises the right of an occupied people to armed resistance.
It also causes great confusion. It is, for example, only the military wing of Hamas that is a proscribed organisation. So far as I can tell, it would not be illegal to state that Hamas did a very good job of running Gaza’s schools and hospitals.
But it is very difficult to be sure — the law and its application are arbitrary and not forseeable.
When I stood for election in Blackburn, I had the specific endorsement of the Palestinian Foreign Ministry which had been engaged with the South African delegation in the ICJ Genocide case against Israel at the Hague.
I was then also (unsolicited) offered the endorsement of Hamas. This caused some head-scratching and I consulted an eminent lawyer. He advised that while it would be illegal for me to endorse Hamas, it would not be illegal for Hamas to endorse me.
Particularly so if it came from the political and not the military wing.
I thought this sounded great fun, but perhaps not great enough fun for me to spend several years of my life fighting the case from inside a prison cell. So I did not take up the offer.
Any law which states you can be jailed for 14 years simply for expressing an opinion is a very bad law, no matter what that opinion may be.
To use such arbitrary power to seek to silence those who are opposing a most dreadful genocide, is the action of an over-mighty state led by evil people.
I think it is most important that we are not silenced. Hence this article. Most of my friends are advising me I should travel abroad for a while once again, and I am trying to make up my mind about this. I should be grateful for your views.
The U.K. is plainly not a safe place for political dissidents.
The reason for this galloping authoritarianism is of course panic by the political class that they have lost popular consent, particularly for Zionism in view of the appalling genocide in plain view by the terrorist settler state.
Craig Murray is an author, broadcaster and human rights activist. He was British ambassador to Uzbekistan from August 2002 to October 2004 and rector of the University of Dundee from 2007 to 2010. His coverage is entirely dependent on reader support. Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.
This article is from CraigMurray.org.uk.
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
Great respect to Mr Murray. You have probably seen what the FBI did recently to Scott Ritter.
If you have the freedom to move to a geography, clear of UK jurisdiction then you may have more peace of mind while continuing your very admirable work, helping the Western world to wake up. Every time you publish on CN, I, surely as many, read with pleasure. Keep up the good work and alas possibly the head low. Intricate balance – thank you for your courage , stay strong and low.
“I should travel abroad for a while once again”
Yes you probably should if you can, considering those you’re challenging have either been driven insane with power, been irrevocably blackmailed into obedience or are simply all too aware that they too can be readily disposed of, should they not support the eradication of any and all opposing viewpoints against certain agenda-driven policies by any means necessary.
We all saw the Veritas footage about getting rid of UK MP’s that don’t tow lines.
For your own safety you should assume the ones we have left are incredibly compromised and prepared to do whatever it takes to rid themselves of anyone they deem a threat to their plans.
Remember when nobody believed there could be such a thing as ‘organised’ crime? When people scoffed at the notion of the Mafia?
We live in similar times now IMO, only where one was about crime families, the other is about elitist entities that have, over the course of time, gained far too much power.
TPTB will do whatever they choose to do to make sure people remain ignorant if it suits them. And right now it appears to very much suit their needs so any dissident voices should heed their instincts IMHO.
For a decent reference to elitist entities, I suggest watching an old clip involving Lord James of Blackheath and his short speech on Foundation X in the UK House of Lords. Foundation X were offering to buy up Britains entire debt.
May you live long and prosper, Mr. Murray!
The correct expression is to TOE the line, as in your toes being on a line in the sand. Why do so many people get this wrong?
Got it! So this is what a “rules based” neocon unipolar world looks like in practice.
Here in Unistat, Inc. we’re about to have a presidential election, plus part of the Senate and all of the House of Reps. AIPAC is a huge sponsor for most of them. Will the Republicans, dominated by neocons since Bush II and VP Dick Cheney, return? Or will the Democrats retain the presidency? If so, will the D admin keep the Cheney trained neocons running the Biden Dept. of State?
Does anyone really believe any changes will be anything more than superficial?
…This Mr. Murray contributor thanking Mr. Murray yet again; basic advice is to give and / or take (“Waiting for Godot”) no one’s advice…from specific case elucidated, we all view reasons.
Please do peruse contradictions inherent, with regard Harris attempt to (HW Bush) reprise “thousand points of light” total avoidance of
continuation of abominable biden neocon war crimes;
…thanking Mr. Murray yet again; basic advice is to give and / or take (“Waiting for Godot”) no one’s advice…from specific case elucidated, we all view reasons.
Please do peruse contradictions inherent, with regard Harris attempt to (HW Bush) reprise “thousand points of light” total avoidance of
continuation of abominable biden neocon war crimes;
……………….
“Biden Approved Secret Nuclear Strategy Refocusing on Chinese Threat
In a classified document approved in March, the president ordered U.S. forces to prepare for possible coordinated nuclear confrontations with Russia, China and North Korea.
The White House never announced that Mr. Biden had approved the revised strategy, called the “Nuclear Employment Guidance,” which also seeks, for the first time, to prepare the United States for possible coordinated nuclear challenges from China, Russia and North Korea. The document, updated every four years or so, is so highly classified that there are no electronic copies, only a small number of hard copies distributed to a few national security officials and Pentagon commanders”
By David E. Sanger (NYT)
We supporters of Mr. Murray applaud him…
“The West” is a system for men, not laws.
Dear Craig Murray, should you care to come to Portugal, I would be honored to meet you. CN can share my email with you, or you can find it amongst your Substack subscribers.
All in keeping with the current Western Orwellian form of democracy, along, on the international front, with the international rules based orders (our rules, our orders).
So the mask slips even further and the real nature of Western democracy is exposed for the vacuous shell that it is. No actual democracy at all just constant war-mongering at home and abroad to support the facade.
Let’s stop calling it democracy when it plainly isn’t. It doesn’t meet even the most basic of criteria – elected representatives rarely, if ever, represent their constituents, they are not accountable, and there is no transparency. Add to that, a blatant corruption of the legal system, and disregard for international law.
None of this is ‘democratic’ in any shape or form – not even close!
The people have become the enemy of the state!
“When the people of Messana protested that the tribunals were illegal, Pompey snapped, ‘Cease quoting laws to us that have swords’
-Mike Duncan
The Storm Before the Storm p.249
A book about the end, of the beginning of the end, of the Roman (Western Capitalist rev. A) Empire.
Italy seems like a nice place to visit, ironically.
If we could just shut up all these ferschluggener bellyachers then we could conduct our genocide in peace.
Since you asked, thank you, Craig. Exposing the evil in rogue Western governments is a valuable public service not only for one’s own country but for the world as a whole. It’s long past time they were brought to heel so that people with actual consciences won’t need to continue to shun them as despicable places they never wish to visit or purchase products from (including, of course, my own country, the government of which thoroughly disgusts me and I attempt to explain why to those who are paying less attention to the situation here because I’ve considered that to be my civic duty ever since the Vietnam War which helped educate me to our reality as I was maturing).
This is double standard in its truest form.