Proscription of Palestine Action before the UK Supreme Court

 The Home Secretary's proscription of Palestine Action has been challenged in the UK Supreme Court this week. The final closed hearing relating to documents and issues the government consider secret is currently ongoing.

I mentioned, earlier in the summer, the Court of Appeal's emphatic deference to the Home Secretary in the case. Watching the oral arguments before the Supreme Court in the past couple of days, it did appear as though certain members of the Court were more hostile to the Palestine Action case, led by Raza Husain KC and Henry Blaxland KC, than that of the government, presented by James Eadie KC.

Huda Ammori has been live tweeting the arguments.

For this piece, I'm just going to focus on Mr Raza Husain's final closing rebuttal of the government's case, on behalf of Ms Ammori and Palestine Action (PA). He opens by saying he has nine topics to cover. (That gets a bit lost in breaking each topic down into further subpoints as he goes along but I'll try and work with the structure he intended).

1. Alleged Executive Primacy 

Considering the statutory framework and James Eadie's (for the Home Secretary) espousal of the idea of executive primacy, there is no indication of that in the statute. The statute gives the Secretary of State a discretion, not the power to do whatever s/he wants. As Amnesty said, this is a paradigm case illustrating proscription is not even close to proportionate. 

Parliament could not foresee every circumstance in which a Home Secretary might wish to impose proscription, so made the power subject to the constraints imposed by the Human Rights Act.

2. Outlier actions. 

The idea that three actions, including Brize Norton and others, were not outliers is not acceptable or agreeable to PA. The divisional court said these were either outliers or at the end of a spectrum. PA would accept that they were at the end of a spectrum. And it was only that that may have crossed the rubicon of section 1 Terrorism Act 2000 territory.

3. Characterisation of PA. 

Mr Husain said he had four points to make on this.

(i) James Eadie pejoratively said PA are a "self styled" direct action group. If you look at the Secretary of State's decision making, there doesn't appear to be a single document that does not refer to PA as a direct action group. They all do. The idea that they are self styled and therefore should be dismissed is ridiculous.

(ii) Violence. The Secretary of State's expert advisors regularly have, explicitly, said PA are highly unlikely to advocate violence and described them as a non-violent direct action group. Violence connected with PA has been very rare, not the norm. Harm and injuries were judged, by these experts, to be the result of unintentional or misjudged actions when trying to evade capture.

Husain got interrupted at that point by Lord Stephens asking "In relation to the Bristol incident which involved a sledgehammer being slammed into the back of a police officer, was that condemned by Palestine Action?" Husain said no it wasn't. There was a back and forth exchange with both appearing irritated with each other and Stephens further pushing "And is it presently condemned by Palestine Action?"  Husain says "Mr Justice Johnson's ruling is the subject of a challenge." That is not the norm. Over 5 years and 385 actions, a tiny minority involved violence.

It was very evident that Husain lost Stephens' possible support at that point, if he had not already done so. If these people were not prepared to condemn the serious injury inflicted on a police officer, he is going to give them short shrift. 

Husain goes on to offer a collection of references purporting to show violence was never advocated, never encouraged, never promoted. Did it happen? Yes but very rarely. By which he clarifies he means violence against people.

(iii) On PA's 'underground manual', the expert assessment of counter terrorism police in April 2024 was that it was unlikely to trigger a section 58 offence relating to possession of something likely to be useful to a person preparing an act of terrorism. 

(iv) Professor David Mead (East Anglia University) has explained that similar protest groups have had manuals. The anti GM crops groups, for example, had a handbook. Professor Rogers (Bradford University) has testified that the anti nuclear group, Trident Ploughshares, used hammers.

4. History and civil disobedience.

The Court of Appeals' characterisation of PA being the antithesis of the "peaceful" suffragettes has been subject to widespread criticism and even derision. Husain made no attempt to criticise the appeal court but he does say he has two short points to make on this.

(i) James Eadie relies on Lord Hoffmann paragraph 89 [Note: I'm not sure what case he is referring to here] on conscientious motivation, civil disobedience goes to discretion, prosecutorial police, sentencing. Eadie asks you to read the following paragraphs. They go to defence. [ Have to admit he lost me at this point, both on the case referred to and the point he was attempting to make].

(ii) Then he got back on track when talking about the notion of PA not being in the "tradition of peaceful persuasion." It would be news to the suffragettes that they were in the business of peaceful persuasion. The UK is a mature democracy. We tolerate groups who have proper conscientious motives, even if they transgress the law. It is not an excuse to do so or a defence but it is relevant in other respects.

5. Article 10 (Freedom of expression).

Paragraphs 38-40 in R v Hallam & Ors [2025] EWCA Crim 199 clarify how the Colston four case applies the European Convention on Human Rights protections during protests.

At this point Husain says he was accused of casuistry (though I'm not sure how it was relevant here) but James Eadie said nothing about the low level of disruptive activities that constituted the vast majority of PA's actions. Illegitimate actions, without conceding anything, cannot be attributed to the group as a whole. That's Primov & Ors v Russia European Court of Human Rights precedent, approved of in the UK Supreme Court in DPP v Ziegler (2021) UKSC 23 paragraph 84."

6. Legitimate aim.

(i) James Eadie argued that the Court's focus should be on the societal benefits of the proscription of PA. Raza Husain said that's the wrong perspective. The Court needs to focus on the domestic instrument of law that the Home Secretary is relying on. The question is whether there is a risk of terrorism not whether it achieves societal benefit. The test for proscription is not: is it good for society. (Though prevention of terrorism is obviously good for society.)

(ii) Some straw manning. Eadie accused him of claiming the Court could only look at three or four Acts. Husain says that is not accurate. The Court can consider any Act relevant where there is a sufficient nexus between the Act and the propensity to commit terrorism or the risk of terrorism.

(iii) Jewish businesses. Andrew Feinstein, son of holocaust survivor, Erika Feinstein (née Hemmer), two term member of South Africa's parliament under Nelson Mandela, has said he would never support PA if they were antisemitic. His conscience would not allow him. PA has never targetted Jewish people or Jewish businesses. It is regrettable that Jews are suffering from increased antisemitism. This has nothing whatsoever to do with PA. The idea that it does they reject in the strongest possible terms.

7. Margin.

He wanted to make three points.

(i) Shvidler UK Supreme Court case from 2025 paragraph 126. No expertise or constitutional role in assessing impact. [Again he lost me here. Shvidler decision says that in deciding whether the measures are proportionate the court has to consider the balance to be struck between two incommensurate values: the Convention rights engaged and the interests of the community relied on to justify interfering with them]

(ii) He is asking the Court to apply the framework to the paucity of evidence here.

(iii) Just asking them to tweak the analysis and focus on what they are referring to - not fair balance, as in Shvidler, but assessment of the national security threat (presumably the threat allegedly posed by PA).

8. Impact. 

The government argue that if you concern yourself with terrorism, you open your supporters up to the suite of measures imposed by the Act. Deborah Hinton, 81 year old peaceful placard holder, widow, did not do that. (He then said something about other protests and farant 2 (?) which I didn't quite follow).

 9. Closing argument.

PA do not pose a threat to our democracy or public safety. The proscription of PA is not necessary to protect UK citizens or to enable a democratic society to operate without fear, something the President of the Court, Lord Reed, referred to in the ABJ case earlier this year (paragraph 18).

The threat PA posed was essentially to the property of Elbit Systems and its enablers and supporters - those complicit in Israel's genocide. 

There are probably hundreds of thousands of people, at least, whose profoundly important rights of political speech, association and assembly on the most acute moral and political issue of modern times, that is to say Israel's annihilation of an already besieged and occupied people and the role of UK based corporate actors in that atrocity, those rights have been extinguished or seriously interfered with.

People cannot say PA were justified in what they did to save lives, from low level disruptive protest to destruction of drones that were the instruments of death. They are silenced from expressing their views on an acutely important matter. They don't consider what PA was doing to be terrorism and my client did not accept that. She challenged it. The test was obviously reasonable belief. She was refused permission.

A crisis of confidence in anti-terrorism law foreseen by Mr Justice Chamberlain has come to pass. It is clear the Home Secretary underestimated the importance of PA and the level of support. [He references something to do with counter terrorism police in April 2025 here but I didn't quite get the significance of the reference. Is it that the CTP suggested that the Home Secretary underestimated the importance of PA or something else?]

Even allowing for such respect as is due to the Home Secretary's assessment of the public interest that proscription is proportionate, he then accordingly invites the Court to allow the appeal and effectively quash the proscription.

President of the Court Lord Reed then thanked all parties for their submissions and noted they have been requested to hear argument based on materials not made public. That hearing was taking place, in private, this afternoon with submissions being made about secret documents that the public, Ms Ammori and most of her legal team are not permitted access to, for national security reasons.

Time will tell what the Court will decide but the impression over the two days was they were siding with the government. Mr Husain was passionate in his advocacy. The key issues in the case seem relatively straightforward.

The UK government is a long standing supporter of the state of Israel and a core imperial political actor in its formation.

Israel is an apartheid, colonial and now genocidal state.

The UK government has been and is complicit in their material support of the genocide.

Given a direct choice between supporting Israel and protecting the fundamental rights of UK citizens and residents, the government prioritised and continues to prioritise its support for Israel.

Palestine Action is a non-violent, direct action group that has inflicted criminal damage, primarily on corporate actors complicit in Israel's genocide. In addition they sprayed red paint on a military plane and have been involved in protests largely causing low level inconvenience. One of their members was also involved in an incident where a police officer got seriously injured. The facts of that incident are subject to dispute and a legal appeal.

 Following representations from the government of Israel and their supporters, the government decided to designate Palestine Action to be a terrorist group. They did that despite their own counter terrorism experts repeatedly describing the group as a non-violent, direct action group primarily involved in peaceful protest.

There are multiple elements of criminal law that police and the CPS could invoke to address any of the criminal actions engaged in by members of Palestine Action. On that basis alone, proscribing the group as a terrorist organisation is disproportionate. 

Thousands of peaceful protestors, including holocaust survivors and their relatives, holding placards opposing genocide, have been arrested, under antiterrorism law, as a direct consequence of the proscription of Palestine Action.

The proscription and putting police officers in the position of being obliged to make over 4000 such arrests undermines confidence in the police and makes a mockery of counter terrorism laws. 

The government's perspective of the separation of powers, as presented to the Court by Mr Eadie, would appear to suggest it is a licence for government ministers to do whatever they want without subsequent interference from the courts. The Court of Appeal's decision in the case appears to endorse that view, with the sole restraint being that the government minister concerned is required to specify the reason for their disputed action was/is national security. 

To repeat Mr Husain, Palestine Action do not pose a threat to our democracy or public safety. The proscription of Palestine is not necessary to protect UK citizens or to enable a democratic society to operate without fear. It is an unnecessary and disproportionate interference with the fundamental rights of residents of the UK, particularly article 10 and article 11 rights.

I am reminded of Dr Ezzideen's insightful concern that we live within a political system that has become extraordinarily skilled at accommodation our dissent, absorbing our anger and continuing its business as though nothing had happened. 

Except it is worse than that. Faced with direct action and peaceful protest that inconveniences a genocidal state, the UK government decided to treat the group involved and their supporters as terrorists. They let the mask of accommodation slip and have demonstrated a stubborn willingness to wield a legislative, policing and prosecutory sledgehammer to smash the Palestine Action nut.

For the avoidance of doubt, 

I oppose genocide.

I oppose the state of Israel's ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people. 

I do not support Palestine Action.

Unlike the government, I remain unconvinced that proscription, in this case, is proportionate.

Outside the Supreme Court on Wednesday a man was arrested for saying "In the UK, it's a crime to say "I support Palestine Action."  Earlier the same day, former government barrister, Tim Crossland, was amongst those arrested outside the Court. He was holding a sign with the words "God help us normal people who support Palestine and Palestine Action". He explained, on video while writing the sign, that he was attempting to repeat a concern of Sarah Helm, wife of Jonathan Powell, Andy Burnham's national security adviser. Ms Helm wrote on Twitter: "God help us authors who support Palestine and Palestine Action." This was apparently investigated by the police who referred it to a specialist team who determined the post did not cross the criminal threshold. Ms Helm has now tweeted her support for Mr Crossland.

I rest my case.

Truth under the rubble - Francesa Albanese UN report on the media & the genocide in Palestine

The latest report, A/81/249, of UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, Francesca Albanese is Truth under the rubble: media in the time of genocide. She summarises her findings:

"This report examines how the destruction of truth has become integral to the
destruction of a people. It identifies three interconnected patterns: the elimination of
Palestinian media workers – through killing, maiming, arbitrary detention, torture,
intimidation and the systematic labelling of them as “terrorists” – to suppress the
documentation of crimes; the construction of an information regime in Israel through
media restrictions, censorship, propaganda, hate speech, genocidal incitement and
denial; and the role of influential international media and digital platforms in
marginalizing Palestinian voices and reproducing Israeli narratives, normalizing legal
distortions, which ultimately legitimized atrocities. Together, these practices have not
merely accompanied genocide but have facilitated its commission and obstructed
accountability. Some aspects of this assault on truth might be described as
“mediacide”."

Ms Albanese's previous reports, Anatomy of a genocide A/HRC/55/73 (July 2024), Genocide as colonial erasure A/79/384 (October 2024), From economy of occupation to economy of genocide A/HRC/59/2 (July 2025), Gaza genocide: a collective crime A/80/492 (October 2025), Torture and Genocide A/HRC/61/71 (March 2026) and her campaigning for an end to genocide, through the framework of international humanitarian law, human rights, the Geneva Conventions, the Genocide Convention, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination and international criminal law, have laid bare the depravity of the actions of the state of Israel and its prominent political and commercial enablers.

This latest report continues in that tradition and adds a searing indictment of trusted western mainstream media, as one of the most prominent collective enablers of the genocide. 

"1. Perpetrators and enablers of genocide often seek to shape how genocidal
destruction is perceived and remembered. Eliminating those who bear witness,
inciting violence through “sympathetic” media and deploying information systems to
shield perpetrators are among the means by which this is achieved. In Palestine, these
appear as interconnected features of a long colonial project, the current genocidal
phase of which has intensified the war both on and through the media...

3. The report examines three mutually reinforcing patterns:
(a) The systematic targeting of Palestinian media workers and media and
telecommunications infrastructure, in the deadliest conflict ever recorded for
journalists. Hundreds of journalists, photographers, videographers, editors and
others have been killed, injured, arbitrarily detained, tortured, intimidated and
smeared as terrorists while documenting the destruction of their own society. Their
elimination has progressively deprived the world of its primary witnesses. In the
words of an Israeli soldier: “Whoever writes an article or works on a laptop is like
someone carrying a Kalashnikov and attacking us”;
(b) The broader Israeli architecture of information control, made of
censorship, access restrictions, coordinated media and advertising campaigns, and the
role of segments of the Israeli media in normalizing and promoting hatred, genocidal
incitement and denial;
(c) The role of influential international media and digital platforms in
reproducing Israeli narratives, marginalizing Palestinian voices, dehumanizing
Palestinians, suppressing legitimate criticism of Israel and ignoring or recasting legal
realities to obscure or legitimize conduct amounting to genocide.
4. Viewed together, these practices constitute an assault on truth that is intrinsic to
the genocidal violence they are intended to conceal. The elimination of witnesses, the
suppression of freedom of expression and the abandonment of fundamental ournalistic ethics may amount, in many ways, to “mediacide”: the systematic destruction of the media’s public function. 

5. The Special Rapporteur notes that Palestinian journalists have endured the same
bombardment, displacement, hunger and exhaustion as the population whose
experience they record.6 Many now report from tents; some have collapsed live on
air from starvation and stress.  Nevertheless, they continue to bear witness. As
professional journalism has been progressively annihilated, ordinary Palestinians
have assumed its burden, determined that neither they nor their people will disappear.
Every image, fragment of video and testimony that has left Gaza stands as an act of
resistance against colonial erasure." 

Since 2023, Israel has killed nearly 300 journalists and wounded more than 400, more than all the major conflicts of the 20th century combined. They have also targeted journalists' families, "killing
around 710 relatives since October 2023, 436 in the first four months alone. While many deaths occurred amid indiscriminate Israeli attacks, evidence indicates that some families were deliberately targeted." 

She goes on to document the unlawful detention and torture of journalists and their families, the destruction of communications infrastructure, smear campaigns, censorship, manipulation and incitement through domestic media and coopting of international media. Sections III Silencing the Witnesses and IV The Israeli media landscape: censorship, manipulation, incitement are or should be shocking but given the actions of the state of Israel in recent years won't be surprising. Section V Western media and platforms opens by noting:

"64. The genocide has exposed long-standing ideological biases in media coverage
of Palestine/Israel, including across Western traditional media and major digital
platforms. It has exposed a system that determines whose voices are heard and whose suffering is recognized. These attempts to influence opinions through content
curation, amplification and other forms of distortion have serious consequences for
the human rights of the Palestinian people and those who defend their rights."

The report goes on to indict western media and digital platforms as complicit in the genocide. The media outlets selected for examination were chosen for "their presumed authoritativeness and objectivity." The BBC, CNN and NYT are amongst those subjected to serious criticism.

"66. Access determines influence. Content analysis demonstrates that Western media
rely heavily on Israeli sources, with Israeli officials and pressure groups enjoying
privileged access to media decision makers, including at the British Broadcasting
Corporation (BBC).  Internal editorial guidelines show how such influence
translates into practice. The BBC style guide, for example, omits Gaza from the
occupied territory and specifies the Israeli Government’s “preferred” description of
the West Bank and Gaza as “disputed’’ territories, without indicating that this is
contrary to international law.  BBC also makes the misleading statement that
“outposts don’t mean settlements” and that they are “very different” because outposts
are not authorized by the Israeli Government and “defy it”. Indeed, different Israeli
Governments have protected and retroactively legalized illegal outposts, expanding
illegal colonization. Leaked New York Times guidance similarly advises caution
regarding the use of terms such as “genocide”, “ethnic cleansing” and “occupied
territory”, instructing journalists to use “Palestine” only “in very rare cases”. 
67. Such editorial imperatives have marginalized historical context and legal
frameworks that are essential to understanding the root causes of this renewed
violence. Media references to the Nakbah, to decades of occupation and related brutalities, to the illegality and continued settlement expansion and to the 19 -year
blockade of Gaza are absent or minimized, with 7 October 2023 presented as the
origin of hostilities. Cable News Network (CNN) has directed journalists to “remind
our audiences” that Hamas attacks on Israeli civilians caused the conflict.  The
resultant reporting obscures critical legal findings, presenting the military assault
primarily as Israel exercising its “right to self-defence”, rarely acknowledging the
significant limitations international law places on an occupying Power’s reliance on
such claims.
68. Media outlets have also repeatedly amplified unverified or false Israeli claims.
Concerns about this have been raised by journalists themselves, including those from
BBC and CNN, with the latter warning that such reporting amounted to
“journalistic malpractice”. Some of the most damaging narratives of the conflict –
... – were widely reported without verification. In several cases, these allegations could not be
independently substantiated, and corrections received far less prominence. All this
has tangible consequences. In the case of UNRWA, the amplification of
unsubstantiated allegations contributed to donor Governments suspending funding,
significantly weakening the provision of humanitarian assistance.
69. Reporting by traditional media also shapes how international law is understood.
Since October 2023, much of the media has reproduced what this Special Rapporteur
has previously described as “humanitarian camouflage”: using concepts of international humanitarian law to legitimize genocide. This framing presents mass
atrocities as humanitarian protection. Israeli authorities portrayed the concentration
of Palestinians into so-called “safe zones” and their mass displacement through
“evacuation orders” as measures to protect civilians. Western media has frequently
reproduced this narrative without challenging it, creating a veneer of humanitarian
concern despite mounting evidence. The New York Times eventually reported that
Israel repeatedly used 2,000-pound bombs in designated “safe zones”, killing
thousands of Palestinians, but only after initially lending legitimacy to the
misleading use of the term.
70. Similar patterns emerge in outlets’ attribution of civilian deaths to Hamas’s
tactics rather than to Israeli military actions. Editorial guidance of the German
broadcaster ARD presents civilian casualties as being primarily a consequence of
Hamas’s alleged use of “human shields”. Between October 2023 and August 2025,
The New York Times referred to “human shields” used by Hamas times and BBC
81 times. Systematic references to “Hamas-run hospitals” and “hospital shields”
and the unverified claims that Hamas operates from hospitals and other civilian sites
have lent credibility to narratives that supposedly legitimize attacks on protected
medical facilities. This framing is particularly significant because the allegation that
Hamas systematically used civilians as human shields is one of the Israeli
Government’s principal legal justifications for its genocidal campaign in Gaza,
including before the International Court of Justice.
71. Meanwhile, findings by the United Nations, including in the International
Court of Justice proceedings, and by human rights organizations, including on the
question of genocide, have often been underreported or presented as disputed. In more
than 100 documented instances, BBC presenters dismissed assertions that Israel was
committing genocide, while Israeli leaders’ genocidal statements went unmentioned. 
72. When some facts could no longer be denied or “camouflaged”, reporting has
frequently omitted or downplayed Israeli responsibility. Content analysis has found
that BBC did so in 83 per cent of relevant headlines and The New York Times in 65
per cent. A striking example concerns the killing of Hind Rajab by Israeli forces,
which BBC still presents with the headline, “Hind Rajab, 6, found dead in Gaza days after phone calls for help.

 73. The unequal attribution of responsibility is matched by an unequal distribution
of empathy. Studies demonstrate that Israeli suffering is narrated in detail and
endowed with emotional and moral significance; Palestinian suffering is rendered
partial, abstract or incidental. Thus, although Palestinian children accounted for
approximately 99.7 per cent of child fatalities, they appeared in just over half of
the personalized CNN reports on child victims. Across two sampling periods, The
New York Times mentioned sexual violence against Israelis 76 times, but only four
times in relation to Palestinians,248 despite substantial evidence of its widespread use
against them. Even the moral vocabulary is unevenly allocated. Terms such as
“barbaric” are overwhelmingly reserved for violence against Israelis; at the German
broadcaster ZDF, 90.7 per cent of uses have referred to Israeli victims, while the term
has never been applied to attacks on Palestinians.
74. The same editorial logic extends to the treatment of evidence itself. Human
rights documentation, Palestinian perspectives and even expressions of solidarity
have been marginalized, while journalists departing from the dominant narrative have
faced pressure, disciplinary measures, reassignment or dismissal.  Antoinette
Lattouf was unlawfully dismissed by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation after
reposting a Human Rights Watch report on starvation in Gaza. The publicly funded
broadcaster spent more than $1.7 million of taxpayers’ money defending the
dismissal, before the Federal Court of Australia found it unlawful and noted that
senior management had acted to “appease the pro-Israel lobbyists”. At BBC Arabic,
journalists have been disciplined without any demonstration that editorial policies
had been breached, which has even reportedly prompted the resignation of a senior
journalist. Public events have been altered and documentaries withdrawn, 
including the BBC film on Gaza health workers and the broadcast of Wajib by
ARD. Increasingly, reliance on human rights findings, criticism of Israeli State policies or solidarity with Palestinians have themselves been treated as suspect,
collapsed into allegations of antisemitism.
75. Such practices engage human rights obligations. For public service
broadcasters, disciplining journalists in absence of professional misconduct,
withdrawing commissioned works or suppressing lawful expressions must satisfy the
strict requirements of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.  In
the sole instance judicially examined, the Lattouf dismissal was held as unlawful and
attributable to external pressure.
76. Editorial restrictions on the use of legally relevant terminology raise concerns
about whether media reporting adequately reflects the legal characterizations,
accountability frameworks and rights claims recognized in international law.
Broadcasting dehumanizing content without correction engages the duty to prohibit
advocacy of hatred under article 20 of the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights and article 4 of the International Convention on the Elimination of
All Forms of Racial Discrimination. For private media, presenting unverified
belligerent claims as fact, reproducing one party’s legal characterizations without
acknowledging contrary arguments and according corrections less prominence than
the original misstatements falls short of the heightened due diligence required by the
Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. Where such conduct causes
identifiable harm – as in the suspension of UNRWA funding – a responsibility to
mitigate impact and remediate arises.
77. These obligations acquire particular urgency where there is a serious risk of
genocide – arising, as a due diligence obligation, upon knowledge of serious risk
thereof – which requires States, at a minimum, not to permit their own institutions
to obscure that risk. The patterns documented here persisted despite repeated
warnings from journalists, courts and United Nations bodies, raising serious questions as to compliance with those obligations." (Emphasis in paragraph 77 is mine).

Digital platforms and specifically Meta, Twitter/X and Alphabet Inc (Google) get accused of direct complicity in and profiting from the genocide.

"78. As Israel has systematically eliminated Palestinian journalists and excluded
foreign media, social media has become indispensable for documenting events.
Journalists, human rights defenders, civil society organizations and United Nations
experts have increasingly relied on a handful of private platforms as primary channels
of information.
79. In doing so, companies such as Meta, X and Alphabet Inc. (Google) have
become the principal gatekeepers of information on Palestine. Through content
moderation, recommendation systems, advertising and monetization policies, they
have determined which narratives are amplified and which disappeared; the evidence
reviewed below indicates recurring patterns of discriminatory moderation, censorship
and amplification of Israeli Government narratives.

80. Close relationships between platform executives and Israeli officials have
reinforced these concerns. Following meetings with the President and the Prime
Minister of Israel in November 2023, Elon Musk characterized expressions such as
“from the river to the sea” and “decolonization” as “necessarily imply[ing]
genocide”, disingenuously conflating advocacy for Palestinian rights with support
for violence. Meanwhile, Alphabet has continued providing Israel with Project
Nimbus, supporting surveillance and artificial intelligence capabilities that are used
in ways that harm Palestinians.

1. Engineering the narrative
81. These institutional relationships are reflected in platform operations, which
have systematically censored content documenting human rights abuses in Palestine,
historical and political content and criticism of Israeli actions through removal of
posts and comments, account suspension, engagement restrictions and “shadow
banning”, often without notice or effective appeal. X has suspended hundreds of
accounts of activists, journalists and Palestinians documenting the genocide, with no
explanation, and leaked Meta data indicates that approximately 38.8 million posts
across Facebook and Instagram have been removed, banned or suppressed since late
2023, while engagement with prominent Palestinian news organizations has fallen
by 77 percent. Platforms have also demonstrated near-total compliance with the
large number of Israeli takedown requests. TikTok and Meta reported compliance
rates of 99.2 and 94 per cent, respectively. Although formally voluntary, such
requests are State conduct aimed at suppressing expression and, given near-total
compliance, operate as de facto removal orders. Precisely because they bypass any
legal process, they cannot satisfy the requirements of legality, legitimate aim and
necessity set out in paragraph 10 above.
2. A permissive architecture for hate
82. The same platforms that have suppressed Palestinian voices have failed to apply
their own content policies to hate speech, dehumanizing rhetoric, incitement to
violence against Palestinians and falsehood campaigns by senior Israeli officials and
media figures, including the statements examined in section IV above and those cited
before the International Court of Justice as evidence of genocidal intent.  Channel 14, for example, maintains active Facebook and Instagram pages containing the same
type of content.
83. These platforms have also enabled degrading content by Israeli soldiers,
including footage of civilian destruction, looting and detainee humiliation. 277 A
“Hamas hunting club” Instagram page has featured images of blindfolded and bound
prisoners, while YouTube has permitted a song describing Palestinians as rodents
with lyrics including “One, Two, Shoot!” These examples demonstrate a failure to
enforce platforms’ own policies, contrasting sharply with the draconian enforcement
applied to Palestinian expression. By contrast, videos documenting the conduct of
Israeli soldiers have in some instances been removed by the Israeli military itself,
which in 2025 restricted soldiers’ public exposure amid concerns that such posts could
be used in war crimes proceedings abroad.
84. Platforms have also failed to remove campaigns delegitimizing Palestinian
journalists before their killing. Organizations such as Honest Reporting spread
unsubstantiated allegations, for instance, that Palestinian journalists working for
Reuters and Associated Press had advance knowledge of the 7 October attacks 283 –
claims amplified by Israeli officials but refuted by both agencies.
85. As described in paragraph 50, platforms have also profited from roughly
$50 million in Israeli advertising contracts, turning their advertising infrastructure
into an instrument of genocide denial. Despite user complaints, Google has reportedly
concluded that advertisements denying famine did not violate its policies.  It has
also carried paid advertisements portraying the International Court of Justice
genocide case as a “blood libel” and discouraging donations to UNRWA. 
86. Commercial complicity has extended to the suppression of accountability itself.
Following the publication of this Special Rapporteur’s report, “From economy of
occupation to economy of genocide” (A/HRC/59/23), Google carried Israeli-sponsored content containing false and misleading information designed to discredit
its findings and smear the mandate holder.
87. Social media companies should be assessed against the principles of corporate
responsibility to respect human rights set out in paragraph 12 above. For those that
mediate global access to information about an unfolding genocide, that responsibility
demands heightened due diligence. The Guiding Principles on Business and Human
Rights are engaged in three distinct ways.  Where platforms actively suppress
protected expression, they directly cause adverse impacts. Compliance with
government takedown demands does not discharge that responsibility, which exists
independently of domestic law, State pressure and the absence of either notice or
remedy for affected users. Where their recommendation systems host and amplify
advocacy of hatred by third parties, they are at minimum directly linked to the
resulting harm. By monetizing such content, including by accepting payment to
disseminate State propaganda denying atrocities, platforms contribute directly to the
resulting harm.
88. Following the provisional measures order of the International Court of Justice
of January 2024, at the latest, no platform could claim ignorance of the risk and
urgency of the context in Gaza. Meta, in particular, had been on notice since 2018,
when the independent international fact-finding mission on Myanmar found that its
platform had been “a useful instrument for those seeking to spread hate” – a
conclusion the company’s own commissioned assessment accepted. Even after the
Integrated Food Security Phase Classification had confirmed famine and the
International Court of Justice had ordered the unhindered provision of humanitarian
aid, platforms accepted payment to disseminate messaging that denied the famine,
thereby contributing to the resulting harm within the meaning of the Guiding
Principles on Business and Human Rights. That contribution to harm is aggravated
by the fact that the platforms accepted payment for disseminating the content. 
Where a company knowingly provides practical assistance that has a substantial effect on the commission of international crimes, questions of complicity arise beyond the Guiding Principles. At a minimum, this report establishes inadequate due diligence, selective enforcement and the denial of remedy." (Emphasis in final paragraph mine.)

Ms Albanese concludes:

"89. Since October 2023, Israel has deployed every means at its disposal to
silence Palestinian journalism, creating conditions in which independent
reporting has become nearly impossible. Read in the context of the broader
campaign against the Palestinian people, the scale and intensity of this assault
reveal a deliberate effort not only to conceal mass atrocities, but also to erode the
very possibility of documenting them.

90. The evidence examined in this report describes a single, integrated
phenomenon that, in many respects, constitutes mediacide: the destruction of the
media’s essential function in the information environment surrounding the
occupied Palestinian territory. It operates through three mutually reinforcing
processes: (a) the systematic elimination of Palestinian journalists and their
means of documentation; (b) the dissemination and normalization of genocidal
incitement and denial by Israeli authorities and segments of the Israeli media;
and (c) the reproduction by influential Western media and digital platforms of
narratives that obscure, justify or legitimize atrocity crimes while marginalizing
Palestinian voices, evidence and international law.
91. Together, these phenomena are intrinsic to the ongoing genocide. Genocide
depends not only on the destruction of human beings, but also on the destruction
of the political, moral and evidentiary conditions that make that destruction
visible, intelligible and contestable. When witnesses are silenced, when
dehumanizing language becomes ordinary and when independent verification is
displaced by the claims of the perpetrator, violence acquires the appearance of
legitimacy and impunity becomes easier to sustain.
92. This makes the preservation of the record a legal imperative. At a time
when proceedings before the International Criminal Court and the International
Court of Justice seek to establish responsibility for the gravest international
crimes, the protections owed to journalists, the prohibition of incitement to
genocide and hatred and the obligations of States and corporate actors under
international humanitarian law, human rights law and the Guiding Principles on
Business and Human Rights remain fully in force. Systematic disregard for them
is itself relevant to the assessment of intent, knowledge and complicity.
93. The Special Rapporteur therefore urges States, the General Assembly,
judicial mechanisms, media organizations and technology companies to do their
utmost to protect those who report, bear witness, preserve documentation and
resist narratives that erase or legitimize crimes. The capacity to establish the
truth of what has occurred, and to act upon it, is integral to the protection of the
people this mandate exists to serve. Accountability depends on the survival of the
record. Without it, neither justice nor the prevention of future atrocities remains
possible."

I just want to repeat paragraph 90 and 91 and emphasise western media's and digital platforms' complicity:

"90. The evidence examined in this report describes a single, integrated
phenomenon that, in many respects, constitutes mediacide: the destruction of the
media’s essential function in the information environment surrounding the
occupied Palestinian territory. It operates through three mutually reinforcing
processes: (a) the systematic elimination of Palestinian journalists and their
means of documentation; (b) the dissemination and normalization of genocidal
incitement and denial by Israeli authorities and segments of the Israeli media;
and (c) the reproduction by influential Western media and digital platforms of
narratives that obscure, justify or legitimize atrocity crimes while marginalizing
Palestinian voices, evidence and international law.
91. Together, these phenomena are intrinsic to the ongoing genocide. Genocide
depends not only on the destruction of human beings, but also on the destruction
of the political, moral and evidentiary conditions that make that destruction
visible, intelligible and contestable. When witnesses are silenced, when
dehumanizing language becomes ordinary and when independent verification is
displaced by the claims of the perpetrator, violence acquires the appearance of
legitimacy and impunity becomes easier to sustain."

 The report rounds off with a set of recommendations it is difficult to dispute:

95. To the General Assembly:
(a) Establish an independent mechanism to consolidate and preserve
evidence of crimes against journalists and the information environment in the
occupied Palestinian territory;
(b) Take all measures within its powers to ensure compliance with the
provisional measures of the International Court of Justice and so that Israel:
(i) Ceases all attacks against the information environment, releases
arbitrarily detained journalists, discloses the fate and whereabouts of the
forcibly disappeared, and grants both the International Committee of the
Red Cross access to detainees and international media and human rights
monitors access to Gaza;
(ii) Complies with the provisional measures of the International Court of
Justice, including by preserving evidence, including journalists’
documentation;
(iii) rescinds censorship measures, outlet bans and media-restrictive
legislation.

 96. States should:
(a) Investigate and prosecute attacks against Palestinian journalists, in
line with Security Council resolution 2222 (2015) – especially attacks carried out
by citizens of their own countries who hold Israeli citizenship – and cooperate
fully with the International Criminal Court;
(b) Review public funding and institutional partnerships with media
organizations and digital platforms that systematically disseminate hatred or
incitement to discrimination, hostility, violence or genocide, or that materially
contribute to the concealment of atrocity crimes, for example through
suppressing protected expression;
(c) Treat journalists’ reporting, audiovisual material and archives as
evidence requiring preservation for future judicial proceedings and discharge
their duty to prevent genocide, including by protecting documentation thereof. 

97. Media organizations and online platforms must stop laundering
propaganda through the journalistic form. To that end, they must:
(a) Verify belligerent parties’ claims before publication and issue
corrections of equal prominence;
(b) Cease retaliation against journalists for expression concerning
Palestine, and remediate harm;
(c) Cease arbitrary removal of reporting on potential international
crimes and provide transparent explanations and appeals;
(d) Conduct heightened human rights and international law due diligence
especially in situations presenting a serious risk of atrocity crimes, including
genocide;
(e) Preserve content documenting potential international crimes and
make it available, subject to appropriate safeguards, to accountability
mechanisms.

 98. The Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court should investigate
direct and public incitement to commit genocide by government officials and
media figures as part of the ongoing Palestine investigation.
99. Journalists’ organizations, civil society and the public should defend those
documenting atrocities, demand accountability and sustain attention to detained
and disappeared journalists; and they should never forget that journalism ceases
to perform its public function when it reproduces the claims of power instead of
scrutinizing them."

Meta/Facebook v New Mexico decision

Last week, Santa Fe District Court judge, Frances J. Matthew, fined Meta $219,498.6 billion which he reduced to $25 billion, after a jury found Meta liable for misleading consumers about the safety of its platforms and endangering children, earlier this year.

The judgment is only 20 pages, very accessible and worth reading in full. 

Some of the highlights:

 

 

 

 

 

 Following the Cambridge Analytica scandal in March of 2018 Facebook promised a comprehensive review to

 

32. ...The decision was deliberately made to narrow Facebook's internal definition of data misuse so that Facebook would not have to notify as many people due to the operational burden of doing so. That decision was never communicated to users, despite the very public promise to notify in all cases of misuse.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The judge then notes that the US Supreme Court has not said that the 8th amendment to the constitution, preventing government from imposing excessive fines, applies to corporations. So,  

 

 

 

 

 

 

It is an unequivocal judgment against Facebook and an indictment of the unethical behaviour of their senior people.

The only thing the judge doesn't explain is why he reduced the penalty from $219 billion to $25 billion. 

Facebook are appealing the decision but are not out of the woods on US lawsuits by a long shot. The Florida attorney general, James Uthmeier, has condemned the multi-state settlement in the case that both New Mexico and Florida pulled out of and declared that "Florida isn't going to sell out to Meta."

Amongst other lawsuits against Meta/Facebook re. Facebook, Inc. Securities Litigation which has been making its way through the courts since 2018, over the Cambridge Analytica cover up, may prove to be the most significant. The latest list of Facebook witnesses the plaintiffs want to call is striking and includes Zuckerberg, Sandberg, Nix, Bosworth, Chancellor, Kogan, Kaplan, Wylie, Pricewaterhouse Coopers and Sarah Wynn-Williams, the author of Careless People.

 

 

 

 

Dr Ezzideen on the ongoing genocide perpetrated by Israel against the Palestinian people

Palestinian doctor, Dr Ezzideen, should be read and understood by every Western politician and journalist. From October 15th, 2026:

"Two days ago, Israeli warplanes bombed an apartment in Gaza. A woman named Reem Awad was burned to death before the eyes of her little daughter, Maryam, who was not yet four years old. Perhaps you have seen the video of Maryam lying on her bed, watching the flames consume everything around her, including her mother. I keep wondering what a little girl of four could possibly think at such a moment. Did she call for her mother? Did she wait for her to get up and carry her away from the flames, as mothers always do when their children are frightened? Did she wonder why her mother would not come to her anymore? I do not know. And I wish no child had ever been made to discover the answers. It is terrible enough to think of a person burning to death. But to think of a little girl watching her own mother burn, unable to do anything, is more than my heart can understand. Maryam’s father was killed at the beginning of the war. She has no brothers or sisters. Now she has no mother either. At an age when a child should still be learning the simplest things about life, Maryam must somehow learn to live without the person who was meant to keep all the frightening things in the world away from her. And the last thing she saw of that person was her death.  

 ... 

I do not believe in conspiracy theories. But I have come to believe that we live within a global political system that has become extraordinarily skilled at accommodating our dissent, absorbing our anger, and continuing its business as though nothing had happened. Throughout three years of war in Gaza, hundreds of thousands have marched through the streets. Universities have risen in protest. The world has been filled with outrage. Allegations of genocide have reached the highest international courts and human rights institutions. The world knew. The world watched. The world protested. The world cried out. And the killing continued. This is what compels me to ask whether we must reconsider everything we have done in the name of protest, measuring it not by the sincerity of our convictions, but by what it has actually succeeded in changing. I fear that the political system has drawn the boundaries within which we are permitted to say “no” as often and as loudly as we please, on the condition that our refusal never acquires the power to compel it to change. Perhaps the system no longer needs to silence us. Perhaps it has learned that the more effective way to preserve itself is to allow us to speak, while ensuring that our dissent never becomes powerful enough to threaten it."

It's worth repeating that:

I have come to believe that we live within a global political system that has become extraordinarily skilled at accommodating our dissent, absorbing our anger, and continuing its business as though nothing had happened. Throughout three years of war in Gaza, hundreds of thousands have marched through the streets. Universities have risen in protest. The world has been filled with outrage. Allegations of genocide have reached the highest international courts and human rights institutions. The world knew. The world watched. The world protested. The world cried out. And the killing continued. This is what compels me to ask whether we must reconsider everything we have done in the name of protest, measuring it not by the sincerity of our convictions, but by what it has actually succeeded in changing. I fear that the political system has drawn the boundaries within which we are permitted to say “no” as often and as loudly as we please, on the condition that our refusal never acquires the power to compel it to change. Perhaps the system no longer needs to silence us. Perhaps it has learned that the more effective way to preserve itself is to allow us to speak, while ensuring that our dissent never becomes powerful enough to threaten it. 

Stop supporting the genocide machine

Ashira Darwish, has given up on the possibility of help from the rest of the world and now simply asks that we, at least, stop supporting the state of Israel's genocide machine:

"We need... YOU... We need you, if you can't be our voice, just to, at least, not put a penny that goes to the bullet... that shoots... our children."

 From the film, Where Olive Trees Weep.

Ashira Darwish, has given up on the possibility of help from the rest of the world and now simply asks that we, at least, stop supporting the state of Israel's genocide machine:

"We need... YOU... We need you, if you can't be our voice, just to at least not put a penny that goes to the bullet... that shoots... our children." pic.twitter.com/U1oMPfCPK3

August 24, 2026

Francesca Albanese at the UN Human Rights Council

Francesca Albanese's recent speech at the UN Human Rights Council might be one of the most important in the organisation's history.

@the_sequel6 #freepalestine #stopstarvation #gaza #israelisanaparttheidstate #icc ♬ original sound - the_sequel6

Stern words and condemnations of genocide are meaningless without action.

Update: TikTok has taken down the video.Neither does it appear to be available at the UN Human Rights Council site.

The UK's proposed under 16s social media ban is ill-considered

 When the history of the first quarter of the 21^st century comes to be written, it will record a period when we took the greatest communications medium in the history of humanity – the internet – and turned it into an invasive, toxic, mass surveillance machine, beyond even George Orwell’s imagination.

For generations, the four horsemen of the infocalypse – terrorists, drug dealers, child abusers and organised crime – have been the staple justifications of choice for a smorgasbord of laws intended to tackle these evils. The Labour government between 1997 and 2010 introduced more than forty major serious crime and counter-terrorism laws.

During the same period, unfettered, private sector mass surveillance & profiling, of a scale unthinkable before the turn of the century, plus addictive, attention- grabbing apps and social media algorithms, became established as the core business model of the internet.

The most profitable firms in the world either monetise or otherwise exploit data through stalker advertising and profiling and/or provide software and hardware services and infrastructure to the economic & state actors who do.

The technology systems built and rolled out by those companies are used, extensively, by states which, like commerce, have a voracious appetite for personal data, in the whole gamut of government services from law enforcement, health and social welfare to border control, military, security and intelligence.

In the wake of the 11th September, 2001 attacks, counter terrorism became the primary excuse for western governments’ expansion of mass surveillance. By the mid-2010s, it remained a core theme for government but the terrorism mantra was wearing thin and the prominent pretext for surveillance moved to immigration and border control.

In parallel, child protection and “online safety” became high profile vehicles for a collection of demands that something must be done about the negativities of the internet and the unethical behaviour of the big technology corporations. By 2023 that led to the introduction by the UK of the Online Safety Act, a complex piece of legislation with the “general purpose of making the use of internet services… safer for individuals in the United Kingdom” through imposing a duty of care on online services providers.

One of the primary effects of the Act seems to have been a boon in the market for age verification services. And, indeed, VPN services, which the government are also now considering restricting. Section 12(4) of the Act mandates the use of age verification or age estimation to prevent children from accessing harmful content. Section 12(6) says this age verification should be “highly effective”. In short, dear reader, age verification is not marginally, let alone highly effective and declaring a mandate for highly effective technology in a statute does not, magically, bring it into existence.

Ahead of the Makerfield byelection and his likely replacement by Andy Burnham, the UK Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, with his teen social media ban proposal, announced plans to polish a capstone on his legacy, such as it is, by forcing everyone to wade through some form of identity and/or age verification service before using the internet. The Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model - seven layer model of the internet – is about to get an eighth layer in the UK, the insecure layer, if the October 2025 Discord data breach compromising 70,000 users, including their government issued ID images, is anything to go by. Mr Starmer’s insecure layer, retrofitted to a toxic mass surveillance machine, will compromise the privacy and security of every internet user, including children, whilst failing to improve child safety.

Last week the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee of Parliament, following an inquiry on the digital centre of government, published a report Rewiring the state: Delivering digital government.

The report is scathing on government information & data security (highlighting Biobank breaches), unsubstantiated hype about a claimed £45 billion per year savings from digital services, government plans for digital ID (noting operational and security problems relating to the eVisa system and One Login’s temporary loss of certification against the government’s own digital identity framework). On digital sovereignty the report expresses concerns that "The UK’s reliance on a small number of US-based providers for digital infrastructure and public service delivery is a strategic and economic vulnerability."

Most notably, in the context of the proposed teen social media ban, however, it declares government ignorance of technology, “enthusiasm from non-experts at the top” combined with “insufficient skills at the coalface” to be a “dangerous” combination. Dangerous is the word for it, particularly for those teens who rely on internet access for social, educational and mental health support, often exclusively because they cannot find that support elsewhere. 

The petition to parliament not to go ahead with this ban has already, at the time of writing, passed 200,000 signatures. 

A prime minister serious about child protection would firstly insist on enforcing existing regulatory measures, such as the UK GDPR articles 8 and 9, against social media companies and secondly, pursue orders of magnitude greater investment in social and sports facilities and infrastructure, children’s services, parental support, social welfare, education, health, mental health services and, where necessary, policing; with properly coordinated, local interdisciplinary teams across all these services working in tandem, the whole being greater than the sum of the parts.

Also, as Cory Doctorow says, we need to protect kids from online surveillance, the precise opposite of what the UK government is proposing: “Your kids can't be targeted by algorithms without the surveillance data that's being used to target them. They can't be funneled into pro-anorexia content or extreme misogyny forums without that funnel being primed by commercial spying.”

The Brazilian government, unlike the UK, Australia and many others proposing similar bans, has taken a different approach to provide for the protection of children in digital environments, Decree No. 12,880, of March 18, 2026. According to Victor Oliveira Fernandes, Brazil's National Secretary for Digital Rights, the decree tackles the problem at source by banning dark patterns and addictive design targetted at children, including infinite scroll, autoplay, time-based rewards, excessive notifications, obstruction of privacy controls and exploitative cognitive vulnerabilities. Maximum penalities can be 10% of a company's revenue in Brazil. It will be interesting to see how that plays out in practice. As Prof Fernandes admits, passing the law is only the start, it's efficacy will depend on how and how well it is enforced, what economic actors it covers and to what degree it causes a change in their unethical business practices.

Notably, the early evidence on the effects of an under 16s social media ban in Australia shows that it has led to little substantive reduction in reported social media use by adolescents under 16. It doesn't work.

Peddling a headline grabbing social media ban is just another ineffective but also corrosive and dangerous attempt at a quick fix to a challenging and complex sociotechnological problem. If, however, after two and a half decades of digital technology enabled mass surveillance and failed government technical quick fixes in relation to all four infocalyptic horsemen, you still believe the PM’s claim that a social media ban decimating everyone’s privacy is the solution to the complex issue of children’s safety, I wonder if I could interest you in the purchase of a couple of bridges, one in London, one in Brooklyn?