Sophie Bolt, CND General Secretary, updates us on the ongoing trials against the right to protest.
As I write this, the trials of Ben Jamal, Director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, and Stop the War’s Chris Nineham, are underway at Westminster Magistrates Court. Trials for Stop the War’s Alex Kenny and myself are expected to follow in mid-March. The trials follow charges against some of the leaders of the Palestine Coalition in relation to the national demonstration that took place on 18 January 2025.
The first day and a half of the trials were taken up by the prosecution’s deeply frustrating and tedious assertion of our attempts to breach these conditions. This included evidence from the Met Police’s Gold Command, Adam Slonecki. Particularly shocking justifications for his decision to impose the conditions included an attempt to present our protests as causing an increase in shoplifting in central London. Not surprisingly, this was challenged by the judge!
Since then the Kings Council for the defence, Mark Summers, has cross examined Slonecki and been able to expose his systematic failure to make any attempt to find a solution to upholding the Palestine Coalition’s right to march to the BBC on that day.
These trials are part of a wider attack on the right to protest which continue, but with significant obstacles. The successful judicial review against the proscription of Palestine Action found the proscription disproportionate. Meanwhile all Filton 24 direct action protestors have been acquitted. Whilst the government is attempting to overturn all these results, they do so from a position of significant political and legal weakness. Legislation is also going through parliament to ban protests on the basis of ‘cumulative impact’ and ‘serious disruption’ – arguments being used by the Metropolitan Police for imposing conditions on that demonstration last year. CND is supporting Palestine Solidarity Campaign’s national lobby of parliament on 17 March against this.
Whilst the attacks on the right to protest are currently focused on the Palestine movement, this legislation impacts everyone – from NVDA actions at military bases, trade unions organising strike action and pickets, to constituents lobbying their MPs’ surgeries. They challenge the very core of what a flourishing and healthy democracy looks like and must be resisted.