Free the #Filton6, Free Palestine Action Political Prisoners!

Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network joins our comrades in Palestine Action and the broad movement for Palestinian liberation in demanding the release of the Filton 6 and all Palestine Action political prisoners held in British jails.

Since 6 August, six actionists are being detained under the Terrorism Act (2000), which allows British police to hold them for 7 days with no charges. As onf 11 August, three more actionists were seized by the police and are being detained under the same provisions. Activists are rallying beginning at 4 pm British time at the Newbury Police Station in Newbury and the Hammersmith Police Station in London to demand the immediate release of all of the detainees.

The #Filton6 were arrested on Tuesday, 6 August for entering infamous Zionist war profiteer Elbit Systems’ Filton, Bristol site in order to stop its manufacture of weaponry for genocide. The action at the Filton site made use of a repurposed prison van — specifically in honour of and solidarity with Palestinian prisoners in Zionist jails and military camps struggling for freedom — to enter the premises.

Britain is now and has consistently been a partner in the Zionist colonization and genocide throughout Palestine, from the Balfour Declaration of 1917 seeking to provide the Zionist movement with a “Jewish national home” in occupied Palestine, to the British colonial mandate of Palestine that included the assassination and imprisonment of Palestinian leaders and strugglers in intifada after intifada, to the ongoing British arming and funding of the Zionist regime. As an imperialist power and part of the US-led imperialist camp internationally, it is a leading force in the alliance of genocide, bombing Yemen while participating in the assault on Gaza. In this context, it is further worth noting that the British colonial mandate was the first to introduce “administrative detention” — imprisonment without charge or trial — to occupied Palestine, a policy enthusiastically adopted by their Zionist colonial successors, currently used to detain nearly 4,000 of the nearly 10,000 Palestinian political prisoners held hostage in Zionist jails.

The actions undertaken by the Palestine Actionists are not only justified but necessary amid the ongoing genocide in occupied Palestine. Elbit Systems produces 85% of the drones used by the Zionist regime to carry out its genocidal assault, and putting an end to genocide is a moral, political and legal obligation of all people of conscience.

In May, Palestinian students in Gaza further called: “Today, we call on you, from the midst of massacres and siege, to a new revolutionary phase of comprehensive escalation, and to raise the pace and ceiling of your struggle and your honorable stances, quantitatively and qualitatively, against the institutions, corporations, and governments that participate in the slaughter of our children, our students, and our people in Rafah, Jabalia, Khan Younis, and the entire Gaza Strip, and against the settler gangs, armies of Zionist killers, and so on that commit their crimes in camps, cities and villages in the occupied West Bank and Jerusalem.”

We demand the immediate release of the #Filton6 and all other prisoners for Palestinian liberation held in British and other imperialist jails. Thousands of people have been arrested, detained and jailed by police in Britain, France, Germany, the United States and Canada in the past 10 months of genocide. These repressive attacks on the movement for Palestinian liberation are part and parcel of these imperialist powers’ participation in the genocide in Gaza and seek to repress the growing, massive international movement in support of Palestinian resistance and liberation from the river to the sea.

We urge not only the immediate liberation of these prisoners, but also echo the call from the students of Palestine for broad and comprehensive escalation to confront the Zionist war machine everywhere, particularly in the heart of the imperial core.

Freedom for the Filton 6 and all prisoners of the Palestinian cause! 

From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free! 

We are republishing the statement from Palestine Action below:

Actionists are being detained under the Terrorism Act, allowing the police to hold them for up to 7 days, with possible extension to 14 days, without charge. This comes after six were arrested on Tuesday 6th August for entering Elbit Systems’ Filton, Bristol site, to prevent its manufacture of weapons for genocide.

The Filton premises are the brand new £35m R&D hub of Israel’s biggest weapons firm. Its June 2023 opening was attended by the UK-Israeli Ambassador Hotevely, and Elbit’s CEO Bezhalel Machlis – who has frequently boasted of the company’s central role in Israel’s military, during the ongoing Gaza genocide.

Direct action against Elbit aims to disrupt this: targeting the source of colonial violence and genocide against the Palestinian people, undermining Elbit’s profiteering from Israel’s daily massacres.

As well as detaining them under unprecedented powers, police have launched a smear campaign against the detained actionists, alleging violence against police and security guards. The activists are unable to respond to these claims, and unable to describe for public record the force used against them by police and private security. Palestine Action contends that these statements are designed to prejudice opinion and legal proceedings against activists, and to lay the groundwork for the police’s unjust use of authoritarian powers.

Now, more than ever, Palestine Action and the #Filton6 need the support of the public, to push back against these authoritarian attempts to protect Israel’s weapons industry. Show the British state and Israeli arms companies that we refuse to be intimidated into allowing a genocide to happen.

Here are three things you can do to support:

  • Mobilise from 4PM on Sunday 11th August outside Hammersmith police station, W6 7NX or Newbury police station, RG14 5QU
  • Share this statement or publish your own
  • Visualise your support for the #Filton6 and Palestine Action either at protests or by sharing a picture with a sign saying ‘I stand with the #Filton6’ on social media
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