Published: 10 December 2021
Last updated: 4 March 2024
Judge throws out case against campaigners who targeted Elbit Systems over drone deployment; engineer fights Texas’s ban on boycotting Israel
UK: Pro-Palestine activists 'not guilty' after defacing Israeli arms company (Middle East Eye)
Three activists in the UK have been acquitted of criminal damage over daubing the walls of an Israeli arms company with red paint.
The verdict at Newcastle-under-Lyme magistrates court, in Staffordshire, England, which was hailed as a "landmark" decision by the campaign group Palestine Action, found the three "not guilty" over the action taken against Elbit Systems subsidiary UAV Engines in February 2021.
Palestine Action has said Elbit's drones have been used by Israeli forces to bombard and surveil Palestinian civilians in the besieged Gaza Strip before they entered the global market.
In his judgment, Judge Marcus Waites said the Crown Prosecution Service had failed to prove that the conviction of the defendants would be proportionate to their right to protest and said the duration of the protest and disruption caused had been limited and posed no threat to public order.
He added, however, that the judgment was not a precedent.
‘I thought I was a free man’: the engineer fighting Texas’s ban on boycotting Israel (Guardian)
Rasmy Hassouna, a Palestinian American, is suing the state over a provision that bans him or his company from protesting Israel or its products
Amid fallout from NSO scandal, Israel imposes new restrictions on cyber exports (Times of Israel)
Move comes after powerful Israeli-made surveillance tools reportedly used against journalists and activists by countries around the world under the guise of fighting terror, crimes
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Israel exports arms endangering human rights because it serves our interests, top defence official admits (Haaretz)
A closed conference offered a rare insight into the relations between the state and the defence export industry. Top defence official at the event: 'We should have defended NSO rather than caving to the Americans'
Photo: Rooftop protest at UAV Engines factory in Shenstone, Staffordshire, earlier this year (Twitter/@Pal_action)
