• UK “anti-terror” spies snoop on Palestine solidarity activists
    https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/asa-winstanley/uk-anti-terror-spies-snoop-palestine-solidarity-activists

    Leaked local government documents show that UK spy agencies are gathering information on “pro-Palestinian activity” as part of controversial “anti-terrorism” strategy Prevent.

    Obtained by civil rights group CAGE, the documents are part of an aspect of Prevent known as Counter-terrorism Local Profiles, or CTLPs.

    A summary of the CTLP for Sussex, on the south coast of England, shows that one of the “priority themes” in Brighton and Crawley is “pro-Palestinian” protest.

    The documents also include a range of other legitimate protest groups as being of concern under “counter-terrorism,” including “environmental protest” and anti-fracking groups.

    The liberal coastal city of Brighton is home to an active Palestine solidarity scene, and a particularly active chapter of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

    In 2014, a branch of Israeli company Sodastream in the city had to close, after a sustained two-year campaign by local activists made the brand toxic.

    Sodastream at the time operated a factory on occupied Palestinian land in the West Bank.

    Palestine Solidarity Campaign director Ben Jamal told The Electronic Intifada that the news was “a disturbing revelation,” and said Prevent was “being used to frame legitimate political activity and peaceful human rights activism as extremist.”

    He said that “there is an increasingly urgent need for government to make clear that it takes seriously its duties to protect freedom of expression and that it recognizes that those who protest peacefully against human rights abuses are not extremists and a threat to the public but informed and concerned citizens.”