Legal experts, rights groups slam UK home secretary’s call to criminalize carrying Palestinian flag

People walk down Regent Street with a large Palestinian flag as they take part in a 'March For Palestine', part of a pro-Palestinian national demonstration, in London, on October 14, 2023. (AFP)
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Updated 21 October 2023
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Legal experts, rights groups slam UK home secretary’s call to criminalize carrying Palestinian flag

LONDON: Carrying the Palestinian flag is a symbol of solidarity with the Palestinian people’s legitimate struggle for basic human rights and their right to live in the recognized state of Palestine and should not be considered a criminal offense, a leading British discrimination lawyer has said.

“By waving the Palestinian flag, all you are doing is ultimately highlighting your sympathies, secondly your concerns and thoughts, and thirdly your support for the Palestinians and the people that are suffering,” which does not constitute an offense, Yasin Patel told Arab News.

His comments came in response to UK Home Secretary Suella Braverman’s letter to senior police chiefs earlier this week saying that waving a Palestinian flag or singing a chant advocating freedom for the occupied territory may be a criminal offense.

“It is not just explicit pro-Hamas symbols and chants that are cause for concern. I would encourage police to consider whether chants such as ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’ should be understood as an expression of a violent desire to see Israel erased from the world, and whether its use in certain contexts may amount to a racially aggravated section 5 public order offense,” she said in the letter released on Tuesday.

Her words, which follow relentless strikes by Israel on the Gaza Strip over the past eight days in response to a surprise attack by the Hamas group, deeply impact the right to freedom of expression, which “are fundamental rights that we have and the reason why we have those is (to) allow you those rights so that you can have democracy,” Patel said.

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He said if people wanted to express their freedom of expression using the flag during marches that support the Palestinian cause they were entitled to do so, as this is a basic fundamental right according to UK law and enshrined within the European Charter.

“In terms of a public order (offense), one has to incite something, break the law or do something that’s unlawful in order to upset someone,” he said. “What’s been alleged here is that by waving the flag, you would upset Israeli citizens or those with sympathies for Israel and/or alternatively supporting Hamas.

“Hamas is a proscribed terrorist organization, but the Palestinian flag is not Hamas and Hamas is not the Palestinian flag,” he added.

Patel continued: “Braverman wants headlines, and no doubt she’s putting her two pennies’ worth in terms of trying to make sure that she’s lining herself up for the next PM role, but, ultimately, in terms of the law, it’s very simple; just because you wave a Palestinian flag that’s not a terrorist act, that’s not unlawful, that’s not illegal.

“If she does feel that’s the case, she can happily arrest those people who are carrying Palestinian flags, and I have no doubt, not only myself but thousands of other lawyers, would happily represent the people who (would stand) before the courts questioning what offense they’ve committed.




Home Secretary Suella Braverman (2-L) with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak as he hosts a policing roundtable at 10 Downing Street in London on October 12, 2023. (Pool via REUTERS)

“We had the Israeli flag upon Downing Street a couple of days ago. No one’s saying they can’t do that (but) I’m a bit surprised that the government only shows support to one side but not all the innocent babies, children, citizens who are dying and about to die in the hands of the Israeli military now.”

Beleigh Jbara, a former human rights lawyer, called Braverman’s two-page letter a “disgrace,” and said that it would be difficult for British society to agree to, while questioning whether it was “acceptable or not acceptable by law and regulations and police powers.”

Jbara said that if the British government and parliament were saying Hamas was a terrorist group, then this was about what the UK has to do to prevent its society from supporting such a group.

“We’re talking about protecting the UK society from such events coming from outside and getting into our society, like what happened throughout Al-Qaeda and Daesh,” where young generations had gone to the Middle East to fight, he said.

UK-based Friends of Al-Aqsa, an NGO concerned with defending the human rights of Palestinians, condemned Braverman’s suggestion that flying Palestinian flags or chanting “Free Palestine” would be a criminal act and said her “veiled threat and denial of political expression is unacceptable.”

Its chair, Ismail Patel, said: “It is draconian for the British government to deny our right to express the plight of the Palestinians. Legitimate political expression should not be a privilege, nor the reserve of those allied with the government; it is a fundamental right for all citizens in a democratic society.”

 

 

He added: “I was at the forefront of organizing and demonstrating against the British government’s war against Afghanistan and Iraq (and) we were never obstructed from voicing our opinions like this. So why is this government giving cover to Israeli policies by denying British citizens their right to political expression?

“The right to champion the plight of the occupied, discriminated-against and marginalized is integral to democracy,” and the UK government’s “steps will prevent British citizens from helping to end human rights violations, which will disenfranchise people from political activism,” he said.

FOA was one of six groups to organize a rally on Saturday, along with the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, where tens of thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters took to the streets of London in defiance of Braverman’s letter.

Ben Jamal, the director of PSC, said that the letter was “deeply concerning” and “threatens civil liberties and normalizes the dehumanization of Palestinians that is widespread in current political discourse.”




A protester holding a Palestinian flag climbs the Eros statue at Piccadilly Circus during a 'March For Palestine', part of a pro-Palestinian national demonstration, in London on October 14, 2023. (AFP)

He added that police officers enacting Braverman’s orders would be denying “the right of Palestinians to fly the flag of their country; a flag which is the symbol both of their nationhood and struggle for liberation from Israel’s apartheid system of oppression.”

Jamal said that the Palestinian flag “is a precious national symbol that represents its people’s aspirations for freedom and self-determination, to live in peace and equality.”

Meanwhile, Rajab Shamalakh, former president of the Palestinian Community in the UK, said Braverman’s statement “was clearly siding with Israel despite the fact of her knowing that the Israeli army has inflicted lots of misery on the Palestinian people by attacking civilians, bombing homes without any warning, and they’ve killed over 600 Palestinian children” so far.

 

 

“When someone protests, by default, they’re going to have to carry the flag of (those) whom they are sympathetic with because the picture that we are seeing is a major catastrophe, so of course we have to carry the Palestinian flag to show those people who are under siege, being bombed, being killed, and they feel they need some kind of support,” he said.

Shamalakh, who is originally from Gaza, added that the Palestinian flag has been recognized by the UN and “there are more countries who recognize Palestine with its flag than those who recognize Israel.”

 

Shamalakh, who has lost at least 13 family members — 12 from one household — since the war began, said Braverman “cannot deprive people of practicing democracy in a manner that is allowed and there is no law that has been physically passed to prevent people or to make it illegal, adding that there have been many similar demonstrations in the past “so why is it different this time?“


Prayers and tears for Eid in Myanmar’s quake-hit Mandalay

Updated 31 March 2025
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Prayers and tears for Eid in Myanmar’s quake-hit Mandalay

  • The Muslims of Mandalay gathered for a somber first prayer of the Eid Al-Fitr festival, three days after a devastating 7.7-magnitude earthquake
  • The minaret of the Sajja South mosque in the Muslim neighborhood of Mawyagiwah crashed to the ground in the quake, killing 14 children and two adults

Mandalay: Hundreds of grieving Muslims gathered for Eid prayers in the street in Mandalay on Monday, the death and destruction of Myanmar’s huge earthquake casting a pall of anguish over the occasion.
The watching women were the first to weep. A tear, a sniffle, a cry. The emotion spread among hundreds of men lined up in the street outside two mosques where 20 of their fellow believers died.
Sobs and sighs haunted the air in the gentle morning light. Finally the imam’s voice broke as he prayed for the souls of the dead.
“May Allah grant us all peace,” he intoned. “May all the brothers be free from danger.”
The Muslims of Mandalay gathered for a somber first prayer of the Eid Al-Fitr festival, marking the end of the fasting month of Ramadan, three days after a devastating 7.7-magnitude earthquake struck during Friday prayers.
The minaret of the Sajja South mosque in the Muslim neighborhood of Mawyagiwah crashed to the ground in the quake, killing 14 children and two adults, locals said.
Four more people were killed at the neighboring Sajja North mosque when its tower came down.
Many of the dead were from Win Thiri Aung’s family, close and extended.
“In normal times, it is full of joy when it is Eid,” the 26-year-old told AFP.
“Our hearts are light. This year, we are not like that. All of our minds are with the dead children. I see their faces in my eyes.
“We believe the souls of children and everyone we know who died have reached Paradise. We believe they were blessed deaths,” she said, breaking down.
“It is a test from Allah. It is a reminder from him that we need to turn toward him. So we need to pray more.”
Outside the alley leading to the mosques, the Eid worshippers, many wearing the new clothes that are the traditional gift for the festival, lined up on plastic sheeting laid on the road, held in place by bricks.
A plastic bucket served for ritual washing.
“We have to pray on the road, feeling sadness and loss,” said Aung Myint Hussein, chief administrator of the Sajja North mosque.
“The situation is so dire that it’s hard to express what is happening.
“We were terrified when we saw the destruction. It feels as if our entire lives have been shattered by this series of tremors and fears.”
The pattern of destruction in Myanmar’s second city is variable, with some buildings utterly devastated and a few areas of concentrated damage.
Down the street from the mosques, a resident said six people were killed when a dessert shop collapsed, as well as two people in a restaurant across the road.
But much of the city appeared unharmed, with traffic on the streets, some restaurants reopening and daytime life beginning to return to normal for many.
That is a distant prospect for those who have lost loved ones.
Sandar Aung’s 11-year-old son Htet Myet Aung was seriously injured at Friday prayers and died that evening in hospital.
“I am very sad, my son was very excited for Eid,” the 37-year-old said tearfully. “We got new clothes that we were going to wear together.
“We accept what Allah has planned,” she said. “Allah only does what’s good and what’s right and we have to accept that.”
 


Russia pounds Kharkiv for second night in row, Ukraine says

Updated 31 March 2025
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Russia pounds Kharkiv for second night in row, Ukraine says

  • The attacks on Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, lasted most of the night and hit the city’s largest and oldest district

Russia bombed the city of Kharkiv in northeastern Ukraine for the second night in row, injuring two people, sparking fires and damaging a kindergarten and private houses, Ukrainian officials said early on Monday.
The attacks on Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, lasted most of the night and hit the city’s largest and oldest district, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said.
“The sixth explosion in Kharkiv,” Terekhov said in a post on the Telegram messaging app at 0255 GMT on Monday.
It was not clear what was targeted in the attacks that came a week after a US-brokered partial ceasefire on strikes on energy and Black Sea infrastructure. Both sides have accused each other of breaking the moratorium.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday said Moscow had fired more than 1,000 drones in the past week and called for a response from the US and other allies. Russia said Ukraine’s drones attacked energy facilities last week.
Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 and has waged a bloody and brutal three-year war. Both sides deny targeting civilians, saying their attacks are aimed t destroying each other’s infrastructure crucial to war efforts.
Over the weekend a Russian drone strike on Kharkiv killed two people and wounded 35, Ukrainian official said.
Oleh Sinehubov, governor of the Kharkiv region, said on Monday that the overnight attacks followed a late Sunday missile strike on the city of Kupiansk that left three injured and demolished more than 10 houses and a local cemetery.
Kupiansk, east of Kharkiv, was seized by Russia early in the invasion of Ukraine and recaptured by Ukrainian troops later that year. It has now come under new, intense Russian pressure.
There was no immediate comment from Moscow on the attacks.


Elon Musk hands out $1 million payments after Wisconsin Supreme Court declines request to stop him

Updated 31 March 2025
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Elon Musk hands out $1 million payments after Wisconsin Supreme Court declines request to stop him

  • which will determine the ideological makeup of a court likely to decide key issues in a perennial battleground state
  • The race which will determine the ideological makeup of a court likely to decide key issues in a perennial battleground state

GREEN BAY, Wisconsin: Elon Musk gave out $1 million checks on Sunday to two Wisconsin voters, declaring them spokespeople for his political group, ahead of a Wisconsin Supreme Court election that the tech billionaire cast as critical to President Donald Trump’s agenda and “the future of civilization.”
“It’s a super big deal,” he told a roughly 2,000-person crowd in Green Bay on Sunday night, taking the stage in a yellow cheesehead hat. “I’m not phoning it in. I’m here in person.”
Musk and groups he supports have spent more than $20 million to help conservative favorite Brad Schimel in Tuesday’s race, which will determine the ideological makeup of a court likely to decide key issues in a perennial battleground state. Musk has increasingly become the center of the contest, with liberal favorite Susan Crawford and her allies protesting Musk and what they say is the influence he wants to have on the court.
“I think this will be important for the future of civilization,” he said. “It’s that’s significant.”
He noted that the state high court may well take up redistricting of congressional districts, which could ultimately affect which party controls the US House.
“And if the (Wisconsin) Supreme Court is able to redraw the districts, they will gerrymander the district and deprive Wisconsin of two seats on the Republican side,” Musk said. “Then they will try to stop all the government reforms we are getting done for you, the American people.”
A unanimous state Supreme Court on Sunday refused to hear a last-minute attempt by the state’s Democratic attorney general to stop Musk from handing over the checks to two voters, a ruling that came just minutes before the planned start of the rally.
Two lower courts had already rejected the legal challenge by Democrat Josh Kaul, who argues that Musk’s offer violates a state law. “Wisconsin law prohibits offering anything of value to induce anyone to vote,” Kaul argued in his filing. “Yet, Elon Musk did just that.”
But the state Supreme Court, which is currently controlled 4-3 by liberal justices, declined to take the case as an original action. The court gave no rationale for its decision.
Kaul had no immediate comment on the court’s order.
Musk’s attorneys argued in filings with the court that Musk was exercising his free speech rights with the giveaways and any attempt to restrict that would violate both the Wisconsin and US constitutions.
The payments are “intended to generate a grassroots movement in opposition to activist judges, not to expressly advocate for or against any candidate,” Musk’s attorneys argued in court filings.
Musk’s political action committee used a nearly identical tactic before the presidential election last year, offering to pay $1 million a day to voters in Wisconsin and six other battleground states who signed a petition supporting the First and Second amendments. A judge in Pennsylvania said prosecutors failed to show the effort was an illegal lottery and allowed it to continue through Election Day.
Liberals currently hold a 4-3 majority on the court. All four liberal justices have endorsed Dane County Judge Susan Crawford, the Democratic-backed candidate.
Musk’s attorneys, about four hours before the rally was to begin, asked that two liberal justices who have campaigned for Crawford — Jill Karofsky and Rebecca Dallet — recuse themselves from the case. His attorneys argued their work for Crawford creates “the specter of inappropriate bias.” If they did recuse, that would leave the court with a 3-2 conservative majority.
Both justices rejected the request and said they would spell out their reasons why at a later date.
One of the court’s conservative justices has endorsed Schimel, who wore a “Make America Great Again” hat while campaigning Sunday.
Schimel said in a national television interview that he does not control “any of the spending from any outside group, whether it’s Elon Musk or anyone else” and that all Trump asked was whether he would “reject activist judges” and follow the law.
“That’s exactly what I’ve committed to anybody, whether it’s President Trump, Elon Musk or any donors and donors or supporters or voters in Wisconsin. That’s my commitment,” Schimel told “Fox News Sunday.”
The contest has shattered national spending records for a judicial election, with more than $81 million in spending.
It comes as Wisconsin’s highest court is expected to rule on abortion rights, congressional redistricting, union power and voting rules that could affect the 2026 midterms and the 2028 presidential election in the state.
 


France’s far right leader Le Pen faces verdict that could end presidential hopes

Updated 31 March 2025
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France’s far right leader Le Pen faces verdict that could end presidential hopes

  • The far-right leader is accused of engaging in an alleged fake jobs scam at the EU parliament
  • Prosecutors have asked the court to issue her with both a jail sentence and a ban from holding public office

PARIS: A French court on Monday will rule in the trial of far-right leader Marine Le Pen over an alleged fake jobs scam at the EU parliament, a verdict which could ruin her chances of standing in the next presidential elections in two years.
Three-time presidential candidate Le Pen, who scents her best-ever chance to win the French presidency in 2027, has vehemently denied any wrongdoing.
But prosecutors in the case, which also targets other top National Rally (RN) officials, have asked the court to issue Le Pen with both a jail sentence and a ban from holding public office.
The latter should come into force immediately even if she appeals, according to the demand made by prosecutors last year, essentially disqualifying her from the presidential polls in two years if the court follows the request.
Le Pen said in a piece for the La Tribune Dimanche newspaper published on Sunday that the verdict gives the “judges the right of life or death over our movement.”
But referring to her potential immediate barring from standing for office, she added: “I do not think that they will go that far.”
As well as a five-year ban on holding office, prosecutors asked that Le Pen be given five years in prison — with three suspended and the two years potentially served outside of jail with a bracelet — and a 300,000 euro ($324,000) fine.

With her RN emerging as the single largest party in parliament after the 2024 legislative elections, Le Pen believes she has the momentum to finally take the Elysee in 2027 on the back of public concern over immigration and the cost of living.
Polls currently predict she would easily top the first round of voting and make the run-off.
If successful in 2027, she could join a growing number of hard- and far-right leaders around the world ranging from Giorgia Meloni in Italy to Hungary’s Viktor Orban.
Should she be condemned, waiting in the wings is her protege and RN party leader Jordan Bardella, just 29, who is not under investigation in the case.
Bardella last week became the first RN party leader to visit Israel, invited by the government to address a conference on the fight against anti-Semitism in a trip denounced by opponents as hypocrisy.
But there are doubts even within the party over the so-called “Plan B” and whether he has the experience for a presidential campaign.
Le Pen took over as head of the then-National Front (FN) in 2011 but rapidly took steps toward making the party an electoral force and shaking off the controversial legacy of its co-founder and her father Jean-Marie Le Pen, who died earlier this year and who was often accused of making racist and anti-Semitic comments.
She renamed it the National Rally and embarked on a policy known as “dediabolization” (de-demonization) with the stated aim of making it acceptable to a wider range of voters.

Political death
Besides Le Pen, the RN is also in the dock and risks a fine of 4.3 million euros ($4.6 million), less than half of which would be suspended.
A total of 24 people are on trial, including nine former members of the European Parliament and their 12 parliamentary assistants.
A shocked Le Pen said after the prosecutors’ demands were announced that they were seeking “my political death” and accused them of denying the French a free choice at the next elections.
But prosecutors have insisted there has been no “harassment” of the RN.
They accuse the party of easing pressure on its own finances by using all of the 21,000-euro monthly allowance to which MEPs were entitled to pay “fictitious” parliamentary assistants, who actually worked for the party.
And prosecutors argue its “organized” nature was “strengthened” when Marine Le Pen took over as party leader in 2011.
According to an Ifop poll published by the Journal du Dimanche newspaper, Le Pen would win 34-37 percent in the first round of the next presidential elections. Her fate in the run-off second round would likely depend on whether all her opponents united to vote against her.
But with President Emmanuel Macron unable to stand again, it is far from clear who the strongest candidate will be from the center and traditional right to succeed him.
One possible hopeful, powerful Justice Minister Gerald Darmanin, said in November while still a backbencher that it would be “profoundly shocking” if Le Pen could not stand.
 


Advancing Trump agenda depends on spending cuts, says conservative Republican senator

Updated 31 March 2025
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Advancing Trump agenda depends on spending cuts, says conservative Republican senator

  • Johnson wants to scale back total federal outlays from an estimated $7 trillion this year to a $4.4 trillion level seen in 2019
  • Several Senate Republicans want far larger reductions than the House target to pay for the Trump agenda and address the $36.6 trillion US debt

WASHINGTON: A prominent conservative senator predicted on Sunday that Donald Trump’s tax-cuts and immigration agenda will not advance in the US Senate unless the president and Republican leaders agree to slash federal spending to a level last seen before the COVID-19 pandemic.
Republican Ron Johnson, a member of the Senate’s budget and tax-writing committees, said spending cuts need to exceed a $2 trillion target approved as part of the agenda by the House of Representatives. He called on Republican leaders to create a review process to find additional cuts in the federal budget.
“Without a commitment to returning to some reasonable pre-pandemic spending level, and a process to actually achieve it, I don’t think that’s going anywhere,” the Wisconsin Republican told the Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” program.
“That’s going to be the discussion,” said Johnson, who wants to scale back total federal outlays from an estimated $7 trillion this year to a $4.4 trillion level seen in 2019.
“We have a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to address this. This is our moment,” he said.
Johnson’s comments could spell trouble for Senate majority leader John Thune, who hopes to pass a revised version of the House plan this week.
Republicans have a 53-47 majority in the Senate and need at least 50 votes to pass the agenda plan with Vice President JD Vance wielding a tie-breaking vote.
But congressional Republicans are widely split over spending cuts. Like Johnson, several Senate Republicans want far larger reductions than the House target to pay for the Trump agenda and address the $36.6 trillion US debt. Others are urging modest cuts to protect social safety-net programs including Medicaid health coverage for low-income Americans.
The House and Senate need to pass the same blueprint to unlock a parliamentary tool known as budget reconciliation, which would enable them to enact Trump’s agenda later this year by circumventing Democratic opposition in the Senate.
Last week, Trump pulled his nomination of Republican Representative Elize Stefanik as US ambassador to the United Nations, saying the move would help ensure his agenda’s success in the House, where Republicans hold a razor-thin 218-213 majority.