This Thursday is going to be ‘High Noon’ for Labour’s Attorney General and the MoJ

This Thursday 24 October at ‘High Noon’: the Free Political Prisoners public exhibition will occupy Petty France outside the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), directly challenging Attorney General Richard Hermer KC to engage with civil society – not just arms dealers and pop stars.

Free Political Prisoners: it’s High Noon

Hundreds of people have committed to take part in the action which will block the road to traffic in both directions for 90 minutes, or until the Attorney General agrees to a meeting. The action has been carefully designed to be a lawful expression of democratic rights, in accordance with the Supreme Court judgement in Ziegler and others.

In recent times however, people have been arrested for far less, so all those participating are prepared to be unlawfully arrested.

The exhibition, directly outside Hermer’s office in the MoJ, will be a carbon copy of that which took place in the cul-de-sac outside Southwark Crown Court on 27 September, in which 320 people took part.

Protesters will hold up images of political prisoners, past and present, to the windows of his office, defying him to turn a blind eye. They will be calling for an end to the role of oil and arms industry lobbyists, such as Lord Walney and Policy Exchange, in silencing and jailing their political opponents.

The action, falling fittingly upon United Nations Day, will intensify the pressure upon the Attorney General to bring the UK back into compliance with international law, as called for by the United Nations.

Interference in the criminal justice system

It comes amidst intense scrutiny of his role in securing a police escort for Taylor Swift, which grotesquely overshadowed the revelations concerning the office of his predecessor meeting secretly with Israel’s largest arms company.

Protesters will be calling upon him to live up to the words of his recent Bingham Lecture, in which he stressed the vital importance of the rule of law generally and international law in particular.

Since the publication of Lord Walney’s report in May, calling for members of groups such as Just Stop Oil and Palestine Action to be treated as organised crime groups, more than 50 members of those groups have been jailed, some for as long as four or five years, following trials in which they have been banned from explaining to the jury why they have done what they have done. In the midst of Britain’s prisons crisis.

No response

The Free Political Prisoners campaign has written to the Attorney General calling for a meeting to discuss this interference in the criminal justice process by industry lobbyists, which the Attorney General has refused in a letter dated 4 October.

Defend Our Juries has received no reply to a letter clarifying an apparent confusion on the Attorney General’s part concerning the proposed scope of the meeting.

The action presents the Attorney General with a dilemma.

If the road is left to be blocked, questions will be asked about whether any disruption could have been avoided by agreeing to the campaigners’ reasonable request for a meeting. If, on the other hand, people are wrongfully arrested, few will take seriously his recent claims to be committed to fundamental rights and the rule of law.

Free Political Prisoners NOW

Paddy Friend, spokesperson for the Free Political Prisoners campaign, said:

The Attorney General, Richard Hermer KC, is a human rights lawyer. He knows the silencing and jailing of political opposition to the oil and arms industries in this country is both dangerous and unlawful. But rather than accept responsibility, he’s passing the buck onto judges and the Home Office, claiming that what’s happening has nothing to do with him and refusing a meeting.

But that’s just embarrassing.

He’s the Attorney General. The Government’s top legal adviser, politically accountable for all criminal prosecutions in this country.

As a Minister he has a positive obligation to uphold human rights and international law, which means taking practical and effective measures to ensure the prosecuting authorities operate lawfully and without interference from vested corporate interests.

On Thursday, hundreds of us will occupy the road outside his office, forcing him to confront the insanity of filling our prisons with people taking reasonable and proportionate action to prevent mass loss of life and violations of international law.

Will he leave us to block the road, rather than agree to our reasonable request for a meeting? Or will he celebrate United Nations Day by watching hundreds of us being wrongfully arrested for demonstrating against the state of repression in Britain?

Featured image via Plan B Earth/the Canary