in central London
EMERGENCY rallies were held today in London and Manchester to demand the government hold Israel to account for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in East Jerusalem.
Hundreds gathered outside Downing Street in central London, waving Palestinian flags and placards reading “save al-Aqsa,” and “we can’t breathe since 1948.”
The protests are in solidarity with Palestinian families in the occupied East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah who face imminent eviction from their homes to make way for illegal settlers following an Israeli court order last weekend.
Nightly protests sparked by the court order have been met with brutal violence from Israeli soldiers with at least 80 injured on Saturday night, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent.
by Bethany Rielly
SPECIAL branch kept tabs on journalists seeking to publicise how campaigners exposed a police spy who infiltrated protest groups in the 1970s, a public inquiry heard today.
Undercover officer Richard Clark spied on the Troops Out Movement (TOM), a campaign calling for British soldiers to be withdrawn from Northern Ireland, and quickly rose through the ranks. For a period of several months he even headed the entire movement.
Clark, who used the cover name Rick Gibson, later moved on to infiltrate revolutionary group Big Flame, but campaigners grew suspicious of him and launched an extensive investigation into his background.
by Bethany Rielly
A FORMER undercover officer told an inquiry today that he punched a campaigner as a form of “justice” after the man accused him of being a police spy.
The officer, who used the cover name Michael Scott, carried out the “cold and calculated” attack while infiltrating protest groups in the 1970s, including anti-apartheid and Irish solidarity organisations.
The spycop broke his little finger after hitting campaigner Gerry Lawless, who had accused him in a public meeting of the Troops Out Movement of being an undercover officer.
Giving evidence to the Undercover Policing Inquiry, Mr Scott said he felt that the punch was the “only sensible way” to deal with the accusation and maintain his cover.
by Bethany Rielly
AN UNDERCOVER officer was authorised by senior police to lie in court after being arrested and charged with public order offences at an anti-apartheid protest, the spycops inquiry heard today.
The officer, who used the cover-name Michael Scott, was told by managers to use his fake identity during the trial in order to bolster his credentials among campaigners.
He was convicted under his false name for public disorder.
The revelation is the first potential miscarriage of justice being scrutinised by the Undercover Policing Inquiry, headed by retired judge Sir John Mitting.
As part of the inquiry, which is examining the conduct of around 139 officers who infiltrated more than 1,000 protest groups over 40 years, Mr Mitting is tasked with finding out how many campaigners were wrongly convicted because their trials were corrupted by spycops.
at the Undercover Policing Inquiry in the Amba Hotel, central London
AN UNDERCOVER officer who was unmasked as a spycop was ordered by senior police to claim that his bosses were unaware of his clandestine activities, the continuing public inquiry heard today.
After his cover was blown, “Dave Robertson,” an officer who infiltrated small Moaist groups in the 1970s, said he was paid a visit by the Metropolitan Police’s deputy commissioner and the head of the force’s special branch.
He claimed senior officers had created a “masterplan” to deal with the problem, and said that if he was confronted for being a spycop, he should say that he was “acting completely ‘off my own bat’ and that my superior officers were unaware of what I was doing,” the inquiry heard.