A UK man was acquitted of terrorism charges after delivering his own closing argument:
The devil exists amongst those who deliberately starve children to death because they rationalise that those children will only grow up to be terrorists. It exists among those who bomb tent encampments and literally burn children and their parents alive. It exists amongst those who call Palestinians “human animals” the same phrase used by Himmler, the head of the SS about Jewish children in a speech on October 4, 1943 to senior SS Generals.
https://greghadfield.medium.com/tony-greenstein-the-most-important-half-hour-of-my-life-d03f7877a492
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This is not a new story. Nelson Mandela — whose statue stands today in Parliament Square, facing the Houses of Parliament — was described by Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan as a terrorist, and the movement he led as a terrorist movement. If this Act had been in force in those decades, that movement would have been proscribed — and anyone in Britain who wrote “we should congratulate them” would have been at risk of standing exactly where I am standing now. Mandela himself said:
“The West sees liberation movements as terrorist movements — and that is why I am accused of supporting terrorism.”
Now let me be precise about what I am saying, because it is not what the prosecution may pretend I am saying. I am not comparing any organisation to Nelson Mandela. The comparison is not between organisations at all. It is between governments — then and now — and how easily they attach the word terrorist to whoever opposes the policy of the day. Today, Mandela is widely admired. The label of terrorism should be applied to those who are terrorists not those who are not.
https://greghadfield.medium.com/tony-greenstein-the-most-important-half-hour-of-my-life-d03f7877a492
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#GoodNews #Politics