Leading human rights barrister addressed packed Palestine event

Human rights barrister Franck Magennis, highlighted the historical parallels between the North of Ireland and Palestine at a sold-out event in Derry’s Playhouse.

In the city on Saturday evening at the invitation of the Derry branch of the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Mr Magennis, told The Derry News the North was “crucial to understanding the Terrorism Act 2000”.

His remarks were informed by the fact he is a member of the legal team currently representing the political wing of Hamas, which has applied to British Home Secretary Yvette Cooper for de-proscription in Britain.

“There was a national liberation movement. The Irish republican movement sought the unification of Ireland and expected it to be a de-colonial process,” said Mr Magennis. As part of that movement, various organisations emerged to advance that political agenda, and the British Empire lighted upon this technique of making certain organisations illegal or proscribed, such that membership of those organisations became a crime and you would get a 10 year sentence.

IN PICTURES: Derry IPSC host 'In Conversation with Human Rights Barrister Franck Magennis'

Franck Magennis was speaking at the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign Event held in The Playhouse

Human rights barrister Franck Magennis to speak at Derry IPSC event

‘An evening of legal insight and solidarity with the people of Palestine’

“A lot of the most famous Irish Republican prisoners serving sentences in Long Kesh and other places, would have been serving sentences primarily for membership of a proscribed organisation - Bobby Sands was the most high profile example.

“You have this technique the British Empire developed for attempting to combat the Irish liberation struggle - make an organisation illegal and if you are a member you get 10 years.

“And then it removed juries from the North of Ireland because it was worried if you got three Catholics on a jury, they were not going to convict someone accused of membership of the IRA or other republican groups.

“Think about the history of this. Tony Blair wins the election in 1997. The Good Friday Agreement is 1998. The Terrorism Act is 2000. Hamas’ military wing was added in 2001. The Terrorism Act represents the consolidation of what was a domestic regime and it makes it international.”

Bronagh McMonagle, Karen McCole and Catherine Huttton.

As a result, Mr Magennis said, Hamas which “does not operate in Britain, does not claim to operate there, does not want to operate there, never has operated there” finds itself on this list of proscribed organisations.

“If you find yourself on the list, or are affected by a decision to prescribe an organisation, you can make an application for that decision to be overturned and that is what Hamas has done,” added Mr Magennis.

Having been heavily criticised for his involvement in the Hamas case, Mr Magennis observed: “It is perhaps unsurprising the British establishment does not like it whenever you observe the rules of their own game.

“They claim to care about the rule of law, they claim to believe people who are affected by these sweeping decisions should have a right to legal representation and yet predictably, the right wing press in particular in Britain, has been extremely hostile to the fact that Hamas has seen fit to make this application.

“And it has been extremely hostile towards me for agreeing to accept the brief on behalf of a proscribed organisation.

“What is clear is that if you look to history, you look at the South African example, you look at the Northern Irish example, if you want peace in a protracted conflict, you have to speak to organisations that win elections.

“There is every reason to believe, if an election was held in Palestine tomorrow, Hamas would do very, very well. Certainly it was the case that in 2006, Hamas won an election, and so anyone serious about peace can and should support this application.

“It is clear the Terrorism Act 2000 makes it a crime to express support for my client but that does not mean people cannot and should not express support for this application because you can support an application for de-proscription without supporting an organisation that makes it.”

Turning to the ongoing genocide in Gaza, Mr Magennis described Zionism as being in crisis.

“It seems like it is not going to survive this crisis, that’s my view,” he said. “The sitting prime minister of Israel [Benjamin Netanyahu] has an arrest warrant out; if he comes to visit the territory of his closest ally he will be arrested. If he comes to the UK, if he comes to France he must be arrested, that is a matter of law.

“His government stands accused of committing genocide, not just by South Africa but by a number of European Union countries and the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has already said that is plausible but perhaps more importantly, in July last year, the ICJ confirmed that Israel is committing a crime, committing apartheid.

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“It is an apartheid state, which means it has created a system of racial domination by one racial group over another. It is also the case that soldiers who go to serve in the Israeli military are increasingly facing prosecution.

“I am involved in a case in Britain where we did research on 10 British people who went to serve in the Israeli military. If they come back to Britain, there is every reason to believe they will be arrested. That’s Britain, that’s one of Israel’s closest allies, to say nothing of South Africa.

“It is about evidence of people committing a crime. We have never really seen a genocide so well documented and that is important because the people who are committing it feel such a sense of impunity, that they can get away with doing whatever they want, that they feel emboldened to just post tiktoks of themselves doing the most obviously immoral and illegal things.”
The Dublin born barrister, who grew up in the North, said he could not predict the future.

“My main message is for people not to be complacent. Israel is in crisis and it is for us to make sure that it is a terminal crisis. And we do that by continuing to apply principled, critical pressure to the people who are apologising for this genocide while it continues to happen.