Latest news with #GamzeSanli
Daily Mail
6 hours ago
- Politics
- Daily Mail
The witchcraft artist, the Christian anarchist and the daughter of an NHS surgeon behind Palestine Action's plot to attack more RAF bases - as ringleaders 'have 150 targets in their sights'
On the day Home Secretary Yvette Cooper told Parliament she intended to ban the militant campaign group Palestine Action under Section 3 of the Terrorism Act after its notorious break-in at RAF Brize Norton, the far-Left group staged a show of strength. Dozens of police vans and ambulances were deployed along the Strand in London last week as around 500 supporters, some of them hiding their faces with scarves, gathered in Trafalgar Square. One, who was later questioned by police, wore an outfit resembling the concentration camp uniform handed to Jewish prisoners during the Holocaust. Clashes between police and protesters led to 13 arrests, with seven people charged – one for a racially aggravated public-order offence. So just who are the ringleaders of this radical group, and what are their plans? To find out, The Mail on Sunday infiltrated one of a series of webinars on Zoom, as Palestine Action capitalised on its notoriety by embarking on a recruitment campaign. 'Nobody here is doing anything illegal by being here,' says the woman leading the 'crash course'. She is understood to be Turkish-Cypriot artist Gamze Sanli, whose work 'weaves folklore and mythology, abolition and political resistance, death and witchcraft'. In 2022 she used a tourist pass to enter the House of Commons before squirting ketchup – to represent blood – on a statue of former foreign secretary Arthur Balfour, author of the 1917 'Balfour declaration' that set out British support for a Jewish homeland in Palestine. She was found not guilty of criminal damage at a subsequent trial. In her webinar she gives a list of primary and secondary 'targets' for direct action (which includes breaking into factories, where she urges us to smash 'everything you can with a sledgehammer') and tips on what to do when we're arrested. Remarkably, given the cross-party condemnation of the Brize Norton attack, fresh targets include three other RAF bases: RAF Cranwell and RAF Barkston Heath, both in Lincolnshire, and RAF Valley, in Anglesey, North Wales. Yesterday, it was reported that the group had 148 UK targets in all, according to a map on its website – including the Ministry of Defence in Whitehall, the 11 locations of insurance firm Allianz (for its supposed links to Israel's defence industry) and, bizarrely, Shannon Airport in Ireland. If Ms Cooper's legislation is successful, Palestine Action could go on Britain's list of 81 proscribed organisations this week, rubbing shoulders with Al Qaeda, the IRA and Hamas. But many on this Zoom call seem to have been spurred into action by what they see as the Government's over-zealous response to the Brize Norton incident. At least two people broke into the RAF base at night. One rode a scooter up to an Airbus Voyager – a mid-air refuelling aircraft – and sprayed paint into its engine, allegedly causing damage valued at up to £25 million. On Friday, a woman aged 29 and men aged 36 and 24 were arrested on suspicion of terror offences relating to the incident. A 41-year-old woman was also arrested on suspicion of assisting an offender On Friday, a woman aged 29 and men aged 36 and 24 were arrested on suspicion of terror offences relating to the incident. A 41-year-old woman was also arrested on suspicion of assisting an offender. A note preceding last Wednesday's Zoom meeting claimed many new followers would be joining in 'solidarity'. A fundraiser set up to challenge its banning has already raised more than £180,000, and human-rights solicitor Gareth Peirce has been lined up to represent the group in court. Her past clients include Guantanamo Bay detainee Moazzam Begg – whose Islamist advocacy group Cage, which once praised Islamic State executioner Jihadi John as a 'beautiful young man', is closely linked to Palestine Action. The amount being raised has reportedly led to Home Office fears that Iran may be bankrolling the group's activities through proxies. But Palestine Action insists it is funded by 'ordinary people' and condemned any Iran link as a smear. The group says its support base is made up of anyone from nursery teachers to surgeons, ranging in age from 18 to 80. Wednesday's online workshop was very much a silver-haired affair, with a dozen or so people of pensionable age, including a retired reverend. But the founders of Palestine Action are rather more hardcore. It was set up in 2020 by Huda Ammori, the daughter of a former NHS surgeon, who is Palestinian by birth, in partnership with 'Christian anarchist' and former Extinction Rebellion member Richard Barnard, 51. Ms Ammori told The Guardian yesterday that she found the group's proposed banning 'hard to absorb'. 'I don't have a single conviction, but if this goes through I would have co-founded what will be a terrorist organisation,' she said. Now 31, she gained a reputation as a serial protester while studying international business and finance at Manchester University. Her activism coincided with Jeremy Corbyn's leadership of Labour and, in an article for The New Arab magazine in 2022, she revealed it was her Iraqi mother who insisted she join the party. She said: 'This was quite confusing given that Tony Blair, under the Labour government, led the invasion and destruction of Iraq.' She added: 'However, this time round, the renewal of hope was alive, with Jeremy Corbyn, a committed anti-imperialist activist and politician, elected as leader.' But by 2019 Mr Corbyn had lost the leadership and, under his successor Keir Starmer, Ms Ammori saw 'a bias towards apartheid and imperialism'. She claimed successive governments had 'supported Israel's apartheid regime over the Palestinian people', and this led her to launch Palestine Action. Its goal is to attack bodies behind arms exports to Israel, particularly the UK sites of Israeli weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems, which was described in Wednesday's online 'crash course' as the 'Zionist manifestation in the UK'. An Elbit factory in Staffordshire became its first target. In 2020, activists climbed on its roof and spent three nights wreaking havoc with hammers and paint. In an interview with Prospect magazine last year, Ms Ammori recalled how she felt when she looked at the wrecked building as police carried her down on a stretcher (the group teaches activists to 'go floppy' when being arrested to cause disruption). 'I just remember saying how beautiful it all looked,' she said. Since then, its tactics have become increasingly militant. Ten members allegedly used an old prison van to break into an Elbit Systems site in Bristol last August in an act described as a 'ram raid'. Eighteen were arrested and remanded in custody, and will be tried this year. Ms Ammori was not involved. In March, activists on a cherry picker targeted Elbit in Bristol again, spraying it with red paint and using a sledgehammer on a rope to smash windows. This militancy seems a far cry from Ms Ammori's upbringing in a detached house in a gated cul-de-sac in an affluent area of Bolton. But she appears to have been radicalised young. She claims her great-grandfather was killed by British soldiers in the 1936 uprising in Palestine, a major Arab revolt against British rule and increasing Jewish immigration. She also endured turmoil in 2013 when her father, Professor Basil Ammori, left the family home and moved in with a woman 30 years his junior, whom he later married. In 2014, she and her father were said to have had a violent doorstep altercation after she allegedly posted his new wife's name on a personal ads website causing men to post messages asking for sex. She also claimed he had 'f***** off with a white whore' and had a 'b****** son', a General Medical Council tribunal heard in 2016. Accused of hitting Ms Ammori when she confronted him at his home in Altrincham, Cheshire, the obesity surgeon was cleared. Ms Ammori's mother declined to discuss her daughter's militant activities with the MoS. Richard Barnard has a similarly conflicted background. Among his 30 tattoos are Buddhist chants, an IRA slogan, 'freedom' in Arabic and 'all cops are b*****ds' in code. Once part of the Christian anarchist group Catholic Worker, he told Prospect he was now Muslim. He is said to have been in a hardline faction of the environmental protest group Extinction Rebellion (XR) around founder Roger Hallam, who also established Just Stop Oil. Hallam is serving a four-year prison sentence for conspiring to disrupt traffic over the M25. Barnard was arrested in 2019 but later acquitted for protesting on top of Tube trains in an XR stunt. He is due to be tried next year for allegedly eliciting support for Hamas and encouraging criminal damage. At a demo in Manchester the day after the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, he reportedly told the crowd: 'When we hear the resistance, the Al-Aqsa Flood [as Hamas called the attack] we must turn that flood into a tsunami of the whole world.' Other supporters include NHS orthopaedic doctor Rahmeh Aladwan, who on Thursday reposted a tweet from Iranian leader Ali Khamenei, which read: 'I offer my congratulations on the victory over the fallacious Zionist regime.' She has also tweeted: 'Let the record show that I support [Palestine Action]... upholders of truth and justice. Our British heroes.' Then there is Paul Shortt, 52, from Dumfries, Scotland, who posed with what appears to be a handgun on social media alongside a post stating: 'Resistance is not terrorism! Resistance is justified. When people are occupied. Resist! By any means necessary.' He was one of ten activists who attacked Elbit's Bristol HQ in 2022. He received a suspended jail term. Palestine Action has produced a manual on how to plot disruption. Members should organise themselves into cells of three or four, use 'burner' phones and code names, cover their faces and pay for any supplies in cash. Today, it is due to carry out a 'training day' in Leicester for recruits, who are expected to 'harness the strength of the grassroots and direct it towards bringing down Israel's war machine'. More are scheduled for London, Liverpool and Glasgow next month. In our webinar, Gamze Sanli says members are expected to make a 'level of sacrifice'. But in a slide marked 'police station tips', detainees are told they can ask for 'a free tracksuit'. These middle-class activists seem ready to part with their liberty for the cause. But some home comforts clearly remain essential.
Daily Mail
14 hours ago
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Revealed: Palestine Action's recruitment 'ringleader' is an anti-colonial artist who calls herself a witch
The recruitment ringleader for Palestine Action has been revealed to be an anti-colonial artist who refers to herself as a 'witch'. Gamze Sanli was the speaker at a workshop for members joining the pro-Palestine, where recruits were told to attack military sites across the country, The Telegraph reports. Sanli, who calls herself an 'Anatolian-Mediterranean witch' on social media also reportedly discussed tactics for breaking into factories, and told members to hit machinery with a sledgehammer. She also identified which RAF bases were most suitable for attack and gave legal advice to recruits on what they should do if they are arrested, it is claimed. Additionally, Palestine Action's new joiners were told that if they were arrested, the organisation would not pay their legal costs, but would have access to an 'arrest support group'. Sanli also listed which potential sentences they would likely get for a range of offences, including criminal damage, trespass and burglary. But the activist did not make mention of the fact that if Palestine Action is proscribed, members could face up to 14 years behind bars. New members were also urged by Sanli not to take their phones on raids as the activist group is reportedly planning on carrying out complex operations and escaping undetected. This new move would be a stark contrast from Palestine Action's previous tactics, through which activists aimed to get caught to raise awareness. Sanli, a Turkish-Cypriot activist, is a graduate from Kings College London and has a master's degree in human rights from UCL. In a biography on her website, Sanli describes herself as an artist and performer and says that her work is inspired by 'folklore and mythology, abolition and political resistance, death and witchcraft.' Sanli was one of two protesters who squirted tomato ketchup onto a statue of Arthur Balfour in the members' lobby of the House of Commons in 2022. The protest was timed to coincide with the 105th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration - a controversial declaration by the British government in 1917 that supported the establishment of a 'national home for the Jewish people' in Palestine. One protester said: 'Palestinians have suffered for 105 years because of this man, Lord Balfour – he gave away their homeland and it wasn't his to give', before the two activists glued themselves to the statue and shouted 'free Palestine'. Ms Sanli was charged with criminal damage but was ultimately found not guilty in December 2023. MailOnline has approached Palestine Action for comment. The revelation about Sanli's role in Palestine Action comes after it was revealed that the group was preparing to launch fresh attacks on military sites across Britain just days before it is expected to be officially labelled a terrorist organisation. During secret recruitment calls, attended by around 50 new 'comrades', the extremist group identified RAF Cranwell and RAF Barkston Heath in Lincolnshire, and RAF Valley in Anglesey as top targets. The group, which has already triggered a major security review of UK military bases, is understood to be targeting sites it claims are linked to Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems. It comes as the Government moves to proscribe Palestine Action as a terror organisation, a decision Home Secretary Yvette Cooper called 'vital' after the 'disgraceful' Brize Norton raid.
Telegraph
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
The anti-colonial ‘witch' behind Palestine Action recruitment drive
An anti-colonial artist whose work is inspired by 'folklore, witchcraft and mythology' can be unmasked as a ringleader behind Palestine Action 's recruitment drive. Gamze Sanli was the speaker at a 'direct action workshop' in which new members were instructed on how to attack targets across the country, including RAF bases. During the workshop, which was accessed by The Telegraph, Ms Sanli told recruits they would be part of a new, sustained wave of attacks on military sites and discussed tactics such as attacking machinery with a 'sledgehammer'. Ms Sanli said that plans to proscribe Palestine Action as a terrorist group were 'draconian and dangerous' and the organisation would 'continue to operate' even if designated as a terror group. It can now be disclosed that the Turkish-Cypriot activist is a graduate from King's College London and holds an MA in human rights from University College London. In a biography on her website, Ms Sanli, who describes herself as a multidisciplinary artist and performer, says that 'her craft weaves folklore and mythology, abolition and political resistance, death and witchcraft'. The biography adds: 'Moving through different mediums, including experimental film and performance, documentary, illustration, embroidery, poetry and music, she reimagines and reframes the world with a queering, anti-colonial lens.' Ms Sanli, who is thought to have lived in an expensive central London neighbourhood near Hyde Park, also says she is the founder of 'Scattered Seeds', a collective of diasporans, migrants and internationalists focusing on anti-colonial, abolitionist, feminist resistance with radical pedagogy, archiving, and art. She works on projects within the intersection of migration and queerness in Belgium as part of a project called 'Queers on the Move'. During the meeting for new recruits, Ms Sanli discussed tactics for breaking into factories and urged people to hit 'everything you can find with a sledgehammer'. She advised them on how to set up autonomous cells able to target military bases without detection. A slide in the call identified three RAF bases most suitable for attack: RAF Cranwell and RAF Barkston Heath, both in Lincolnshire; and RAF Valley, in Anglesey, North Wales. The Telegraph has passed details to police. In 2022, Ms Sanli was one of two Palestine Action protesters who squirted tomato ketchup onto a statue of Arthur Balfour in the members' lobby of the House of Commons. The protest was timed to coincide with the 105th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration – the controversial declaration by the British government in 1917 that became a core component of the British mandate for Palestine. As the protesters sprayed the ketchup, which the group described as fake blood, one said: 'Palestinians have suffered for 105 years because of this man, Lord Balfour – he gave away their homeland and it wasn't his to give.' The two protesters glued themselves to the statue after squirting the ketchup, before revealing a miniature Palestinian flag and shouting 'free Palestine'. Ms Sanli was charged with criminal damage but, following a week-long trial at Southwark Crown Court, she was found not guilty in a unanimous verdict on Dec 18 2023. Speaking at the time, Ms Sanli said: 'We wanted to show that this is not a faraway geopolitical conflict. 'We're talking about apartheid and settler colonialism, violations of the human rights of a whole people, and we need to see that through the lens of British complicity.' During the workshop, Ms Sanli also gave legal advice to new recruits on what they themselves should do if they were arrested. Recruits were warned that if they were arrested, Palestine Action would not pay their legal fees but would offer 'support'. An 'arrest support group' would be on hand to help those detained and recruits were told that if they did not have enough money to pay legal costs, they could rely on legal aid. Ms Sanli also advised them on what potential sentences they would likely get for a range of offences, including criminal damage, trespass and burglary. She did not mention the fact that if Palestine Action is proscribed, anyone who is a member of the group or expresses support for it would face sentences of up to 14 years in prison. Outlining the various strategies for attacking targets, Ms Sanli said that the plan for new recruits was to carry out sustained, serious disruption. In the past, the group had focused on carrying out 'accountable' attacks with the aim of getting caught and raising publicity. The focus for the new cohort was on carrying out covert actions and escaping undetected. They were told not to take phones on raids and to hand over their belongings to neighbours in case their homes were searched if they were arrested. On Friday, four people were arrested by counter-terror police in connection with a break-in at RAF Brize Norton last week. A woman, 29, of no fixed abode and two men, aged 36 and 24 from London, were arrested on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism, contrary to Section 41 of the Terrorism Act 2000. Another woman, 41, of no fixed abode, was arrested on suspicion of assisting an offender. Footage posted online by Palestine Action following the incident showed two people inside the RAF base in Oxfordshire. The clip showed one person riding an electric scooter to an Airbus Voyager air-to-air refuelling tanker and spraying paint into one of its jet engines. Two planes were damaged. The Metropolitan Police has been contacted and asked to confirm if it is investigating the direct action workshops and whether those delivering them may have committed any criminal offences.
