#direct-action — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #direct-action, aggregated by home.social.
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For a century, teens have proved time and time again that they are the future.
By #KimKelly August 18, 2026https://www.teenvogue.com/story/teens-have-always-been-on-the-front-lines-of-the-labor-movement
#directaction #labourmovement #solidarity #workingclasshistory #youngworkers
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(19th August 2026)
“ Cooking Pasta, Giving Rides
None of the eight defendants were on the factory premises when the raid happened.
But prosecutors used joint enterprise powers, normally reserved for gangland murders, to pursue them however tenuous their connections to the break-in.“
https://www.declassifieduk.org/jury-refuses-to-convict-seven-palestine-action-organisers-for-israel-arms-factory-raid/#Bristol #directaction #Elbit #Filton #gaza #Militaryindustrialcomplex #PalestineAction
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it's going to get worse. where it goes after that is up to what we do now.
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Is poverty to be solved or debated on how to solve it?
#poverty #action #justice #society #policy #humanity #change #debate #impact #philosophy #community #directaction #solidarity #reflections #future #equality
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Sixty-nine-year-old Wynd Kaufmyn, a retired teacher from #Berkeley, #California, is believed to be the first person imprisoned for protesting the development of artificial intelligence, after she and other members of the group StopAI were arrested during a sit-in protest at the headquarters of OpenAI.
#Ai #OpenAI #Science #Ethics #DirectAction #Neoliberalism #Capitalism #Oligarchy #StateViolence #AlgorithmicViolence #ExtinctionEvent
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v99DkPP6LVY -
FILTON TRIAL TWO: THE JURY DID NOT GIVE THE STATE THE CONVICTIONS IT WANTED
One reporting-restricted conviction. Seven named defendants left without guilty verdicts. More than 37 hours of deliberation. A prosecution narrative that did not become a jury verdict.
Truthaholics | 20 August 2026
After an eight-week Old Bailey trial and more than 37 hours of jury deliberation, the second Filton 25 trial has ended without guilty verdicts against the seven named defendants who stood before the court.
That is not a mass acquittal. It is not a finding that nothing happened. It is not necessarily the end of the case.
But it is a profound interruption of the story the state wished to tell.
The jury could not reach verdicts on the outstanding counts against Madeleine Norman, Hannah Davidson, Teuta Hoxha, Aleksandra “Ola” Herbich, Ian Sanders, William Plastow and Yulia Brigadirova. Sean Middlebrough, who was tried in absentia, was convicted of criminal damage by a reported 9–1 majority; the applicable reporting restriction must be respected.¹
William Plastow’s violent-disorder charge had already been dismissed during the trial for want of evidence.²
The Crown Prosecution Service may still seek retrials on the unresolved allegations. A hearing is expected in September to determine the next steps.³
So this is not the whole story.
But it is the story the state did not want: after weeks of trial, the prosecution did not secure guilty verdicts against the seven named defendants.
The case the jury heard
The trial concerned allegations arising from the 6 August 2024 action at Elbit Systems’ Filton site near Bristol. Six people were alleged to have entered the site and damaged drones and other equipment. The Trial Two defendants were not alleged to have entered the factory themselves. The prosecution case was that they had planned, assisted, encouraged, facilitated, documented or otherwise supported the action.⁴
That distinction is not incidental. It is the architecture of the prosecution.
Reporting indicates that the Crown relied on a broad facilitating or joint-enterprise theory: alleged reconnaissance, equipment lists, purchases, transport, filming, accommodation, food and communications.⁵ Those were allegations, not findings of guilt.
The criminal law can hold people responsible for intentionally assisting or encouraging an offence. But it cannot be permitted to turn political affinity, friendship, shared outrage, practical association or a belief in the Palestinian cause into collective criminal liability.
Joint enterprise must not become guilt by atmosphere.
After more than 37 hours of deliberation, the jury did not reach verdicts on the remaining charges against the seven named defendants.⁶
The criminal standard remains proof beyond reasonable doubt.
The state did not obtain that result.
Precision is not weakness
Truthaholics will not falsify the record to make a political point.
Sean Middlebrough was convicted of criminal damage in absentia, by a reported 9–1 majority. That conviction cannot be wished away.⁷
The seven named defendants were neither convicted nor acquitted on the outstanding counts. A hung jury leaves those allegations unresolved and permits the CPS to consider retrial.
That precision matters.
It protects the defendants from the false claim that they were convicted. It protects public understanding from the false claim that all were acquitted. And it protects the wider critique from the state’s favourite response to dissent: “You are exaggerating.”
There is no need.
After an eight-week Old Bailey trial, the Crown did not persuade the jury to return guilty verdicts against the seven named defendants.
The jury was discharged.
Truthaholics’ starting principle is evidence before labels; truth before spin.
That principle applies in every direction. It means refusing to call a hung jury an acquittal. It means refusing to erase the criminal-damage conviction returned in absentia. And it means refusing to let the state call political dissent “terrorism” where the legal and evidential basis for that label has not been proved.
Precision is not a retreat from solidarity. It is solidarity strong enough to survive scrutiny.
Eighteen months without conviction
The outcome cannot be separated from what came before it.
Public reporting indicates that some defendants spent up to 18 months on remand before Trial Two. CAGE says the cases exceeded normal custody-time limits, though the legal calculation, any extensions and the reasons for them remain matters for the court record.⁸
The essential point is not in dispute: people endured extraordinarily long periods of imprisonment before a jury returned no guilty verdicts against the seven named defendants.
Remand is formally not punishment. In lived reality, it takes time, health, work, homes, relationships and years that cannot be restored. The longer a person waits in custody for a trial, the less meaningful it becomes to say that the process itself is neutral.
A right that cannot be accessed promptly and fairly risks becoming a constitutional fiction.
If the CPS now considers a retrial, the public-interest test must be rigorous. The question is not simply whether another trial is legally available. It is whether one is necessary, proportionate and genuinely in the interests of justice after lengthy detention, an eight-week trial and a jury unable to agree.
The prosecutor’s duty is not to keep trying until a politically desired result appears.
It is to act fairly.
The question the jury asked
One reported moment from the trial speaks loudly.
According to 5Pillars, jurors asked whether the defendants would be sentenced as terrorists if convicted. The judge reportedly directed them that sentencing was a matter for the judge and should play no part in their decision on guilt.⁹
That direction is orthodox. Juries decide guilt; judges sentence.
But the question is revealing.
It shows that terrorism-related consequences had entered the consciousness of ordinary citizens sitting in the jury box. The Filton Four had already received terrorism-related sentencing findings after criminal-damage convictions. The possibility that political direct action may be transformed into “terrorism” after a jury verdict is no longer abstract.¹⁰
The same issue is now live for the Barclays Five, who face sentencing after criminal-damage convictions arising from a 2024 action at a Barclays branch. Defend Our Juries has described the prospective use of terrorism-related sentencing there as “an abuse of democracy”. That is campaign language—but it identifies a serious constitutional concern: property-damage convictions can become the gateway to exceptional terrorism consequences without a jury ever returning a terrorism verdict.¹¹
The legal question may be technical.
The democratic danger is not.
The public is not a rubber stamp
This was a jury of citizens.
It was not deciding whether Gaza is a humanitarian catastrophe. It was not deciding the legality of Israel’s conduct. It was not deciding whether Elbit’s business is morally defensible. It was not deciding whether direct action is wise, effective or justified.
It was deciding criminal allegations against individual defendants, on the evidence it was permitted to hear.
The jury did not reach verdicts.
That does not establish innocence. It does not settle history. It does not mean a future jury could not reach a different conclusion.
But neither is it an administrative inconvenience.
A hung jury is a constitutional event.
It is the point at which a state accusation has failed to become a criminal conclusion. It is a reminder that official confidence is not proof, counter-terrorism rhetoric is not proof, and a politically freighted prosecution is not self-validating.
The jury room remains one of the few places where the state must confront ordinary human doubt.
That doubt is not disorder.
It is not extremism.
It is the criminal standard doing its work.
Political context cannot be a one-way valve
The Filton prosecutions exist within a political reality that courts and commentators have struggled to contain.
The action took place in August 2024 amid Israel’s assault on Gaza, global protest, international warnings of grave violations, and intense scrutiny of weapons manufacturers supplying the Israeli military. Defendants and supporters have consistently said that the action was motivated by a belief that Elbit equipment was connected to atrocities in Gaza.
The criminal law does not give anyone a blank cheque to damage property for political or moral reasons. That must be said plainly.
But neither should the law pretend that motive is meaningless.
The jury’s task concerns the evidence and legal directions properly before it. Sentencing is legally distinct. Yet a constitutional concern arises if political context appears too remote or prejudicial to explain a defendant’s conduct at trial, but later becomes central when the state seeks exceptional punishment.
That is the one-way evidential risk at the heart of these cases:
Political conscience cannot be excluded when it assists the defence, then reintroduced only when it may aggravate punishment.
Trial Two does not resolve that tension. But the jury’s inability to reach verdicts after weeks of hearing the case makes it harder to dismiss the wider concern as mere rhetoric.
No blank cheque for retrial
The CPS may decide that a retrial is warranted. That decision has not yet been announced and should not be prejudged.
But a retrial should not become automatic merely because the first jury did not give the prosecution the verdict it sought.
A second trial would mean renewed uncertainty, new legal costs, further disruption to families, more public expenditure and potentially further restrictions on people who have already spent lengthy periods awaiting trial.
The public-interest test must not become a mechanism through which the state tries repeatedly until it secures a politically acceptable result.
The state can prosecute. It can proscribe. It can imprison people on remand. It can seek a retrial.
But it cannot command belief.
Truthaholics conclusion
The Filton Trial Two outcome is not a clean legal ending.
Sean Middlebrough has been convicted of criminal damage in absentia. The remaining allegations against the seven named defendants are unresolved. The CPS may seek retrials.
But neither is this a normal prosecution outcome to be folded quietly into the machinery of the criminal courts.
For the seven named defendants, the state failed to obtain guilty verdicts after an eight-week trial and more than 37 hours of deliberation.
That matters.
It matters because people were held for months before the jury returned no guilty verdicts against them.
It matters because the prosecution tested broad theories of facilitation and association in a case freighted with political meaning.
It matters because jurors reportedly asked whether criminal-damage convictions could lead to terrorism sentencing.
And it matters because the line between political protest, direct action and counter-terrorism law is increasingly being redrawn after the fact.
For wider context, read Truthaholics’ previous work on Direct Action: Property Damage or Terrorism? Reviewing Jury Blindspots, Executive Overreach and Foreign Corporate Influence in the Filton 6 Trials; An Exploration of Arguable Routes of Appeal against the Outrageous Filton Trial Sentences & Criminalisation of Direct Action as Terrorism!; and Drawing the Line: Why the Palestine Action Case Matters for the Future of British Dissent & Direct Action.¹²
Truthaholics’ position remains simple:
Evidence before labels. Truth before spin.
The state can seek a second trial.
It cannot make doubt disappear merely by calling it terrorism.
Notes
¹ Declassified UK, “Jury refuses to convict seven Palestine Action ‘organisers’ for Israeli arms factory raid”, 19 August 2026; 5Pillars, “Jury refuses to convict seven Palestine Action activists over Elbit factory raid”, 19 August 2026. The reports identify Sean Middlebrough as convicted in absentia and say the jury was unable to reach verdicts on the remaining counts involving the seven named defendants.
² Declassified UK reports that William Plastow was acquitted of violent disorder because of insufficient evidence. CAGE and 5Pillars report that the count was dismissed during trial.
³ 5Pillars reports a 14 September 2026 hearing concerning the future of the case; Declassified UK reports that a retrial hearing is expected in September. The CPS decision remains outstanding.
⁴ Declassified UK reports that the Trial Two defendants were accused of assisting the action at the Filton site rather than entering the factory themselves, and that six other people entered the premises.
⁵ Declassified UK reports prosecution allegations involving food, campsite costs and transport; 5Pillars reports allegations of reconnaissance, equipment lists, purchases, coordination and filming. These were allegations, not verdicts.
⁶ Declassified UK reports 37 hours of deliberations; 5Pillars reports more than 38 hours. “More than 37 hours” reflects the convergence of the reporting.
⁷ Declassified UK reports a 9–1 majority criminal-damage conviction in absentia for Sean Middlebrough. Any reporting restrictions applicable to the case must be observed.
⁸ Declassified UK reports defendants spending up to 18 months in pre-trial detention. CAGE states that the eight defendants collectively spent up to 18 months on remand and contends that each exceeded the legal remand limit; that is CAGE’s advocacy position, not a judicial finding.
⁹ 5Pillars, “Jury refuses to convict seven Palestine Action activists over Elbit factory raid”, 19 August 2026. The report states that jurors asked whether criminal-damage convictions might lead to terrorism sentencing and reports the judge’s direction that sentencing was for the court, not the jury.
¹⁰ Al Jazeera, “The British state has recast protest as terrorism”, 18 August 2026. This opinion article is cited as commentary, not as a court record.
¹¹ Defend Our Juries, X post dated 19 August 2026, supplied by a truthaholics blog reader, describing prospective terrorism-related sentencing of the Barclays Five as “an abuse of democracy”. This is campaign analysis, not a judicial finding.
¹² Truthaholics, “Direct Action: Property Damage or Terrorism? Reviewing Jury Blindspots, Executive Overreach and Foreign Corporate Influence in the Filton 6 Trials”, 28 May 2026; Truthaholics, “An Exploration of Arguable Routes of Appeal against the Outrageous Filton Trial Sentences & Criminalisation of Direct Action as Terrorism!”, 14 June 2026; Truthaholics, “Drawing the Line: Why the Palestine Action Case Matters for the Future of British Dissent & Direct Action”, 16 June 2026.
This article is editorial and legal-policy analysis based on public reporting, including reporting by advocacy organisations. A hung jury is not an acquittal. The outstanding allegations remain unresolved unless and until concluded by the courts. This is not legal advice and does not speak for any defendant, legal representative, prosecutor or court.
#accountability #AntiZionism #BDS #Crime #Democracy #directAction #equality #freedom #genocide #genocideComplicity #History #humanRights #impunity #justice #news #Palestine #politics -
NoTAV Protesters Sack Construction Site
from Freedom NewsTwenty thousand people participated in the annual No TAV march in Italy’s Susa Valley on 25 July. At the Maddalena construction site in Chiomonte, protesters clashed with police and successfully breached the site where
https://efjournal.wpenginepowered.com/2026/08/15/notav-protesters-sack-construction-site/
#DirectAction #DirectActionReports #Infrastructure #Italy #Rail #RiotsAndRebellions #DirectAction #Italy #riot #trains -
RE: https://mastodon.social/@buildthecor/117061552362391585
📣 CALLING ALL RESITORS TO THE FRONTLINES THIS NOVEMBER TO DEFEND DEMOCRACY!
Military #veterans, #peace #activists, #clergy, #nonviolentresitance folks, LFG!
#Trump intends to show us what a stolen election really looks like. COR is building the unyielding #resistance. JOIN US! https://buildthecor.org/
#Democracy #DirectAction #MidtermElections2026 #MidtermElections #USPolitics #AntiFascism #BuildTheCor
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THE COR DAPP - Engineered for Grassroots Coordination & #DigitalSovereignty
📣 Calling on #ETH #CyberPunk #community to launch evolution of #directaction #organizing!
#Web3 is a tool for #liberation, let's get to work! Real-world community organizing is trapped on centralized Big Tech platforms—subject to algorithmic suppression, data harvesting, and sudden platform bans.
COR DApp: https://buildthecor.org/#briefing
#OpenSource #CyberSecurity #AntiFascist #Ethereum #BuildTheCOR #Boost #Introduction
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STOP THE WALL//NO AL MURO
Land defenders urgently needed in Lochiel AZ to defend ancient cottonwoods against border wall construction.
Two weeks ago, border wall construction workers felled three 200+ year old cottonwood trees near the tiny town of Lochiel, Arizona.
One person was arrested for standing in the way of machines i
https://efjournal.wpenginepowered.com/2026/08/13/27061/
#BorderWall #CallsToAction #DirectAction #Mexico #Treesits #BorderWall #CallToAction #TreeSit -
Steel City Food Not Bombs has shared free vegan food across Pittsburgh since 2020, rotating weekly through neighborhoods like the Hill District. No hierarchy, no conditions on who eats, food distributed alongside clothes and hygiene supplies, run entirely by volunteers.
https://www.radical-guide.com/listing/steel-city-food-not-bombs/
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Border wall contractor Fisher Industries office stormed and trashed in Tempe, Arizona
It appears this action was executed in the classic guerilla fashion: strike fast, hit hard, then disappear before the Enemy can get their shit together to respond.
From
https://saguaros.noblogs.org/post/2026/08/06/fishing-for-trouble/The following piece is an anonymously submitted reportback from an action against Fisher Industries in Tempe on August 5th.
The border is like an open wound, sliced through the desert with no consideration for its people or ecology. Folks watched in anger as the ancient cottonwoods of Lochiel were bulldozed, save for the last Grandmother Tree, which is protected by the courageous land defenders who climbed its branches. Fisher Industries is the contractor responsible for this wanton destruction in furtherance of colonial ecocide. In response, the anarchists and troublemakers of the metropolis decided to bring resistance to their offices, in solidarity.
A small group pulled up outside and quickly sprinted into their parking lot. Together, they stormed through the front door, invading the building. They chanted, “PROTECT THE TREES, NO BORDER WALL!” trashed their lobby, flyered and stickered their glass, telling them to quit their jobs and abandon their complicity in ecocide. While some acted inside, others outside attached a poster to the front door, issuing a notice of eviction by the people to the company. As a bewildered employee retreated back into an inaccessible part of the building, presumably to call for help, they exited as swiftly as they entered and hightailed it back home.
A message to Fisher Industries:
Your deplorable actions have not gone unnoticed, and you will be held accountable for your perpetration of ecocide in support of the fascist settler state. Cease your destruction of the land or face further repercussions.
To those in the tree and the camp, blocking the machinery of death with your bodies:
The people of so-called Phoenix stand in solidarity, and their hearts beat in time with yours. Stand strong.
Until the last border wall is torn down, the last tree is felled, and the land is once again free.
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PROVE US RIGHT! Can a new social movement successfully launch on @Mastodon?
COR launched here because we believe that the #revolution is #decentralized.
We're filling a critical gap in the American #ResistanceMovement. SNCC roots, founded by veterans of #directaction.
Lift us up, #fediverse! #Boost #Follow #Fund #BuildTheCor
#organizing #socialmovements #USPolitics #MidtermElections2026 #democracy #MutualAid #fundraising #fundraiser #invest @FediFollows
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Can the @Mastodon community launch a new social movement? We believe that the revolution is #decentralized. So this is where COR starts!
8 Pillars. One New Foundation. https://buildthecor.org/
Show us some love! Veteran organizers with SNCC roots and anti-WTO/Battle in Seattle and othee strong #DirectAction experience are filling a gap to hold power accountable with unrelenting nonviolent resistance this fall.
#BuildTheCor #ZeroImpunity #GetInWhereYouFitIn #Boost #FollowFriday #USPolitics
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Macht kaputt, was euch überwacht!
Zerstörung von KI-Kameras‚KI-unterstützte Kameras filmen den öffentliche Raum. Eine Online-Community gibt sich Tipps, was man dagegen tun kann – und was man lassen sollte…‘
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Wildcat 69 August 2026
#DirectAction Gets The Goods – Sheffield Workers & the World Talk – TEFL Workers Protest – Social Revolution 90th Anniversaryhttps://www.onebigunion.ie/post/wildcat-no-69-available-online
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Winona MN police department loses ALL their Flock cameras to underground direct action
On the 4th of August, the Winona MN police department found ALL of their Flock cameras had been chopped down and removed by underground freedom fighters. After no alerts in 24 hours, cops drove to the camera sites and found all of them gone. On June 29, nearby Buffalo County found they also lost some of their Flock cameras.
Corporate media report:
www(dot)valleynewslive.com/2026/08/04/every-flock-camera-winona-minnesota-cut-down-stolen-coordinated-theft/
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Portland: all three surveillance trailers at Hollywood Fred Meyer destroyed in "Camover" guerrilla strike
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Animal Liberation Victoria has been doing abolitionist direct action in Melbourne since 1978. They invented Open Rescue, run Australia's oldest farm animal sanctuary, and treat anti-speciesism as inseparable from opposition to all hierarchy. The tactic they developed spread globally.
https://www.radical-guide.com/listing/animal-liberation-victoria-alv/
#AnimalLiberation #DirectAction #AntiSpeciesism #RadicalSpaces
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(🌎) [EN] ⚒️✊ From the Luddites to Palestine Action, sabotage is direct action against power. Ecologism, labor struggle, and current resistance.
🌐 +info https://url.ecoarglobal.org/bYuRBS
💪 https://pepaloba.org/?lang=en#asociate
✊ https://ecoarglobal.org/en/activist-space -
Freedom News: **NoTAV protesters sack construction site**
https://freedomnews.org.uk/2026/08/03/notav-protesters-sack-construction-site/
Thousands resist Turin-Lyon high-speed rail, defying Meloni goivernment’s crackdown on protest ~ Gabriel Fonten ~ Twenty thousand people part…
The post NoTAV protesters sack construction site appeared first on Freedom News.
#DirectAction #News #Activism -
Our latest talk wit Johanna Himmelbach & Theetat Thunkijjanukij on the book DIRECT ACTION about the autonomous zone in Notre-Dame-des-Landes is online. #ZAD #DirectAction
Johanna and Theetat developed a new type-system sourced from handwritings of the activists at the ZAD (zone à défendre).
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You can watch it on our #MakerTube or #Vimeo channel.
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MakerTube: https://makertube.net/w/812RxijbMFoVJg6pJh618x
Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/lttrspc/directaction