Filton 18: ‘The more you oppress people, the more they will rise’

The British state is treating Palestine Action activists who targeted an Elbit Systems Israeli arms facility on the outskirts of Bristol like terrorists – subjecting them to repressive sanctions in jail as they await trial.

Credit: Palestine Action /Laurence Ware

The Big Story 5th February, 2025

Sean Morrison

Fatema Zainab Rajwani spent six days in solitary confinement before she was moved to a regular cell in HMP Bronzefield. The 20-year-old spent two weeks behind bars before she was even allowed to speak to her mother on the phone, and three weeks before she was allowed visitors in jail – where she was routinely woken in the middle of the night to be interrogated by counter-terrorism police. 

A practising Muslim, Fatema slept in her cell with her headscarf on because officers would, at random, barge into her cell without notice. Meanwhile, the dozens of letters, postcards and paintings that had been sent to her from loved ones and supporters were withheld from her for months. She was also subjected to an unusual number of repeated, random drug tests. 

When they were finally able to speak, she told her mother Sukaina of these harsh conditions she had been enduring, and the panic attacks she had been suffering as a result of the repressive sanctions she was faced with. But Fatema, her mother says, also showed great resilience and strength, echoed by the poetry she was writing inside the secure women’s prison in Ashford, Surrey.

“At night I dream of a love so wide and so deep it frees us all. It stretches across continents to fill the space between my brown body and yours,” reads one poem, addressed to the people of Gaza. “I wish the love I dream of would hold your grief the same way that our silence holds violence.”

In August last year, Fatema, a third-year university student, is alleged to have joined a group of Palestine Action activists who smashed their way into a UK base of Israeli arms firm Elbit Systems in Filton, on the outskirts of Bristol. At the time of writing, she and her 18 co-defendants remain in prison awaiting trial in November at the earliest. By that time, some defendants will have spent 15 months behind bars.

The case of the so-called Filton 18 is set in the context of the UK’s complicity in what human rights groups say is Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, and the increasingly draconian measures deployed against activists as part of a wider crackdown on protest here in the UK. The state’s unprecedented use of terrorism powers against the group marks a further escalation.

Palestine Action activists aren’t the threat

The Filton 18’s alleged crimes are not terrorism related – criminal damage, aggravated burglary and violent disorder. But police have used counter-terror legislation that enabled them to keep Fatema and her co-defendants in solitary confinement, and subject them to repeated interrogation. 

Four of the defendants are aged 22 or younger, and have no prior convictions.

“For the police to go as far as using counter-terror powers to detain them, to scare them, it’s very shocking,” Sukaina, Fatema’s mother, tells the Cable following her daughter’s plea hearing at the Old Bailey in January. “It’s broken my trust in the system, the same system that’s supposed to protect and take care of its citizens. And it’s not just me – everyone who hears the story, what’s going on, they feel the same way.

Rather than begging the government to impose an embargo, we go straight to the arms companies and disrupt them from being able to make these weapons, stopping them in their tracks

Huda Ammori, Palestine Action

“The more you oppress people, the more they’re going to rise; the more they’re going to oppose these draconian laws and the abuses of power,” she says. “[Palestine Action’s] intention is clear. They are trying to disrupt the supply of genocidal weapons. They’re not trying to harm anyone, they’re not a threat. In fact, it’s the opposite… there’s a genocide going on.”

Palestine Action says their actionists were resisting the UK’s complicity in Israel’s genocide. “It is Elbit, Israel’s largest weapons company, that is the guilty party,” a spokesperson for the group said in January, as the first wave of the so-called Filton 18, including Fatema, pleaded not guilty to the charges they face.

The group’s target was Elbit Systems UK, a subsidiary of the largest manufacturer for the Israeli military. Elbit produces 85% of the Israel Defence Force’s (IDF) land-based equipment, and 85% of the drones used by its air force, while advertising its products as “battle-tested” in Gaza and the West Bank.

The UK-based firm tries to distance itself from its parent company, saying its facilities provide equipment to the British army and that any direct links with Israel were “grossly misleading”. Cargo documents, however, show that shipments have been dispatched to Israel in 2024 – including from the Filton site.

Elbit Systems UK has two facilities in Bristol, which are both regularly targeted as part of a sustained direct-action campaign by Palestine Action. The Filton site, Horizon, was opened in July last year by Israel’s ambassador to the UK, Tzipi Hotovely. 

Targeting the source

Since its first operation in 2020, Palestine Action has targeted UK arms factories hundreds of times. And the movement’s impact has been unprecedented, with their early actions leading to the closure of Elbit Systems UK’s former headquarters in London, and the selling off of one of its subsidiaries in Oldham.

In November last year, Elbit Systems UK lost its largest ever British arms contract, worth over £2.1 billion, after the Ministry of Defence scrapped its ‘Watchkeeper’ drone programme with Elbit subsidiary UAV Tactical Systems. The programme had been subjected to three years of sustained direct action by Palestine Action.

The direct-action network described the contract’s termination as “the beginning of the end” for Elbit’s presence in this country. But the group’s targeting of the firm has continued, including here in Bristol, where two facilities are regularly disrupted by activists who occupy their roof, stage protests at their gates, and, on occasion, storm the buildings.

Speaking to the Cable, Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori explains that marches and protests are not enough to force an end to the UK’s complicity in Israel’s occupation of Palestine. Direct action, she says, is the only option on the table.

“The reason why direct action is so successful is because it targets the source of what you’re campaigning against,” she says. “In our case, rather than begging the government to impose an arms embargo, we go straight to the arms companies and disrupt them from being able to make these weapons, stopping them in their tracks at those sites.”

She adds: “[Elbit] don’t care about humanity, they don’t care about Palestine. Obviously what they care about is profit. And so by continuing to cause financial disruption to them, this then changes their calculations when they associate the risk involved in investing in Israel’s weapons trade.”

Fighting repressive powers

Palestine Action is a movement that has, in the words of rapper and journalist Lowkey, “ignited the hopes and dreams of hundreds of thousands of people across this country, who believe deeply in the liberation of Palestine and are seeking new creative and innovative ways to fight for that aim”.

This is true of Fatema, her mother says. “She had been on every single march, she participated in the encampment at her university… But she reached a point where she felt her voice was being unheard. I think that feeling of helplessness spurred her into action,” says Sukaina of her daughter. “I am so proud of her courage.”

Her daughter’s case has propelled Sukaina to speak out publicly herself against the UK’s complicity in Israel’s genocide. She and a group of mothers, whose children are also being held for their alleged action in Filton last August, have begun a campaign of their own – calling for the British state to stop using terror powers against pro-Palestine activists. 

A petition jointly set up by family members of the Filton 18 had been signed online by almost 40,000 people at the time of writing.

Zoe Rogers was, like Fatema, among the first six of the Filton 18 to be arrested in August. The 21-year-old’s mother, Clare, says her daughter was not allowed a phone call, was held in solitary confinement, and that she and her co-defendants were also issued with non-association orders to prevent them from speaking to each other.

Clare says the order has impacted Zoe’s ability to take on prison activities that allow her to leave her cell. She tells the Cable: “[The order] played absolute havoc: it meant fewer visits, it meant my daughter was stuck on the induction wing, where she couldn’t make friends because people just kept passing through, for two months. That was hideous, and all to do with the ‘terrorism connection’.”

Clare says that, in addition to the petition, family members have led phone blockade campaigns to force the prison to improve its treatment of the defendants. She says Sukaina’s daughter, Fatema, was the only defendant whose mail was blocked while inside. “It was inappropriate, we suspect it was Islamophobic, and we did a phone in, blocked the phone lines,” Clare says, “and within a day or so she was getting mail again.”

A spokesperson for Sodexo, the private company that runs HMP Bronzefield, said they could not comment on individual cases, but that they “refuted” any such claims. In response to questions about Fatema’s treatment at the jail, they said: “We are confident that all relevant legislation has been followed.”

The state’s crackdown on activists

The state’s use of counter-terror powers against the Filton 18 are part of a wider crackdown on the right to protest in the UK. In an effort to deter activists from staging direct action, both against Israeli weapons firms and those complicit in the global climate disaster, the police and the Crown Prosecution Service are using ever-tougher powers on those who get involved.

It’s not terrorism, it’s heroism, and we believe history will vindicate them

Clare Rogers

The legal framework under which activists can defend themselves in court has also been tightened. Following an intervention from the Attorney General, the Court of Appeal last year limited a legal defence that had been available to protesters since the early 70s. 

The “consent” defence allowed defendants on trial for criminal damage to argue that they honestly believed the owner of the property they took action against would have consented to it if they had “known of the damage and its circumstances”. It’s a defence that climate change and Palestine Action protesters have used successfully at crown court trials.

The defence was also used, unsuccessfully, in the case of the so-called Elbit 7, who stormed Elbit’s headquarters at Aztec West in Bristol in 2022. The defendants were found guilty of criminal damage and received suspended prison sentences.

Before the Court of Appeal’s ruling, then attorney general, Victoria Prentis, asked for “clarity on the law” for future cases. The same thing happened after those who toppled the statue of slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol were found not guilty of criminal damage on a human rights defence – a defence now restricted after the intervention.

There’s evidence also that government ministers tried to influence police and prosecutors to crack down on activists targeting Elbit in the UK.

Briefing notes received by Palestine Action under the Freedom of Information Act show how meetings with Elbit representatives were attended by Home Office ministers, and one was attended by a director from the Attorney General’s Office believed to be representing the Crown Prosecution Service. The heavily redacted notes also show that Home Office officials contacted the police about Palestine Action.

“These disclosures, despite the extensive redaction, are the smoking gun on what has been obvious for a while: the government has been trying to put a stop to juries acquitting those who expose and resist corporate complicity in violations of international law,” Tim Crosland, a co-ordinator of campaign group Defend Our Juries, told the Guardian.

Challenging the terrorism link

In January, nine of the Filton 18 defendants were hauled in front of a high court judge for a plea hearing at the Old Bailey in London. They appeared via video link from various prisons across the UK, including women’s prisons Bronzefield and Eastwood Park.

The defendants pleaded not guilty to all the alleged offences they are charged with. They are accused of causing £1 million of damage to the building and face charges of aggravated burglary, criminal damage and violent disorder. One of the group, Samuel Corner, aged 22, is accused of grievous bodily harm with intent.

At the hearing, the judge said their case would be split into three trials, the first of which is set to take place in November this year, the second in May 2026. The third trial date has not yet been set. Ahead of the trials, the defendants’ legal teams will at a hearing in March attempt to challenge and dismiss an application by crown prosecutors to apply a “terror link” to the case.

The human rights group Amnesty International has questioned the use of anti-terror legislation in the case. In a statement, Tom Southerden, the group’s UK law and human rights director, said: “The Crown Prosecution Service’s reference to these alleged offenses having a ‘terrorist connection’ is troubling… Ordinary criminal offences can be investigated and prosecuted using ordinary criminal procedures, a process that helps ensure that the rights of those accused are properly protected.”

‘It was love, not hate, that called me’

Outside the court during January’s Old Bailey hearing, dozens of supporters staged a protest. Their chants of “Free Palestine”, the beat of their drum and the sound of drivers beeping their horns as they passed could be heard from inside the historic building’s Grand Hall. 

The hearing arrived days before a ceasefire in Gaza was to take effect. The Israeli offensive in the territory – triggered by the surprise Hamas attack in Israel in October 2023, which killed about 1,200 people, mostly civilians – has killed more than 47,900 people, also mostly civilians, and the death toll likely a major underestimate.

Zoe’s mother addressed protesters who gathered in support of the defendants. Of her daughter and her co-defendants’ alleged actions, she said: “That’s not terrorism, that’s heroism, and we believe that history will vindicate them.”

An open letter written by her daughter in jail, titled Love Called Me, has been widely shared online. It describes in detail how it was seeing the devastation and destruction Israel has inflicted on Palestinians that drove her to action – taken not to stir up violence but to show love and unity.

“When they ask why I did it, I tell them about the children,” Zoe writes. “Their childhood was stolen from them. Their skeletons are left charred and smoking. Their bodies are crushed so easily by falling buildings. Their skin melts as flaming tents collapse around them.

“I tell them about the boy found carrying his brother’s body inside his bloody backpack. I tell them about the girl whose hanging corpse ended at the knees. I tell them about the father holding up his headless toddler. I tell them about the mother who received the ‘approximate weight’ of body parts of her family to bury, as they had been shattered beyond recognition.”

The letter concludes: “Finally, I talk about how it was us that started it with our Balfour Declaration and media suppression. I say I cannot stand for this anymore, that it can go on no longer, so I took action against Elbit, their weapons supplier. But I never forget to say: It was love, not hate, that called me. I watched their songs and dances for freedom. I read their hope-filled books. I listened to their dreams of becoming doctors, teachers, journalists, and of never giving up.”