Abbas, Madeline-Sophie (2024) Securitising Palestinian Solidarity : The Fight for Democracy and Freedom of Expression. [Report]
Full text not available from this repository.Abstract
The Israel-Palestine conflict presents the most politically contentious context currently through which articulations of democracy and the right to freedom of expression and protest are contested which disproportionately affects British Muslim and Arab populations due to their perceived propensity for ‘extremist’ behaviours, but which also reveals a broader expansion of restrictions to civil society activism and ability to critique the UK state. I argue that we need to move beyond security framings to foreground human rights. This requires contesting restrictions to freedom of speech that a claim to political neutrality demands, but which actually works in support of state oppression against Palestinians within a culture of fear that naming genocidal violence and occupation will be equated with support for extremism and/or antisemitism that is detrimental not only for Palestinian rights, but advocating for a humane world.