Free the Filton 4

Free the Filton 4 - Palestine tee

White cotton tee printed front and back.

- Front chest - 'Terrorist' with irises
- Back - 'Free Palestine - Free the Filton 4' with irises

20% of all sales of this tee will go to the FiltonActionists support fund, provideing financial support for the prisoners freed on bail, as well as for those in prison. It also funds the ongoing campaign for justice for all of the 25.

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About this tee

I had a version of this tee in mind since the government proscribed Palestine Action - the idea being fairly simple: if you're arresting people under the Terrorism Act for holding cardboard signs, let's just jump to the end point.

I hesitated because, as someone of Arab ethnicity, 'terrorist' is a racial slur that I've experienced since childhood - and I'm sure many have have it much worse than me.

Ultimately, I decided to crack on with the t-shirt following the government's decision to sentence the Filton 4 as terrorists, despite not telling the jury this. I want a t-shirt deliberately provocative, to prompt conversation.

The earliest modern use of the word ‘terrorism’ referred to violence carried out by the newly-formed government after the French Revolution, a period known as the Reign of Terror. It described government repression: state-sanctioned violence.

As European colonialism expanded, the meaning of the word was subverted in a deliberate strategy by colonial powers - the British in Kenya (and later in Ireland), the Dutch in Indonesia, South Africa’s apartheid regime - and more recently in Israel’s genocide of Palestine, to delegitimise the resistance of colonised people.

The United Nations General Assembly Resolution 37/43 (1982) acknowledges the right of peoples under foreign and colonial domination to self-determination and affirms their legitimacy to struggle for liberation by all available means, including armed struggle.

The label ‘terrorist’ is an attempt to undermine and deny that right.

Terrorism is often presented as a universal and objective category of violence. In truth, it is a deeply political, colonial label, used to undermine and delegitimise resistance against oppression while simultaneously obscuring the systematic violence of colonial powers.

Recognising terrorism as a colonial construct allows us to question whose violence is named, whose is silenced, and who has the power to decide.

In the UK, it is now being used to deny citizens their democratic right to protest.

The Government has sentenced Lottie Head, Samuel Corner, Ellie Kamio, and Fatema Zainab Rajwani - the Filton 4, convicted of criminal damage for disrupting the production of an Israeli arms manufacturer - as terrorists, despite never charging them as terrorists.

Demonstrators at peaceful protesters are arrested under anti-terrorism laws for displaying signs expressing support for Palestine Action, or using the phrase ‘globalise the intifada’.

In linguistics, 'reappropriation' is the cultural process by which a group reclaims words that were previously used in a way disparaging of that group.

If the Government’s response to dissent is to label it terrorism - if calling for a free Palestine makes me a terrorist - then I wear the label with pride.

(Also, I think the flowers look nice.)

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Printed on high-quality Earth Positive t-shirts with an oversized fit.

Machine-printed, direct to garment - making it possible to achieve finer details.

100% cotton

Sizes:
S 34/36" | M 38/40" | L 42/44" | XL 46/48"

Price includes postage and packaging.