Open letter to David Lammy requesting government’s genocide assessments in relation to Gaza
Campaigners have for many years protested against the UK arming Israel long before the genocide began and continue to campaign to shut down Elbit
(Radical Sister blog, 2014)
FOR THE ATTENTION OF DAVID LAMMY
Dear Mr Lammy,
As Francesca Albanese (UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories) and Craig Mokhiber (former United Nations human rights official and a specialist in international human law rights law, policy and methodology) have both repeatedly stated, it is up to ALL OF US to prevent genocide.
I am absolutely horrified at the extent and appalling graphic details and evidence of the ongoing genocide in Gaza which can be read in multiple reports by international human rights organizations. This is happening to families I have long considered friends. The mass slaughter, bombing, targeted killing by quadcopter drones, maiming, torture, burning alive, physical suffering, psychological trauma, disease, bioterrorism (Oxycodone laced flour), dehydration and forced starvation is unlike anything I have seen before in my lifetime.
In Francesca Albanese’s report, Anatomy of a Genocide: Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, the following passage is stated,
Israel’s genocide on the Palestinians in Gaza is an escalatory stage of a longstanding settler colonial process of erasure. For over seven decades this process has suffocated the Palestinian people as a group – demographically, culturally, economically and politically –, seeking to displace it and expropriate and control its land and resources. The ongoing Nakba must be stopped and remedied once and for all. This is an imperative owed to the victims of this highly preventable tragedy, and to future generations in that land.
I request under the Freedom of Information Act that government release their “genocide assessments” in relation to Gaza to parliament and the public. If government had no view on genocide there wouldn’t be genocide assessments. We need to know, what are the views of our government? By withholding these important assessments, government is failing to inform and support me, a member of the electorate in my moral duty to prevent genocide and many others also which I find most disturbing.
Craig Mokhiber made this very powerful statement via Twitter (X) on 28th March, 2025,
Darkness is falling across the globe. In my four decades in the international human rights movement, I have seen much cruelty in all corners of this world. But I have never witnessed the kind of unmitigated evil demonstrated today by political Zionism. Adherents of this ruthless, hateful, deeply racist, & fundamentally violent ideology are now in power in the lawless U.S. government (and that of other Western governments), putting us all at risk. They are not only torturing, raping, & slaughtering innocents in Palestine, bombing & occupying several countries, corrupting governments across the West, arresting and deporting human rights defenders and students in the U.S., harassing those who dare to speak up, and dismantling our democratic institutions, but they are tearing down international law and the very principles of human morality itself. No malign force since the Nazism of the 1930s has represented such a grave threat to the world. Either we will defeat it, or it will destroy us. Thankfully, Jews, Christians, Muslims, atheists and others around the globe are standing up in record numbers to fight this evil, and that is the light that we must work to spread.
Therefore, I do not find it at all surprising that Palestine Action is resorting to direct action over the UK government sending arms to Israel and performers such as Kneecap, Bob Vylan and others are calling out in anger and frustration over the Gaza genocide. I and many others took the chants regarding the IDF to mean dismantling of a genocidal institution. What decent human being would not want that? Proscribing Palestine Action under anti-terrorism law is NOT the way forward. Please look at government actions, there will be future legal accountability for anyone who is complicit in genocide.
The UN has stated today, 1st July 2025,
GENEVA – UN experts* today urged the United Kingdom not to ban the “direct action” group Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation under the Terrorism Act 2000.
“We are concerned at the unjustified labelling of a political protest movement as ‘terrorist’,” the experts said. “According to international standards, acts of protest that damage property, but are not intended to kill or injure people, should not be treated as terrorism.”
I strongly suggest government reads the mood of the people. It is not feasible to refuse to have an adult conversation on the assessment of genocide in Gaza. The withholding of documents on this issue is quite extraordinary given how long this genocide has been going on with no sign of letting up, in fact it is getting far worse. I am deeply, deeply distressed by this!
Also hot off the press is a new UN report by Francesca Albanese, titled, From economy of occupation to economy of genocide, BDS (Boycott, Diversity and Sanctions) writes,
The UN has just published a ground breaking report by UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, Francesca Albanese urging “trade unions, lawyers, civil society and ordinary citizens to press for boycotts, divestments, sanctions, justice for Palestine and accountability at international and domestic levels. Read the report”,
Again, I reiterate it is our moral duty to oppose and prevent genocide. This new UN report is all the more reason why government should be releasing its own genocide assessments. It would be an abomination to wait until every Palestinian in Gaza is dead. I ask government to do the following,
- Stop sending arms to Israel either directly or indirectly.
- Start sanctions against Israel
- Expel Tzipi Hotovely, the Israeli Ambassador to the UK
I inform you of the fact that I was in the process of trying to twin the Palestine Society of Bleeding Disorders (Gaza and West Bank) run by my friend Jad K J Tawil with our national Haemophilia Society UK when the Oct 7th attack occurred. Palestinian haemophiliacs were ALREADY suffering apartheid medical treatment BEFORE Oct 7th as is well documented. Now I don’t know who is still alive and who is dead, it is utterly harrowing. I stand with my Palestinian friends at this time of the most dark and depraved genocide, also referred to as the Gaza Holocaust. I condemn ALL killing of civilians.
Two of my own family, my husband and brother- in- law were killed by the state in the Contaminated Blood scandal, children experimented on in unethical trials against the Nuremberg Code which decimated our community as thousands were infected with deadly viruses and died. My own right to have children was taken from me, family life destroyed, my career ended. My father is law died campaigning. Life turned into an endless round of funerals. This scandal is also known as the Haemophilia Holocaust so I understand loss and mass trauma only too well from personal experience and now have 3 claims for compensation.
I would remind Yvette Cooper who wants to proscribe Palestine Action of her meeting with me at Westminster over 2 decades ago on the Contaminated Blood scandal, her failure to hold a public inquiry, failure to examine damning documents which I repeatedly sent to her office, her failure to respond to evidence on infected US prison batch numbers of plasma treatment and failing to deliver compensation to sick and dying Contaminated Blood victims and their families. How many have died during those years without ever seeing justice? Yvette Cooper may yet find herself being called to account legally for HER many failures! My family and community were terrorised for decades by the actions of the UK government, not red paint on planes but haemophiliacs being knowingly injected with deadly viruses, used in unethical clinical trials, positive test results withheld from adult haemophiliacs resulting in some infecting their partners and babies who then died! An account of that meeting can be read in Yvette Coopers own words on the following link.
FIRST WRITTEN STATEMENT OF YVETTE COOPER Contents Witness Name: Yvette Cooper Statement No.: WITN7187001 Exhibits: WITN7187002- WITN7187016 Dated: 19/08/2022 INFECTED BLOOD INQUIRY FIRST WRITTEN STATEMENT OF YVETTE COOPER
On 22 March 2002, Jill Taylor sent a submission to my Private Office [DHSC0042461_064]. It is clear that my office had asked for advice as to how to proceed following receipt of a letter from Carol Grayson written on 22 February. The letter from Carol Grayson [LDOW0000173_001], was to request a meeting, having seen a copy of my letter to Mr Goggins MP. Ms Grayson also raised the subject of Lord Owen’s actions, self-sufficiency and also Lord Owen’s papers. She wrote that since meeting with Lord Hunt “last year” she had “accessed a large number of confidential Government documents on this subject” which showed “incompetence and negligence”. She asked how I intended to “examine all the relevant documentation with regards to Lord Owen if his files have been “pulped”.” She also raised a series of questions on delays to achieving self-sufficiency, on lack of advice to patients on the risks, on the particular risks from US commercial products, and on the judgements made about the risks of different treatments.
Page 23 of 53 WITN7187001_0023 FIRST WRITTEN STATEMENT OF YVETTE COOPER Chronology of my involvement
2.46. In the note from Jill Taylor, a meeting “was not recommended” by civil servants; details of other Ministerial meetings with campaigning groups were set out. I chose to meet with Carol Grayson and others, contrary to that advice, and a meeting was arranged for 15 May (see paragraph 2.62 below).
2.47. In relation to the issue of documents, Ms Taylor wrote:
“15. We have concerns that Ms Grayson has evidently obtained Government documents from the 1970s/1980s and is basing some of her arguments on information gleaned from these papers. Officials have looked at some files from that period to establish how the money allocated by Lord Owen was spent, and papers on this issue have been passed to the Haemophilia Society. However, given pressures on time and resources, we have not looked in detail at the decisions made during that period, an exercise requiring several weeks of work. We have therefore not responded to … some of the detailed questions in Ms Grayson’s letter which are partly based on those documents. We recognise that this is not a sustainable position and will provide further advice on handling shortly.”
2.48. Parts of this submission have been highlighted and the last sentence is circled, with a handwritten note from me on the document: “Yes, it is unsustainable. Are they going to look into this or not. Seems they have to. And where are the Owen documents.”
2.49. It is clear that I wanted civil servants and officials to look into the substance of the issues raised — both in terms of the decisions taken in the 1970s and 1980s and also into the whereabouts of Lord Owen’s documents. A number of campaigners, including Lord Owen, were asking important questions about events in the 1970s and early 1980s, and although there had apparently been an initial look at papers, I was very concerned that the Department did not seem to be sure about the historical position.
2.50. Moving back to the chronology, I have been told that on 3 April 2002, Lord Owen appeared on the BBC Radio programme, “The World Tonight”. During his appearance, he said: “I asked for my papers as Minister for Health and I was told that they had been all been pulped and there is some bizarre ten year rule which struck me all as very odd …” [DHSC0042461_027].
I would add also that there will be a reckoning with regard to certain Labour politicians and dirty media that have cancelled me out of my own awarded research and main stream media for standing in support of Palestinians and have promoted my plagiarists to cancel me out and silence me as was threatened as “punishment” for supporting Palestinian rights. I have had “antisemitism” weaponized against me by Dame Diana Johnson for highlighting the apartheid medical treatment of Palestinian haemophiliacs and raising concerns over NSO Pegasus spyware. Government should have learnt by now that they are messing with the wrong woman. The scandal within a scandal, cover -up within a cover-up of Contaminated Blood has yet to be fully revealed.
To return to the genocide in Gaza… None of us are free until Zionism is dismantled and Palestine is free, not a two state solution but one state where all are equal.
Barrister Franck Magennis said,
Zionism is a kind of racism. It is essentially colonial. It has manifested in an apartheid regime calling itself “the Jewish state” that dominates non-Jews, and particularly Palestinians. You can’t practice anti-racism at the same time as identifying with, or supporting, Zionism
As someone who has spent her adult life opposing racism, occupation and oppression, I agree with Franck Magennis and also with the case to deproscribe Hamas having read the detailed legal arguments.
In relation to government’s genocide assessments, Gearoid O Quinn (Director of the Global Legal Action network (GLAN) stated today on Twitter (X),
Yesterday the High Court ruled it was for Parliament to scrutinise UK Gov’s supply of Israel with warplane parts. Now the Gov can’t hide behind “its for the courts”, must reveal their Gaza genocide assessment & stop ignoring info on targeting civilians
I support GLAN and Al -Haq and we all want to see those genocide assessments. I look forward to your response within the allotted time for a FOI request.
Please acknowledge receipt.
With thanks
Yours sincerely
Carol Anne Grayson
(Address and phone number supplied)
Carol Anne Grayson is an independent writer/researcher on global health/human rights/WOT and is Executive Producer of the Oscar nominated, Incident in New Baghdad. She was a Registered Mental Nurse with a Masters in Gender Culture and Development. Carol was awarded the ESRC, Michael Young Prize for Research 2009, and the COTT ‘Action = Life’ Human Rights Award’ for “upholding truth and justice”. She is also a survivor of US “collateral damage”.
