Pro-Palestine activist Paula Akpan has been cleared of criminal damage after a two-year trial. She had been charged with criminal damage after her role in a 2024 protest outside a genocide-linked bank. The financial services company Scotiabank, was one of many which held Israeli investments.
On 6 July, the Good Law Project said the woman had:
attended a protest outside Scotiabank on 17 June 2024, along with nine others. At the time, the bank was the largest foreign shareholder in Elbit Systems – holding a massive $500m stake in Israel’s leading weapons manufacturer, whose military hardware is directly used to target Palestinian civilians.
To highlight the bank’s complicity in the ongoing genocide, some of the protesters sprayed blood-red paint across the entrances, while Paula locked on to a fellow protester outside the building.
The police hit all ten protesters with a group charge for criminal damage. Now, more than two years on, Paula’s name has been cleared, and seven of her co-defendants have also been acquitted.
Paula Akpan said of her acquittal:
I feel like I can breathe again. This process is designed to make you feel like the weight of the state is against you, simply for protesting Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people and highlighting the complicity of the UK state and financial institutions based right here under our noses.
She said the long wait for a trial was extremely difficult:
The last two years have been mentally gruelling for me and my loved ones
But it’s one of the honours of my life to have played a part in the international pressure on Scotiabank, leading to their full divestment in Elbit Systems last year.
Good Law Project’s lead lawyer on the case was Cat Knight. Knight said:
This is a great result for Paula, but it should never have gotten this far. The police’s response was entirely disproportionate, and it reflects a sinister crackdown on our right to protest.
As the Canadian Boycott, Divestments and Sanctions (BDS) campaigners have pointed out:
This divestment does not exonerate Scotiabank, which maintains investments in arms and extractive capital. Its CEO Scott Thomson has been a loud advocate for the American “Trump doctrine” of foreign military interventions, as well as the “Global Defense Bank,” a proposed hub for military financing.
That said, activists like Paula Akpan have clearly put a big dent in the Israeli war machine, narrowing the space in which it can operate. Her acquittal is a victory for those fighting for universal human rights and justice. Those who fought for it are a credit to themselves and the broader movement.
The fight continues, not least in the UK where state repression of campaigners has escalated rapidly. But we can all take succour from Paula Akpan’s courage.
Featured image via the Canary
By Joe Glenton
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