Sheffield Palestine protesters accuse city council of ripping up its code of conduct over complaints

Annie O’Gara made a complaint on behalf of the Sheffield Palestine Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid to the council over a speech made by Coun Joe Otten at a strategy and resources committee meeting in February. She also complained that committee chair and council leader Coun Tom Hunt and LibDem group leader Coun Shaffaq Mohammed failed to intervene or respond effectively to Coun Otten’s remarks.

She spoke about the issue on Wednesday (May 15) at a rally held outside Sheffield Town Hall ahead of the council holding its annual meeting. The rally was also addressed by new independent Darnall Coun Qais Al-Ahdal and Green Coun Alexi Dimond, and by Lena and Sahar, two Palestinian refugees living in Sheffield who have previously held a protest camp outside the town hall.

Protesters then walked up to the University of Sheffield, where some have joined in with the student encampment in support of Gaza which has been running on the university concourse since May 1.

May 15 is Nakba Day, which marks the anniversary of when Palestine was partitioned in 1947 to create the state of Israel and 750,000 Palestinians fled or were driven out of their homes and villages in the subsequent conflict between Israeli and Arab forces. Nakba means catastrophe in Arabic.

A small group of protesters in the council chamber public gallery also briefly held up Palestinian flags and banners. They called out “Don’t abandon the Palestinian people” and “Stop the genocide”.

Confidential

New Lord Mayor Coun Jayne Dunn, who chaired the meeting, told protesters to sit down and said she was prepared to suspend the council sitting if they failed to comply.

The outcome of the complaint process is kept confidential but Ms O’Gara said that none of the complaints were upheld by the council investigation or by an independent adjudicator.

The Local Democracy Reporting Service (LDRS) has seen copies of the adjudications.

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The investigation concluded that none of the councillors had broken the code of conduct and Coun Otten’s remarks did not overstep the bounds of a councillor’s legally-protected right to freedom of speech in meetings.

Ms O’Gara said that this decision has effectively “torn up” the code of conduct.

The committee meeting referred to was considering a request to join the coalition, which was rejected because councillors were advised that pursuit of its aims would contravene the Local Government Act of 1988.

Repugnant

Coun Otten called the idea “morally repugnant” and told the committee he had a number of concerns about the proposal, including the coalition’s pledge to “endorse the Palestinian cause”.

He said: “It’s not clear what that means. Is it the cause for a state – which I’d support – or is it the cause of the destruction of Israel, which I would be against?”

Coun Otten spoke about “the demand” of the coalition for the “right to return” which he said would mean the return of millions of Palestinians “to within Israel, proper”.

He said: “Now, that is not a reasonable demand. That is a spoiler demand that serves to be an obstacle to any peace agreement.”

He referred to a hypothetical example of the UK admitting “say 10 million people who all have been raised and taught at schools that it is good to murder people of Christian heritage and which includes tens of thousands of people who are part of the military organisation set up to pursue that goal”.

The coalition, which brings together organisations including Sheffield Palestinian Solidarity Campaign, Sheffield Trades Council, Kairos Sheffield and Sheffield Labour Friends of Palestine, is campaigning for the council to declare the city an Israeli apartheid-free zone, as it did with South Africa in the 1980s.

Treatment

The campaign Amnesty International in 2022 published a report that set out how “massive seizures of Palestinian land and property, unlawful killings, forcible transfer, drastic movement restrictions, and the denial of nationality and citizenship to Palestinians are all components of a system which amounts to apartheid under international law”.

The coalition complained that Coun Otten “violated the code of conduct with regard to his treatment of the Palestinian people and the Sheffield Coalition”.

The complaint stated: “The coalition has become aware that Coun Otten rehearsed some of the above racist tropes and personal insults against a fellow councillor in an email. We understand that the council has not yet formally dealt with the matter and that Coun Dimond has sought answers from the LibDem party locally and nationally on whether it endorses the views of Coun Otten.”

As previously reported by the LDRS, Green Party councillor Alexi Dimond complained in an open letter in February that Coun Otten made “defamatory, insulting and unfounded” statements on his views on the Israel-Palestine conflict in an email.

He said he has not yet received any response to his complaint.

Green councillors refused to vote for Coun Otten as chair of the waste and street scene committee when policy committee chairs were chosen at the council meeting.

Disrepute

Annie O’Gara said that the code of conduct is meant to ensure that councillors cannot bring the council into disrepute by word or deed when acting in an official capacity.

“This has effectively been torn up by the complaints department. In its place article 10, which we fully support, was prioritised.” Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights protects a person’s right to hold their own opinions and to express them freely without government interference.

She said this “leaves councillors free to say what they like, including insulting the reputation of the coalition and making comments that are arguably racist against a people that are currently suffering from oppression and genocide.

“It was distressing to see the leader of the party whose junior colleague was speaking in this way not raising even an eyebrow as these insults came out.

“Equally, the chair didn’t insist on respectful language, didn’t intervene, didn’t stop him and at the end issued a very mild rebuke that was ineffective in my view.”

She added: “By contrast in the council I’ve witnessed a citizen being accused of anti-semitism for making factually verifiable comments about Israel.”

She said that a previous lord mayor had also rebuked a member of the public in the public gallery who called councillors’ actions on Gaza cowardly.

“This is the application of double standards in the council,” said Ms O’Gara.

Coun Otten said: “I am in favour of a two-state solution whereby Israelis and Palestinians may live side by side in peace and dignity. This has clearly been made more difficult to achieve by the attacks of October 7 and by settlement activity in the West Bank.

“I am happy to support those working towards a peaceful settlement of the conflict, however it seems clear to me that the so-called Sheffield Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid, judging them by their demands, are not seeking peaceful co-existence between Israel and Palestine, but rather the end of Israel altogether, which is surely a warlike aim, not a peaceful one.

“If I have misunderstood them, I would be happy to discuss that, but so far they have not attempted to address any of my arguments, but simply made complaints.”