AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: We turn now to the U.K., where the criminalization of Palestine-related activism is on the rise. On Monday, a British court of appeals upheld the government’s ban on Palestine Action as a terrorist group over causing, quote, “serious damage to property.” Palestine Action has carried out direct action protests at Israeli-linked military and industrial sites in the U.K. since it was formed in 2020. Last week, a judge sentenced four Palestine Action activists as terrorists for their involvement in a protest at a factory owned by Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer.

But it’s not just the government and the courts that are creating a climate of fear around speaking up about Palestinian rights. The latest high-profile target of right-wing media outlets is British photographer and activist Misan Harriman, an outspoken advocate of Palestinian rights, who is now being accused of promoting antisemitism. Harriman has over half a million followers on social media. His photographs of the Black Lives Matter movement went viral, and he became the first Black photographer to shoot the cover of British Vogue. He’s also extensively documented pro-Palestine rallies in the U.K., highlighting examples of Jewish solidarity.

AMY GOODMAN: Over 100,000 people have submitted complaints to the U.K.’s Independent Press Standards Organisation, following what many call a dishonest smear campaign against Harriman. An open letter in his support, signed by over 250 celebrity actors, artists, activists, writers and lawmakers, claims the accusations against him are entirely without foundation or fact.

Former Israeli negotiator Daniel Levy described the campaign as, quote, “a preposterous ad hominem attack, spuriously attempting to cast an anti-racist British cultural icon as an enemy of the Jews.” Daniel Levy was a former peace negotiator under two Israeli prime ministers.

Well, there’s a new documentary about Misan Harriman, about the importance of protest and taking a political stand as an artist, directed by the Nigerian British filmmaker Andy Mundy-Castle. It’s called Shoot the People. This is a teaser for the film.

MISAN HARRIMAN: When I look around what is happening today, it’s hard not to feel helpless.

UNIDENTIFIED: We shouldn’t deny that we’re in a really dark moment.

SISANDA ALUTA MBOLEKWA: I think the revolution should be televised. I think the revolution should always be documented.

MISAN HARRIMAN: My work is observing the human condition and making art that has purpose.

MARTIN LUTHER KING III: The images will be here forever, bringing people together to do something bigger than themselves.

UNIDENTIFIED: That’s the power of art, to say another world is possible, and we have the power to change things.

AMY GOODMAN: For more, we’re joined here in our New York studio by Misan Harriman. He’s also an Oscar-nominated filmmaker, a global ambassador for Save the Children UK and the board chair of London’s largest cultural center, the South Bank Center. Shoot the People has just opened in New York and Toronto this week, is distributed by Watermelon Pictures.

Misan Harriman, welcome to Democracy Now! It’s great to have you in studio. I know you’ll be having a Q&A at the Angelika tonight with Elliot Page.

MISAN HARRIMAN: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: Before we go into the film and your incredible work over the years, can you talk about this repression of pro-Palestine activists, Jewish, Muslim, atheist, whoever they are? And your pictures of people are magnificent. The criminalizing especially of Palestine Action?

MISAN HARRIMAN: Yes. I mean, you’ve seen the recent, you know, court of appeal news re. Palestine Action. And what’s the first thing to say is it’s extraordinary that the jury of the case did not realize that they would be terrorism charges when they were deciding what their verdict would be. And I think that’s the big story in all of this, is how can a jury decide what it’s doing without knowing what the charges will be.

AMY GOODMAN: Explain exactly what you mean, because for a global audience, I don’t think there is as much — just having flown in from the U.K. and Ireland yesterday — 

MISAN HARRIMAN: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: — knowledge of Palestine Action and how the British government has categorized them.

MISAN HARRIMAN: Yes. So, there have been appeals, but the most important point at this stage of Palestine Action in the court case is that a jury of our peers decided the verdict without knowing what the final charge would be. And that is an extraordinary thing in any democracy in any part of the world. And I hope there’ll be an appeal, so that this can be retried. We will see. But I’ve never heard — and many scholars have spoken about this — of a jury deciding what a verdict will be, and then the actual verdict has a different charge to what the jury was made to believe. And that’s an extraordinary thing.

I think with Palestine Action, as a photographer, I have seen rabbis, imams, grandmothers, blind men and women, veterans be arrested, and I do not believe that a 90-year-old great-grandmother is a clear and present danger to any nuclear-powered nation-state. And we’ve got to a place where this is happening in plain sight for all of us to see, which is why so many people are incensed by the amount of arrests and the amount that it’s costing the state, because it costs money to try people and arrest people en masse. And I don’t think the support for Palestine Action is going to go away because it’s been prescribed in this way.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Absolutely. Well, let’s go to the documentary now, Shoot the People. This is a clip from right after you attended the Oscars in Los Angeles in 2024, where your short film, The After, was nominated for an Oscar in the Best Live Action Short Film category. As you’re driving to the ceremony, you pass multiple Palestine protests, and the walk on the red carpet is edited in a powerful way, with footage of bombs over Gaza. In this clip, you reflect on the question of fame and the responsibility it brings to speak out.

MISAN HARRIMAN: I think we live in an age now where it’s all too easy to have all this power and influence but literally stand for nothing. The veneer of what I thought the world was supposed to be has clearly come off, and I’m seeing how much needs to be changed.

I realize that I’ve lived a privileged life, and that often collides with my activism, and often wonder whether it’s possible to inhabit both of these worlds. I could be, you know, jumping from one film and fashion party to the other. I have plenty of, I guess, celebrity friends that I could be hanging around with and just turn my head away from the pain and inequality of the world.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, there you are, Misan, in the documentary. Now, of course, you’ve chosen not to turn your head away, and you’ve often quoted one of the most extraordinary musicians of the 20th century, Nina Simone, as saying that “an artist’s duty, as far as I’m concerned, is to reflect the times.” So, if you could — if you could talk about that and how you became interested in the work that you did, and became an activist on so many different issues?

MISAN HARRIMAN: Well, I really stand on the shoulders of the legends that came before me: Peter Magubane, the great South African photographer, and, being in New York City, Gordon Parks, who in many ways changed my life, and he also straddled activism and shooting for Life magazine, Vogue magazine himself.

I’m a child of empire. My parents were born into an occupied Nigeria. There must never be children of a lesser god. That is how I’ve been raised. There must never be humans of a lesser god. If I step outside of my house and I see a child bleeding out, I’m not going to ask what god that child worships. I’m not going to ask where that child was born. I’m going to help the child. I believe we’ve got to a place where even children’s right to live has become debatable.

So, instead of using my voice and my art to keep people on islands of rage, I’m there to build the bridges that have been broken by the very groups of people that were supposed to protect us, our fourth estate and our politicians. And I genuinely believe that through art and culture, we can see that the sum of all of our parts is stronger than the powerful few.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: And how have you seen — over the decades that you’ve been an activist, what transformations have you seen in the U.K., in particular, which is where you live, in terms of the expansion or diminution of rights for different communities, LGBTQ — 

MISAN HARRIMAN: Yeah.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: — for, you know, feminism — 

MISAN HARRIMAN: Yes.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: — Black lives?

MISAN HARRIMAN: Well, I, first off — all of it, Black lives, queer, trans, climate. And the thing about Palestine is it brings it all together, because all of those groups I see at Palestine protests. The intersectionality of these movements has come together, because the right to self-determination of Palestine is deeply rooted by the same moral compass that people have in other movements. The Jewish bloc, who I march with all the time, are some of the most extraordinary people I’ve seen in these protests. I believe the central pillar of Judaism is altruism, thinking about others, lifting others up. And they have become brothers and sisters in arms with Muslim, Arab, Palestinian people, all looking toward the horizon to build a future that our children deserve to inherit.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to do a Part 2 of this conversation and post it online at democracynow.org. But in this last 30 seconds, talk about the title of this documentary about you, Shoot the People.

MISAN HARRIMAN: Shoot the People is a play on words, obviously, of the real violence that Black and Brown bodies are having to endure generation after generation, but also of the potential shield that is a lens to bear witness, to say that we were here and we stood up against tyranny together.

AMY GOODMAN: Misan Harriman, the Nigerian British photographer, social activist and Oscar-nominated filmmaker. A new documentary about him has opened this week in New York and also Toronto. It’s called Shoot the People. Go to democracynow.org for Part 2 of our conversation.

That does it for our show. Coming up tomorrow, a Juneteenth special with Clint Smith and Rhiannon Giddens.

I’m headed to Vermont. Today, I’ll be in Burlington, and then Brattleboro, St. Johnsbury and Montpelier for a documentary about Democracy Now! called Steal This Story, Please! I’ll be with the director Carl Deal and my brother, Vermont journalist David Goodman. To see the theaters where we’ll be — they’re opening for a week there — you can go to democracynow.org. Looking forward to seeing people throughout Vermont. And I’m so happy to be home with Nermeen Shaikh. Thanks so much for joining us for another edition of Democracy Now!