2/2
If I hold a sign that says: "I SUPPORT PALESTINE ACTION; I DON'T SUPPORT PALESTINE ACTION"
...do I support the proscribed group?
Under a basic "Keyword Search" approach (the method effectively used in the arrest), the answer is a confused "Yes and No." The machine sees the banned word count = 2.
But under Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), this sentence creates a Logical Paradox that renders the statement legally unanswerable. Here is the logic sequence of why this sentence breaks the "Guilty" verdict.
If we read "Palestine Action" as a Proper Noun (The specific banned organization) in both halves of the sentence, the statement is nonsense.
Clause A: I support [The Group].
Clause B: I do not support [The Group].
This results in a logical nullity (A and Not-A). A court cannot rely on a statement that cancels itself out. To find meaning, the human brain, and the law, looks for a way to resolve the conflict.
To make the sentence make sense, we instinctively shift the meaning of one of the phrases. We stop reading it as a Name, and start reading it as a description.
This is called Nominalisation.
"Palestine Action" (Proper Noun): The corporate entity/group.
"Palestine Action" (Common Noun Phrase): The process of taking political action for Palestine.
Because "Action" is a word derived from a verb (to act), it is linguistically fluid. It can slide between being a "Thing" (the group) and a "Process" (the deed).
Once we allow that shift, the sentence suddenly has a valid, non-criminal reading:
"I support [the political act of resistance]; I don't support [the proscribed group]."
Or, depending on which clause you assign the value to:
"I support [the group]; I don't support [the specific acts]."
The Result: Semantic Erosion By placing these identical phrases side-by-side with opposite polarity (Support vs. Don't Support), the text muddies the water. The capitalized letters lose their authority. You can no longer prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the speaker is referencing the group, because the sentence structure itself suggests they are distinguishing between the Entity and the Concept.
The Verdict
The police rely on Lexical Rigidity—assuming a word always means the same thing. This defence relies on Functional Ambiguity.
If a sign creates a "Zone of Indeterminacy"—where a legal reading is just as grammatically likely as an illegal one—the text cannot serve as a confession. The grammar itself provides the reasonable doubt.
So, if you feel bold, go get yourself a t-shirt reading "I DON'T SUPPORT PALESTINE ACTION; I SUPPORT PALESTINE ACTION", and make the police fucking explain its meaning to you.
They won't be able to. They will still pick you up for "Reasonable Suspicion", but that is where the fun may begin.
You see, as we have illustrated, the "unreadability" creates a conundrum, where an offence may or may not have been committed, and they don't really know. The defence is already baked-in grammatically.
And the definition there is piss-weak:
"A person in a public place commits an offence if he wears an item of clothing... in such a way or in such circumstances as to arouse reasonable suspicion that he is a member or supporter of a proscribed organisation."
It would be for a legal defence team to defend the position, but the ready baked in defence, perhaps, gives credence that any arrest would constitute Illegal Detainment, as:
The arresting officer lacked objective reasonable grounds to suspect I was a supporter of a proscribed group, because the text on my clothing explicitly contained a negation of that support ('I don't support...'). The officer relied on a selective reading of keywords rather than the full semantic context, rendering the suspicion irrational and the arrest unlawful.
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