This story is not getting enough attention, even though it is a dark portent of the political repression on the horizon all around the NATO bloc. Five activists who damaged an Elbit Systems site in Ulm, Germany, are facing harsher treatment than the Reichsbürger, a far-right group accused of attempting to overthrow the German state by force. The two trials are being held in the same building. The Ulm5 are held in a maximum-security prison, marched into the courtroom in handcuffs, and seated behind bulletproof glass two meters tall. On day one, the judge switched off the microphones of the defence’s legal team, and has since repeatedly refused to hear their evidence and expert witnesses, while rejecting a motion for an independent stenographer to keep a record of the proceedings. The only written record of the trial is the judge's. Meanwhile, the Ulm5 all remain in prolonged detention — with stints in solitary confinement. The prosecution is seeking to argue that the attack was antisemitic in nature, as Elbit Systems is a “Jewish-owned company” and therefore the “baby killers” graffiti drawn by the activists amounts to blood libel. The case sets a chilling precedent for any actions taken against German militarism, and no doubt forms part of a wider arc of repression that now extends from Britain to Italy. That is why the activists’ call for international solidarity and support is so urgent.

"Reclaiming sovereignty is a route to the international courts and to a declaration of independence and reclaiming Scotland's sovereignty. "This is about how you get independence. It's still not accepted by the Scottish National Party, still not understood by many people. Independence is not a question of domestic politics. "Independence is a question of international law. "Independence is your existence as a state in relation to other international states. "And it's that recognition which makes you an independent state, nothing to do with your domestic politics. If other states recognise you as an international state, you are a state. "It doesn't matter what the UK government thinks, they don't have a veto. All of this is part of the practical path to independence. The political route is a dead end. It's deliberately a dead end. "The entire colonial system of administering Scotland through a puppet council in Holyrood that calls itself a parliament and which does nothing, in fact, about independence, all of that is 'a blind', that route, everyone can see it's stalled. "The SNP could win another five elections on the trot and they still won't actually do anything about independence. "To achieve independence, you have to go down the routes we are doing. Of course, that has to be allied with increasing domestic support for independence and for your eventual Declaration of Independence and assertion of that in the international fora. "Of course, you need domestic support and to build it, but the UK political process is a complete and utter dead end. What we are doing is essential to independence. "And finally, I would say it still astonishes me that there are literally hundreds of people, from the SNP, employed in one way or another, employed in highly paid jobs as MPs, as MPs, assistants, as research assistants, as special advisors, as members of the Scottish Parliament, as government ministers. "There are all these professional people who are paid. None of us, nobody here is getting paid a penny. And we are doing for nothing what these paid hacks from the SNP should have been doing a decade ago." Craig Murray @LiberationScot @citizentommy @JNHanvey @thomsonchris @SSalyers2 @PAlanMcMahon @SalvoHighlands @ScotSalvo @SSRG2021 @MarkMmcnaught1 @Documark @Broonpot @CraigMurrayOrg