Dear Editor

RAZED Roof Theatre Company is being collectively punished by Harlow Council after one of its members referred to the killing of 70,000 Palestinian Arab people in the Gaza Strip during its performance at the Holocaust Memorial Day event at Harlow Civic Centre on Sunday 25 January. Holocaust Memorial Day commemorates not only the victims of genocide or crimes against humanity perpetrated by the Nazi German regime and its confederates during the Second World War, but also all who have been victims of genocide or crimes against humanity since the end of that war.

The speakers from Razed Roof at the Holocaust Memorial Day commemoration mentioned deliberate starvation in Ukraine in 1933, and mass killings in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia-Herzegovina, the Darfur region of Sudan, and in Myanmar (formerly Burma), as well as the persecution of the Uyghurs in China. 

No-one has criticised Razed Roof for mentioning any of these examples of genocide, crimes against humanity, or persecution, although for every single one of them there are people who would dispute the evidence. Indeed, I once had the misfortune to encounter a man from Rwanda who denied that 800,000 Tutsi people were massacred in 100 days in that country in 1994. That some people turned their heads and pretended that they didn’t see the gross violations of international law perpetrated in the Gaza Strip does not mean that those crimes did not occur.

The Holocaust historian Amos Goldberg, of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, accused the State of Israel of committing genocide in the Gaza Strip in April 2024. Amnesty International issued a report in December 2024 that concluded that the State of Israel was committing genocide in the Gaza Strip. The International Association of Genocide Scholars passed a resolution on 31 August 2025 stating that genocide was occurring in the Gaza Strip.

However, Dan Swords, the (Conservative) Leader of Harlow Council, and Chris Vince, the (Labour) Member of Parliament for Harlow, are united in an effort to punish Razed Roof for the addition of the slaughter in the Gaza Strip to the list of mass killings that were mentioned at the event.

Chris Vince has resigned as a trustee of Razed Roof, and Harlow District Council has prohibited it from using Council facilities, venues, or assets.

It is appalling to see both Mr Swords and Mr Vince joining the infamous ranks of the genocide deniers. Indeed, so determined is Mr Swords to silence those who speak out against genocide in the Gaza Strip that he is reporting Razed Roof to the Charity Commission and asking the police to investigate its members for exercising their right to free speech on this issue.

Expressing the opinion that the State of Israel committed genocide in the Gaza Strip is neither racist nor illegal, and is not at all “extremist” or an expression of “hatred” or “intimidation”.

Mr Swords appears to be either deluded or simply reciting untruths, for there were no “references to a proscribed organisation” and no “potential commission of criminal offences” by the Raised Roof Theatre Company at the Holocaust Memorial Day event or on any other occasion. I am not a lawyer, but it seems to me that Mr Sword’s false accusations may amount to libel. I suspect that Essex Police would treat any complaint by Mr Swords about the words spoken by Razed Roof as a vexatious waste of scarce public resources.

It is a disgrace that the people of Harlow are represented at the Civic Centre and in the House of Commons by people who not only turn a blind eye to the copious evidence that the gravest crime in international law has occurred in the Gaza Strip, but also punish people for drawing attention to this crime.

I hope that everyone who believes in free speech will demand that Harlow District Council immediately removes the threat of police action against the Razed Roof Theatre Company, removes the ban on it using Council facilities, venues, or assets, and undoes all other punitive actions against it.

Yours sincerely 

John Wake