UK appeal court restores ban on Palestine Action under terrorism laws

LONDON: Britain’s Court of Appeal ruled on Monday that the government acted lawfully in banning the pro-Palestinian campaign group Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation, finding that the measure was justified because of the group’s support for violence.

Palestine Action, which had increasingly focused on Israel-linked defence companies in Britain, especially Israel’s biggest defence firm Elbit Systems, was proscribed under terrorism legislation last year. In February, London’s High Court had held that the ban unlawfully interfered with freedom of expression after a legal challenge brought by the group’s co-founder Huda Ammori, though the organisation remained banned while the government appealed.

Appeal court overturns earlier ruling

Five senior judges of the Court of Appeal set aside the earlier decision, saying that while proscribing a group such as Palestine Action was highly controversial, the step was proportionate. The judges also rejected arguments that the organisation stood in the tradition of the suffragettes or movements against apartheid and the Iraq war.

Lady Chief Justice Sue Carr, the most senior judge in England and Wales, said the court considered it wrong to ignore the group’s conduct.

"It is a fundamental mistake to overlook the fact that Palestine Action overtly promoted unlawful violence amounting to terrorism,"

She added:

It is not a direct action civil disobedience protest group operating transparently in the open. It is a covert organisation which avoids the detection and prosecution of those using violence to destroy property and cause injury.

Ammori had argued that the proscription imposed severe limits on the free speech and assembly rights of many people who supported the Palestinian cause. After Monday’s ruling, she said she would seek to challenge the decision in the UK Supreme Court.

"We will fight this all the way,"

she said.

We will not stop fighting to overturn one of the most extreme attacks on free speech and the right to protest in modern British history.

Government defends distinction between protest and support

UK interior minister Shabana Mahmood said the judgment did not restrict lawful protest in support of Palestinians.

"There is a difference between supporting Palestine and supporting a proscribed terrorist group,"

she said.

Police detained some demonstrators protesting the ban outside the court on Monday.

Ban followed RAF base incident

Palestine Action was banned last July after a series of direct-action protests in which activists often blocked entrances or sprayed red paint at Israel-linked defence companies and other businesses associated with them in Britain. Carr said the group’s principal target was Elbit, but that it also targeted other companies that enabled the firm to operate in the UK, with the aim of shutting down those activities through intimidation rather than persuasion.

The ban came shortly after activists broke into the Royal Air Force’s Brize Norton base in June and damaged two military aircraft. The proscription placed Palestine Action in the same legal category as Islamic State and Al-Qaeda, making membership a criminal offence punishable by up to 14 years in prison.

More than 2,700 people have been arrested since then for displaying signs supporting Palestine Action. The ruling came days after four people were jailed for criminal damage linked to a 2024 raid on an Elbit factory in southern England. One of those defendants was also convicted of striking a police officer with a sledgehammer. As sentences were handed down at Woolwich Crown Court on Friday, police arrested more than 100 people outside for showing support for Palestine Action.