Palestine Action was banned as a terrorist group after using tactics comparable to or less extreme than those of the suffragettes, the UK’s highest court has been told.
Legal Challenges at the Supreme Court
Huda Ammori, a co-founder of Palestine Action, is challenging last year’s decision to proscribe the direct action organization, placing it alongside groups such as al-Qaida and Boko Haram. On the first day of the supreme court hearing in central London, Raza Husain KC, representing Ammori, told five judges that the group never advocated for violence against the person and the home secretary has never claimed otherwise.
The uncontroverted evidence shows that suffragettes, anti-war groups, environmental groups, and animal rights protesters all used tactics similar to or more extreme than Palestine Action yet they were not regarded as terrorists or proscribed, according to Husain. He stated that the suffragettes’ activities included arson and bombing attacks but they are now venerated as being on the right side of history, adding that the court of appeal erred by claiming Palestine Action’s tactics had little or nothing in common with the suffragettes or Iraq war protest groups.
Ammori has argued that proscription represents a disproportionate interference with the rights to freedom of speech and protest. Husain said the ban affected the entire Palestinian solidarity movement, regardless of any connection with Palestine Action, and chilled the expression of journalists, academics, and artists.
Arguments from the Home Secretary and Protests Outside Court
In written submissions for the home secretary, Sir James Eadie KC said the court of appeal’s decision was lawful and proportionate and had been reinforced in two ways. He cited the convictions, including one for grievous bodily harm, of four people and the finding of a terrorist connection in the case of a Palestine Action activist’s raid on a factory owned by the Israeli arms company Elbit Systems in Filton, near Bristol. Eadie also noted this was reinforced by US sanctions imposed on Palestine Action as a global terrorist group.
As a matter of law, the proscription of Palestine Action does not prevent public expressions of support for the Palestinian cause or opposition to Israel and to the Israel Defense Forces, or demonstrations targeted at Elbit, Eadie stated.
Sir Jonathon Porritt, a former director of Friends of the Earth who was an adviser to the Prince of Wales for more than 30 years, was among at least 25 protesters arrested outside the court. Demonstrators held placards emulating a tweet by Sarah Helm, the wife of the prime minister’s national security adviser, which police deemed not to meet the criminal threshold for supporting a terrorist organisation. Helm wrote that God helps authors who support Palestine and Palestine Action, while protesters replaced the word authors with terms such as CBEs, normal people, professors, Jews, holocaust survivors, and bartenders. The final protester arrested held a placard reading that God helps those who are not married to the UK’s national security adviser who support Palestine and Palestine Action.
The court case is scheduled to conclude on Thursday with a judgment expected at a later date.
