Palestine Action remains a banned organization in the United Kingdom despite its co-founder winning a significant High Court challenge to the government’s decision to proscribe the group under the Terrorism Act 2000.
Judge Victoria Sharp said Friday that Huda Ammori’s legal challenge succeeded on two of four grounds. But the court kept the proscription in place to allow further arguments and to give the British government time to consider an appeal. Interior minister Shabana Mahmood said she would appeal. “Home secretaries must … retain the ability to take action to protect our national security and keep the public safe. I intend to fight this judgement in the Court of Appeal,” she said.
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The direct-action group was proscribed on July 5 last year by then–home secretary Yvette Cooper. The ban makes membership of, or support for, the organization a criminal offense punishable by up to 14 years in prison.
About 100 people gathered outside the High Court in central London as the decision was announced, cheering and chanting “Free Palestine.”
At a hearing late last year, Ammori’s lawyers told the court that the proscription was an “ill-considered, discriminatory, due process-lacking, authoritarian abuse of statutory power,” arguing it was incompatible with common law traditions and the European Convention on Human Rights. Counsel for Ammori also said that acts such as holding a sign reading “I support Palestine Action” fall within “classic civil disobedience territory,” invoking the example of Rosa Parks to challenge the government’s position on freedom of expression.
Lawyers for the Home Office defended the ban as proportionate and lawful. James Eadie KC said in written submissions that the proscription “strikes a fair balance between interference with the rights of the individuals affected and the interests of the community,” adding that “it has at all times been open to supporters of Palestine Action to protest against its proscription without breaking the law.” The purpose of proscription, Eadie wrote, is to “stifl[e] organisations concerned in terrorism” and ensure they are deprived of “the oxygen of publicity as well as both vocal and financial support.”
Ammori launched the challenge in June, but failed in a last-minute bid on July 4 to prevent the ban from taking effect. In October, the Home Office lost a Court of Appeal attempt to divert the case to the Proscribed Organisations Appeal Commission, clearing the way for a full High Court hearing.
Opening that hearing in November, Raza Husain KC, for Ammori, told the court there had been more than 2,000 arrests since the proscription, including “priests, teachers, pensioners, retired British Army officers” and an “81-year-old former magistrate.” Police arrested 143 people on the hearing’s first day as demonstrations took place in support of Palestine Action.
The court also received written evidence from author Sally Rooney, who has publicly supported the group. Rooney said it was “unclear” whether any UK company can make payments to her under anti-terror laws and that if she was prevented from profiting from her work, her income would be “enormously restricted.” She said it is “almost certain” she cannot publish or produce new work in the UK while the ban remains in force.
Friday’s ruling leaves the proscription intact while the government pursues an appeal and the parties prepare further submissions. The outcome could shape the legal boundaries around protest, association and the reach of the UK’s counterterrorism framework.
By Abdiwahab Ahmed
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
