Hamas challenges UK terrorism designation

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper immediately dismisses the appeal

British Secretary of State for the Home Department Yvette Cooper looks on as participants prepare for the family photo at the Border Security Summit at Lancaster House in London, Britain, 31 March 202Show more

Hamas has challenged the UK designation of its political wing as a terrorist organisation.

British lawyers acting on behalf of Hamas submitted a 106-page legal application to Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, in an attempt to have the 2021 designation reversed.

But the appeal is likely to be given short shrift by the UK, after Ms Cooper called the organisation “barbaric”.

“Hamas is a terrorist organisation. It was a barbaric terrorist attack on October 7 [2023]. Hamas has long been a terrorist organisation,” she told LBC radio on Thursday, less than 24 hours after the appeal was lodged.

“We maintain our view about the barbaric nature of this organisation.”

The report claimed that Hamas’s proscription makes the UK “complicit in a genocide”, by denying Palestinians “legitimacy of the struggle” against the Israeli “occupation”.

It also claimed that the proscription was contrary to the European Court of Human Rights because it restricted the freedom of speech and right to protest.

It describes the designation as “disproportionate” because “Hamas does not pose a threat to Britain or British citizens”.

The report was filed by solicitor Fahad Ansari, director of Riverway Law, with the assistance of barristers Franck Magennis, who practises at Garden Court Chambers, and Daniel Grutters of One Pump Court.

The appeal was fronted by Hamas’s head of international relations Mousa Abu Marzouk, who provided a witness statement on the organisation and of the events on October 7, 2023.

The report’s contents were made public by Riverway Law on a dedicated website and in a series of social media posts on Wednesday, after announcing they had lodged the appeal.

Hamas’s military wing was proscribed in 2001, but in 2021 then-home secretary Priti Patel extended it to the organisation’s political wing.

The report says the proscription has prevented Hamas’s ability to broker a political solution to the conflict, drawing on examples from Northern Ireland and South Africa.

Conservative shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick described the appeal as “sickening”.

The UK's former Conservative government sought to challenge the ECHR after it ruled against its proposed immigration policies, with MPs including Mr Jenrick pushing to leave the convention all together.