The UK government's decision to ban Palestine Action is lawful, the Court of Appeal has ruled.
The ruling is in favour of the Home Office, after the High Court had deemed the ban imposed on the group under terrorism legislation to be unlawful owing to its constraints on freedom of expression late last year. At least 58 arrests were made outside court as demonstrators opposed to the ban gathered, according to the Metropolitan Police, with some holding placard in support of Palestine Action.
Lady Chief Justice Baroness Carr said the court's decision was based on the group's secretive nature, its use of violence in some instances and its training manuals, which showed the group's continuing “intention to promote the use of violence”.
But she also acknowledged the High Court's initial ruling of the possible curb on freedom of speech and said the proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist group was “highly controversial”.
“We recognise, too, that Palestine Action is supported by otherwise many law-abiding citizens and that it is engaged in peaceful, as well as non-peaceful, protest,” she said. “It is, nonetheless, a fundamental mistake to overlook the fact that Palestine Action overtly promotes unlawful violence amounting to terrorism.
“It is a covert organisation, operating with secret cells, to avoid the detection and prosecution of those using violence to destroy the property of third parties. We have had to balance the free speech and freedom of assembly rights of individuals against the rights of third parties and the national security of the communities of the UK.”
She added that comparisons of the group to the Suffragettes were “deeply flawed” and that the group targeted companies “trading lawfully” in the UK.
Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori said the group would take its legal action against the ban to the Supreme Court or the European Court of Human Rights. “We will not stop fighting for the ban to be lifted, the end of the use of terror legislation against us and, crucially, for a free Palestine,” she wrote on social media.
The group was proscribed in July last year after a series of “direct action' protests in which the group broke into, graffitied or occupied buildings used by companies it said were linked to Israel's military.
The group's main target was Elbit Systems, an Israeli arms manufacturer that has factories in the UK, but its last direct action was at the airbase RAF Brize Norton, where protesters sprayed paint on two warplanes.
The Court of Appeal's ruling has implications for more than 3,400 people arrested under the UK's terrorism laws after they expressed support for the group in demonstrations seeking to overturn the ban. A representative for Defend Our Juries, which has organised protests against the ban, said the group would continue to express its opposition to the decision.
“We will continue to protest against this government's embarrassing attempts to cover up its crimes with mafia state intimidation tactics,” the representative said.
The ruling also has implications for Palestine Action activists who received years-long sentences last week, for their raid on Elbit Systems premises in August 2024. The four activists received a range of sentences: Samuel Corner (seven years and eight months), Charlotte Head (five years), Leona Kamio (five years) and Fatema Rajwani (four years and eight months) at Woolwich Crown Court.
They were sentenced for causing £1.2 million ($1.6 million) of damage, after the judge ruled the raid had a “terrorist” connection. Corner was convicted of grievous bodily harm after breaking a police officer’s spine with a sledgehammer during the raid.
