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Demonstrators gathered outside a pre-trial court hearing on 30 June in support of those accused of taking part in a protest at an Elbit Systems UK factory
Palestine Action has won permission to challenge its controversial ban by the UK government under terrorism legislation.
In a major decision, the High Court ruled that the proscription of the group, that has carried out break-ins at defence firms linked to Israel as part of direct action protests, should be reviewed.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper banned the organisation last month after followers caused an estimated £7m of damage to jets at RAF Brize Norton.
Lawyers for the group’s co-founder Huda Ammori have argued that the ban breaches the right free speech and has acted like a gag on legitimate protest. The government says its ban is justified because it narrowly targets a group that was organising serious criminality
The ban means that membership or support for Palestine Action is a crime under terrorism legislation that can lead to up to 14 years in jail.
But in his ruling, Mr Justice Chamberlain said that the ban might conflict with rights to free speech and the Home Secretary could have consulted Palestine Action before going ahead.
The judge said that unless the ban was swiftly reviewed in the High Court, there was a risk of “chaos” with people accused of supporting the group arguing that their prosecutions were wrong.
Mr Justice Chamberlain said while there was a formalised semi-secret appeal process for groups that want the Home Office to review a ban, the process would not lead to a hearing before a panel for at least a year.
That delay meant that people accused of offences relating to support or membership of Palestine Action might challenge prosecutions.
Some 200 people have been arrested on suspicion of publicly protesting support for PA since it was banned.
“If the legality of the proscription order can properly be raised by way of defence to criminal proceedings, that would open up the spectre of different and possibly conflicting decisions on that issue in magistrates’ courts across England and Wales or before different judges or juries in the Crown Court. That would be a recipe for chaos,” said the judge.
“To avoid it, there is a strong public interest in allowing the legality of the order to be determined authoritatively as soon as possible. The obvious way to do that is [before the High Court as soon as possible] in judicial review proceedings.”
Cross-government debate
Court documents, disclosed to the BBC, reveal how officials and ministers deliberated for at least eight months over whether to ban Palestine Action under terrorism legislation.
The UK’s terrorism laws focus on banning groups that use serious violence to further a cause. But the definition also allows ministers to outlaw organisations that cause serious criminal damage. Palestine Action is the first group to be proscribed under that part of the definition.
Since the group’s launch in July 2020, Palestine Action Group (PAG) has carried out more than 385 direct actions against firms it links to Israel’s military, leading to more than 676 arrests.
The cross-government debate over a ban began in earnest last November after an assessment of the damage that PAG members had been accused of causing during a break-in at Elbit Systems, an Israeli defence firm, in Bristol the previous August.
Eighteen people have been charged in relation to that incident, which includes allegations of assaults on a security guard and two police officers.
The individuals have all denied wrongdoing and trials start later this year.
Government papers in the legal challenge, brought by Ms Ammori reveal police chiefs told the Home Office the network’s activity was “unaffected” by ordinary criminal investigations.
“Operationally, existing legislation is seen as insufficient to address high-level offences, which meet the definition of terrorism,” officials wrote in March.
“There is currently no existing legislation to deal with [PAG] holistically, meaning the network can only be dealt with on a case-by-case basis in response to isolated incidents of direct action.
“From the perspective of regional police forces, it is argued that this fractured case-by-case approach has proven operationally ineffective, considerably limiting preventative and disruptive opportunities.”
The police argued banning PAG would help prevent crime – but they also warned that it could look like “state repression” and the use of “draconian counter-terrorism legislation”.
‘Social cohesion challenges’
That fear was partly echoed by the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) in the advice it sent to Home Office counterparts.
Officials there said a ban would be read by some international partners as a stand against antisemitism, but added: “Acting in this way may be interpreted as an overreaction by the UK.
“Palestine Action’s activity is largely viewed by international partners as activism and not extremism or terrorism.”
They advised that Palestinians themselves and Arab states could regard banning PAG as an attempt to shut down activism – and a Home Office analysis of potential tensions in the UK also highlighted risks.
“Proscribing PA would almost certainly be perceived as evidence of bias against the British Muslim community in favour of British Jews and Israel more broadly,” wrote officials in one of the documents disclosed in the case.
“[Proscripton] is likely to generate significant discontent and could introduce new social cohesion challenges.”
By the end of March, papers show that the home secretary was considering banning the group – but had raised a series of questions.
The papers indicate she consulted other ministers during May – and finally decided to ban the group after the 20 June break-in to RAF Brize Norton.