Palestine Action ban likened to suffragettes at UK supreme court

Huda Ammori, co-founder of Palestine Action, is challenging the UK government's decision last year to proscribe the direct action group, putting it in the same legal bucket as al-Qaida and Boko Haram. Her case opened on Wednesday at the supreme court in central London, where five judges are weighing whether the ban goes too far.

Her barrister, Raza Husain KC, told the court that Palestine Action never advocated violence against people, and that the home secretary has never argued otherwise. He pointed to what he called uncontroverted evidence that suffragettes, anti-war groups, environmental campaigners and animal rights protesters all used tactics similar to or more extreme than Palestine Action's — yet none were branded terrorists or banned. The suffragettes' record included arson and bombing attacks, he noted, and they are now celebrated as being on the right side of history. The court of appeal, he argued, got it wrong when it said Palestine Action's methods had little or nothing in common with the suffragettes or Iraq war protest groups.

Ammori's core argument is that proscription disproportionately interferes with the rights to free speech and protest. Husain said the ban has cast a shadow over the entire Palestinian solidarity movement, regardless of whether groups have any link to Palestine Action, chilling journalists, academics and artists.

For the home secretary, Sir James Eadie KC defended the court of appeal's ruling that Ammori is appealing against as lawful and proportionate. He said it was reinforced by the convictions of four people — including one for grievous bodily harm — and by a 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. US sanctions designating Palestine Action a global terrorist group also backed up the decision, he said. Eadie added that the ban as a matter of law does not stop people expressing support for the Palestinian cause, opposing Israel and the Israel Defense Forces, or demonstrating against Elbit.

Outside the court, police arrested at least 25 protesters, among them Sir Jonathan Porritt, a former director of Friends of the Earth who advised the Prince of Wales, now King Charles, for more than 30 years. They held placards riffing on a tweet by Sarah Helm, a journalist married to the prime minister's national security adviser, Jonathan Powell, which police decided did not meet the criminal threshold for supporting a terrorist organisation. Helm had written: 'God help us authors who support Palestine and Palestine Action.' Protesters swapped 'authors' for 'CBEs', 'normal people', 'professors', 'Jews', 'holocaust survivors' and 'bartenders'. The final arrest came over a sign reading: 'God help us who are not married to the UK's national security adviser who support Palestine and Palestine Action.'

The hearing is set to wrap up on Thursday, with a judgment expected at a later date.