By Aysu Bicer
LONDON (AA) - Rights groups and campaigners have welcomed a High Court ruling that found the government’s decision to ban Palestine Action under terrorism legislation was unlawful.
Judges in London said the proscription was “disproportionate” and that “the nature and scale of its activities falling within the definition of terrorism had not yet reached the level, scale and persistence to warrant proscription,” according to a summary published on the court’s website.
However, the group will remain banned for now to allow for further legal arguments.
The case was brought by Huda Ammori, co-founder of Palestine Action. “The High Court ruled the Palestine Action ban is unlawful as it is disproportionate to free speech and the Home Secretary breached her own policy,” Ammori said on US social media company X.
“The court ordered the ban be quashed. Details of lifting the ban will be decided and completed at a later date.”
The group Defend Our Juries, which organized protests against the ban, says 2,787 people have been arrested across the UK since the law came into force on July 5 last year.
- 'Vital affirmation of the right to protest'
The ruling prompted strong reactions from human rights organizations and protest groups.
Tom Southerden, Amnesty International UK’s law and human rights director, described the judgment as a “vital affirmation of the right to protest.”
In a statement, he said: “The high court’s decision sends a clear message: the government cannot simply reach for sweeping counter-terrorism powers to silence critics or suppress dissent … it draws an important line in the sand against attempts to narrow the democratic space and undermine public confidence in the right to speak out."
- Calls for resignation
Greenpeace UK’s co-executive director Areeba Hamid said the government’s decision to ban a protest group “is the stuff of dystopian novels.”
“Arresting thousands of protesters – many of them pensioners who were simply holding signs – is the stuff of satire. Hopefully this ruling will deliver a much-needed reality check,” she said.
Yasmine Ahmed, UK director of Human Rights Watch, called for a “thorough and independent investigation” into the government’s decision to proscribe Palestine Action.
She said the court’s ruling “reinforces what many of us have been saying all along—that the government’s misuse of terrorism legislation was a brazen and gross abuse of power that served to stifle legitimate criticism of Israel and those profiting from its atrocities.”
Stop the War Coalition called on Metropolitan Police Commissioner Mark Rowley and former Home Secretary Yvette Cooper to resign following the ruling.
Lindsey German, convener of Stop the War, said: “Now the CPS must drop all the charges against those wrongly arrested and imprisoned without trial for peacefully protesting a genocide.”
The change in the law placed Palestine Action in the same legal category as organizations such as ISIS (Daesh) and al-Qaeda, meaning that belonging to or supporting the group became a criminal offense carrying a potential sentence of up to 14 years in prison.
Displaying the group’s name on a T-shirt or placard could also result in a maximum six-month jail term.
During a three-day hearing at the High Court, lawyers representing Ammori said the ban was without precedent and likened Palestine Action to the suffragette movement.