LONDON — Huda Ammori, co-founder of the direct-action network Palestine Action, took the British government to the UK Supreme Court on November 4 to challenge the proscription of the group as a terrorist organisation.
Representing the group, lawyer Raza Husain argued that outlawing Palestine Action under counter-terrorism laws is highly disproportionate and actively erodes the integrity of such legislation. Husain highlighted that when the ban was initially imposed, government officials acknowledged that a mere three out of the group’s 385 actions over a five-year period met the legal definition of terrorism.
The legal team emphasised that classifying the activist network alongside international terror syndicates like Al-Qaeda has devastating civil consequences. Husain noted that the designation has effectively wiped Palestine Action out and led to the arrest of thousands of individuals for backing an organisation whose activities were largely non-criminal. Under the current proscription, belonging to the group, expressing support, or even wearing clothing that implies sympathy carries a prison sentence of up to 14 years.
The sheer scale of the crackdown was underscored by statistics from the civil liberties organisation Defend Our Juries, which recorded more than 4,000 arrests across Britain for supporting Palestine Action by November 1. To put this in perspective, the UK recorded a total of 5,734 terrorism-related arrests over a nearly 24-year span, from September 11, 2001, to March 31, 2025.
During the hearing, Husain also drew parallels between Palestine Action’s tactics and those of the early 20th-century suffragettes, noting that historical campaigners used similar or even more extreme methods to fight for women’s voting rights.
The British government officially proscribed Palestine Action in June 2025, just days after activists sprayed red paint on military aircraft at the Brize Norton air base in Oxfordshire. While a High Court ruling in February initially found the ban unlawful and an infringement on free expression and assembly, the Court of Appeal overturned that decision in June, rejecting the historical suffragette comparison.
Palestine Action was established in 2020 as a grassroots movement dedicated to ending global complicity in Israel’s war on Gaza and the ongoing occupation. The network has primarily targeted facilities linked to Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest arms manufacturer, whose drones and surveillance technology have been utilised in the assault on Gaza.
Should the UK Supreme Court uphold the terror designation, Ammori has vowed to escalate the case to the European Court of Human Rights.
Reference: The Cradle