On Monday, a Court of Appeal overturned the High Court’s previous judgement on the proscription of Palestine Action, deciding that a terrorism ban on the direct-action group was indeed lawful — according to the five appeal judges, anyway.
Undeterred and unafraid, co-founder of Palestine Action Huda Ammori expressed her disappointment to the Guardian but defiantly stated:
I‘m certain that legally we are correct that this ban is disproportionate to free speech and the right to protest. I think that’s really clear.
We just need to get to the right court that’s going to recognise that and we’ll take it all the way up to the European court of human rights [ECHR], if needs be.
Nevertheless, with Reform UK and a growing chorus of right-wing politicians seeking to undermine the ECHR’s authority, Ammori will need to act swiftly if she hopes to obtain justice before those very protections are weakened.
“The way that we respond to this is by fighting even harder, that every struggle has its setbacks. But we are going to win in the end. We can’t give in. We can’t be deterred”
My interview with the Guardian on the Court of Appeal ruling on Palestine Actionhttps://t.co/KsIug2BLXO
— Huda Ammori (@HudaAmmori) June 16, 2026
Principled defiance continues unafraid of repression
The proscription of Palestine Action (PA) triggered outrage across Britain, marking the first time a direct-action group had been branded a terrorist organisation. Since the Starmer government imposed the ban, police have now arrested more than 3,000 people in a rapidly expanding campaign of civil disobedience.
Month after month, the British public has watched officers arrest pensioners and peaceful protesters simply for holding placards in support of PA. Images of mothers, fathers and grandparents being carried away by police have become pretty emblematic of this Orwellian crackdown on our civil liberties. Moreover, there have also been a considerable number of quite aggressive arrests which have undoubtedly caused injury.
This is what terrorism now looks like in the UK.
Yesterday, the Court of Appeal accepted the Government's appeal and ruled that the Home Secretary's proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation was lawful.
Amnesty International is deeply disappointed by this… pic.twitter.com/BOOil6ADWh
— Amnesty UK (@AmnestyUK) June 16, 2026
On Monday, for instance, Met Police arrested another 117 people outside the Court of Appeal. Since then, footage shared across social media has only sharpened criticism of the ban, as the government’s actions have turned the very meaning of “terrorism” on its head.
Some have pointed out how, despite even the Judge referring to the Suffragettes, Palestine Action have been significantly more peaceful than the then-hated but now widely praised women’s rights movement at the turn of the 20th century:
This is absolutely insane.
The suffragettes used far more extreme tactics than Palestine Action.
They planted bombs, burned down private homes and smashed up art galleries.
They killed five people!
Her outrageous judgement is based on absurd historical ignorance. https://t.co/RvWslkZ4PF
— Owen Jones (@owenjonesjourno) June 15, 2026
Palestine Action — People are being arrested, in their thousands, for saying just four words
Needless to say, of course, this proscription has turned common-sense on its head. According to international law, citizens and leaders have a legal responsibility to take action to stop a genocide.
Last week, the state branded four PA activists as terrorists and secured their sentencing, even though terrorism was never discussed during the jury trial. This dangerous precedent strikes at the heart of civil liberties. Juries are meant to restrain abuses of power and protect the right to a fair trial; when their role is diminished, those protections begin to unravel
However, if judges — acting under obvious and undue political pressure — can unilaterally apply terrorism charges, Britain moves ever closer to an era defined by political prisoners.
Testimony from the PA activists underscores how they took action for one reason only: to stop the production and transfer of bombs and military supplies to Zionist Israel. Therefore, it is clear their actions were driven by the urgent need to stop what human rights organisations, the International Court of Justice and most Holocaust scholars recognise as a genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.
However, due to the lucrative donations and lobbying efforts by pro-Zionist groups, it is now illegal to even state verbal support for PA — as Owen Jones highlighted on Jeremy Vine yesterday:
"You can't now say I support Palestine Action, thats an illegal offence. You can't now say I support Palestine Action with all my heart.. I'm saying its illegal to say I support Palestine Action.."@owenjonesjourno on #JeremyVine pic.twitter.com/gfVzcSFiHW
— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) June 16, 2026
Palestine Action — Corrupted politicians show lack of moral conscience
Nonetheless, whilst people have stepped forward in solidarity for the suffering and mass-murder of Palestinians — and now Lebanese — by the settler-colonialist state, the powerful have done precious little but choose to repress the freedoms and rights of British citizens instead.
It isn’t hard to evidence our government’s complicity in Israel’s expansionist and bloodthirsty campaigns in the Middle East. David Lammy, then foreign secretary, awarded 90% of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office’s entire annual budget to a propaganda report which sought to justify the genocide by ‘finding’ that Hamas used sexual violence as a weapon of war on October 7th, 2023.
Many have disputed — and disproved — this sinister claim and pointed to the stark reality that the military force which has in fact used rape and sexual abuse to dehumanise, demoralise and destroy a population of innocent people is the IOF and Israeli government officials.
Despite this lack of principled leadership and increasingly draconian political moves to silence law-abiding citizens, Ammori insists the authoritarianism must be resisted, telling the Guardian:
This case is completely political, and the way we are going to win this is on the streets.
Everyone who sacrificed and stood up against this, all of that is bringing us closer and closer to the day when we are victorious.
Repression will breed resistance — not compliance
In addition, Ammori spoke about how she feels the terrorism charges levelled against the PA activists were a deliberate ploy to force through the proscription of PA. This signals a serious abuse of our democracy in the UK:
It feels like that this whole thing has been orchestrated to ensure convictions and show people can be sentenced as terrorists to then justify the ban on Palestine Action.
Nevertheless, solidarity and defence of the sovereign right of Palestinians to their own homeland continues, as Ammori insists we must remember why we continue to take to the streets:
Remember, who we are acting in solidarity with, which is the Palestinian people, who, despite all of the setbacks and challenges they face, including being labelled as terrorists, are continuing to resist for their freedom.
And [remember] that we are acting in solidarity with them and we can take strength from the Palestinian people and that whenever there is repression, there is more resistance.
Featured image via the Canary
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