Protesters hold placards outside the High Court, central London, February 13, 2026
LIFT the ban on Palestine Action immediately, campaigners urged today, after official data showed terror arrests have surged to their highest level on record since the group’s proscription.
The government’s data shows 3,034 arrests were made in 2025, more than 11 times the 250 in 2024 – 92 per cent of which were linked to supporting Palestine Action after it was proscribed in July.
The proscription – and by association thousands of related arrests – has since been ruled unlawful by judges in a humiliating rebuke for the government.
The Home Office said Palestine Action arrests have driven a shift in the demographics of suspects, as those detained for showing support were more than six times more likely to be women.
And the average age of those arrested for supporting Palestine Action was 59, compared with 31 for other, unrelated terror arrests.
Police forces faced criticism last year for arresting pensioners and people with disabilities by carrying them away with their mobility devices for holding signs reading: “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action.”
The data also showed that 486 of terror arrests last year, 16 per cent of the total, have led to a charge so far, including 412 linked to Palestine Action.
Members or supporters of the group would face up to 14 years in prison under the ban, which was brought in by then home secretary Yvette Cooper.
Keir Starmer explains that UK is participating defensively in Trump and Israel’s criminal war for Israel’s genocidal expansion in Iran and states that he supports Zionism “without qualification”. Starmer said it here: https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/keir-starmer-interview-i-will-work-to-eradicate-antisemitism-from-day-one/Palestine Action joke that appeared in the UK satirical magazine ‘Private Eye’.
Thousands arrested for supporting group since proscription are now in legal limbo as Mahmood says she will appeal
Three senior judges have ruled that the ban on the direct action group Palestine Action under anti-terrorism laws was disproportionate and unlawful, handing the home secretary a humiliating defeat.
Shabana Mahmood was urged to respect the court’s decision after the judges said the ban, introduced by her predecessor Yvette Cooper, impinged on the right to protest and should be quashed.
However, the fate of more than 2,500 people, arrested for supporting Palestine Action since proscription, remained in limbo after Mahmood said she would appeal against the ban. Additionally, the three judges, led by the president of the king’s bench division, Dame Victoria Sharp, said the banning order would not be quashed until both sides had been allowed to make representations.
In the meantime, the Met police said they would stop arresting people immediately for showing support for Palestine Action after the high court ruling but would gather evidence for potential future prosecution.
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The judges allowed the challenge on two of four grounds. They were that there was “a very significant interference” with the rights to freedom of speech and freedom of assembly and that the then home secretary, Cooper’s decision to proscribe Palestine Action was not consistent with her own policy, which required her to take into account factors including the nature and scale of the organisation’s activities, and the specific threat that it posed to the UK.
Palestine Action joke that appeared in the UK satirical magazine ‘Private Eye’.Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.Orcas discuss Genocide-supporting and complicit Zionists. Donald Trump, Keith Starmer, David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting are acknowledged as evil genocide-complicit and supporting cnuts.
HUMAN rights campaigners and MPs hailed a “huge victory” for six Filton 24 activists in the face of “extraordinary political pressure” after a jury acquitted them of all charges today.
Following eight full days of deliberation, defendants in the Palestine Action-linked case were not convicted of a single charge after breaking into a British site of Israel-based arms firm Elbit Systems.
Defend Our Juries called the verdicts a “huge blow” to ministers who tried to make Palestine Action into “a violent group to justify banning it under badly drafted terrorism legislation.”
And MPs joined rights groups to say the case proves the importance of jury trials after the Justice Secretary David Lammy recently announced plans to scrap the majority of juries in England and Wales.
Labour MP Kim Johnson told the Morning Star that the verdicts were “a resounding victory for the Palestine activists and for the fundamental principle of trial by jury.”
Activists had been held on remand for over 17 months accused of using or threatening unlawful violence and using sledgehammers during their action on the factory in Filton near Bristol.
Charlotte Head, 29, Samuel Corner, 23, Ellie (Leona) Kamio, 30, Fatema Zainab Rajwani, 20, Zoe Rogers, 22, and Jordan Devlin, 31, had faced a series of charges for the action in August 2024.
Despite five of them admitting in court to destroying weapons belonging to Israel’s largest arms manufacturers Elbit Systems, the jury refused to convict the defendants of criminal damage.
Mr Corner was also not convicted of grievous bodily harm with intent for striking a police officer.
The rest of the Filton 24 are still being held on remand in relation to the action, which sought to disrupt and expose Elbit’s role in manufacturing weapons used in attacks on Palestinians, including drones.
Palestine Action joke that appeared in the UK satirical magazine ‘Private Eye’.Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.Orcas discuss Genocide-supporting and complicit Zionists. Donald Trump, Keith Starmer, David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting are acknowledged as evil genocide-complicit and supporting cnuts.
An image of Alex Pretti is seen at a makeshift memorial in the area where he was shot dead by federal immigration agents in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on January 24, 2026. (Photo by Roberto Schmidt/AFP via Getty Images)
“The American people didn’t vote for these scenes and you can’t continue to order them to not believe their lying eyes,” the New York Post editorial board wrote.
That’s what the editorial board of the right-wingWall Street Journalwrote Sunday calling for a “pause” in Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) anti-immigrant blitz following Saturday’s killing of 37-year-old intensive care nurse Alex Petti—who was disarmed before being shot by federal agents in Minneapolis—and top administration officials’ claims that the man who helped save US militaryveterans’ lives was a “domestic terrorist.”
The Journal‘s editors called Pretti’s killing “the worst incident to date in what is becoming a moral and political debacle” for President Donald Trump and his administration.
The Journal wasn’t alone. Other right-wing outlets owned by the Murdoch media empire, including the New York Post, published editorials calling for a suspension of Trump’s crackdown on undocumented immigrants, during which dozens of people have died in ICE custody and federal enforcers have killed two Americans. Even staunchly pro-Trump Fox Newschallenged administration officials over the shooting.
“It’s time to de-escalate in Minneapolis, Mr. President,” the Post‘s editorial board wrote Sunday.
“Not because you’re wrong to enforce immigration law, nor to go after fraudsters who’ve stolen billions in federal funds—but because these enforcement tactics won’t turn the tide, and instead are backfiring,” the editors clarified. “Swing voters—Hispanics and independents who turned to you at the last election—see US citizens dying at federal agents’ hands, and recoil in horror.”
“The hasty and misleading rhetoric coming out of the administration needs to stop,” the Post said. “And while Pretti was horribly misguided, there is no evidence he was a ‘terrorist’ intent on a ‘massacre’ of law enforcement.”
To be fair, the WSJ is proposing only that ICE take a breather between its murders https://t.co/MC9htI58pZ
As they did with Renee Good, the 37-year-old mother and poet who was shot dead by an ICE agent in Minneapolis earlier this month, Trump and some of his senior officials accused Pretti of being a “domestic terrorist”—a move in line with the administration’s designation of left-wing activism as terrorism.
US Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino said that it looked like Pretti—who eyewitnesses said died while trying to help a woman who had been pepper-sprayed by ICE—“wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.”
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem accused Pretti of “domestic terrorism.”
As the Wall Street Journal‘s editors put it, “Alex Pretti made a mistake, but he wasn’t a ‘domestic terrorist.’”
“Videos of an event aren’t always definitive, but this is how it looks to us,” they wrote. “Pretti attempted, foolishly, to assist a woman who had been pepper-sprayed by agents. Multiple agents then tackled Pretti, and he had a phone in one hand as he lay on the ground. An agent discovered a concealed gun on Pretti, and disarmed him. An agent then shot Pretti, and multiple shots followed.”
The Post editors concluded, “Mr. President, the American people didn’t vote for these scenes, and you can’t continue to order them to not believe their lying eyes.”
Meanwhile, more than 60 CEOs of Minnesota-based companies including Target, Best Buy, UnitedHealth, 3M, and General Mills published an open letter Sunday calling for “an immediate deescalation of tensions and for state, local, and federal officials to work together to find real solutions.”
Gun rights groups including the National Rifle Association have called for a full investigation of Pretti’s killing. The NRA pushed back against arguments that Pretti should not have brought a gun—which he was legally carrying—to a protest, calling such assertions “dangerous and wrong.”
“Responsible public voices should be awaiting a full investigation, not making generalizations and demonizing law-abiding citizens,” added the NRA, which was criticized for its initial silence following the killing of Philando Castile, a Black man who was legally carrying a gun when he was shot dead by police in front of his girlfriend and her 4-year-old daughter during a 2016 traffic stop in suburban Minneapolis.
Even Republican lawmakers who support Trump have expressed their dismay over Pretti’s killing, with Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana calling the incident “incredibly disturbing.”
Chris Madel, an attorney who provided legal counsel to Jonathan Ross—the ICE agent who killed Good—was, until Monday, also a Republican candidate for Minnesota governor. However, Madel said that he dropped out of the race and implied that he would quit the GOP because he “cannot support the national Republicans’ stated retribution on the citizens of our state.”
“Nor can I count myself a member of a party that would do so,” he said.
I am ending my campaign for Minnesota Governor. I describe why in the below video. Please watch until the end. (It is 10 minutes, 52 seconds.)
“ United States citizens, particularly those of color, live in fear,” Madel continued. “United States citizens are carrying papers to prove their citizenship. That’s wrong.”
“At the end of the day, I have to look my daughters in the eye and tell them I believe I did what is right,” he added. “I am doing that today.”
Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn’t bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an obviously insane, xenophobic Fascist.
Swedish activist Greta Thunberg's arrest in London during a "Prisoners for Palestine" protest, where she held signs opposing genocide and supporting Palestine Action, a group banned under the UK's Terrorism Act 2000 for disrupting arms sales to Israel. pic.twitter.com/qAzsleEinh
Orcas discuss Genocide-supporting and complicit Zionists. Donald Trump, Keith Starmer, David Lammy, Rachel Reeves, Angela Rayner and Wes Streeting are acknowledged as evil genocide-complicit and supporting cnuts.Keir Starmer objects to criticism of the IDF. He asks how could anyone object to them starving people to death, forced marches like the Nazis did, bombing Gaza’s hospitals and universities, mass-murdering journalists, healthworkers and starving people queuing for food, killing and raping prisoners and murdering children. He calls for people to stop obstructing his genocide for Israel.Vote Labour for Genocide.
Protesters hold placards outside the High Court, central London, February 13, 2026
