WARNING – Expressing support for Palestine Action in this way is a breach of Section 12 of the UK Terrorism Act. This comes with significant risk of arrest and prosecution, and could lead to home raids and up to 14 years imprisonment.
CAMPAIGNERS are escalating their defiance of the proscription of Palestine Action by publishing videos professing membership of the group, risking jail sentences of up to 14 years.
Defend Our Juries said today it was stepping up its actions from holding placards reading “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action,” which has already led to more than 3,400 arrests under Section 13 of the Terrorism Act.
A spokesperson for the group said the government and courts had “made rods for their own backs,” adding: “The Lift the Ban campaign is not about trying to fill the prisons or break the courts.
“It’s about Britain being full of decent people who refuse to accept their government supporting the genocide of the Palestinian people, which is the crime of crimes.”
The spokesperson said the campaign had seen “an overwhelming response” since launching its new phase following the High Court’s ruling upholding the ban on Monday.
“It’s true that this may end up filling the prisons and breaking the court,” they said.
“But that’s not the intention. It’s simply the consequence of Britain being full of compassionate and caring people who refuse to be bystanders to genocide.”
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.
Placards depicting the defendants at Woolwich Crown Court on 12 June 2026. Guy Smallman/Getty Images
Committee representing activists sentenced for ‘terrorism’ tells openDemocracy ruling marks a dangerous escalation
As Justice Jeremy Johnson sentenced her to six years in prison last Friday, Leona Kamio spoke from the dock: “In order to hear the birds, the drones must be silent.”
The line was adapted from a passage by Palestinian poet Marwan Makhoul: “In order for me to write poetry that isn’t political, I must listen to the birds. And in order to hear the birds, the warplanes must be silent.”
Thirty-year-old Kamio is one of four Palestine Action defendants convicted of criminal damage during a protest at Elbit Systems’ Filton site in August 2024. Although the four had not been charged with terrorism offences and were not convicted of terrorism by a jury, Justice Johnson ruled their offences had had a “terrorism connection” and sentenced them as such.
Samuel Corner, 23, who was convicted of criminal damage and grievous bodily harm against a police officer, was sentenced to eight years and eight months in prison. Like Kamio, 29-year-old Charlotte Head was sentenced to six years. Fatema Zainab Rajwani, 21, received five years and eight months.
In the wake of their sentencing, openDemocracy spoke to lisa minerva luxx, of the Filton 25 Defence Committee, which supports the defendants and prisoners, coordinates public campaigns and media, and works with legal teams.
In the following interview, luxx explained how the judge’s finding of a “terrorism connection” will affect the defendants for the rest of their lives, and how it marks a major escalation in the state’s treatment of direct action and Palestine solidarity protest.
The Filton 25 Defence Committee said the four “destroyed over 40 Israeli weapons, including killer drones” and argued that “by taking direct action, they saved lives. That is not terrorism, it is a duty.” The committee says the ruling will be appealed.
This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity. luxx sets out the defence committee’s allegations about the relationship between the Filton case, the proscription of Palestine Action and the use of terrorism powers against direct action protesters.
Can you spell out what the terrorism finding means in practice for the defendants? How does it affect time served, release, licence conditions, prison categorisation, notification requirements and their lives after prison?
Whilst in prison, they will be categorised as Category A high-risk prisoners, which many prisons struggle to process due to the extra regulations around access to work, single-cell occupancy – to reduce contact with other prisoners lest they radicalise them – and involvement from Prevent, the UK government’s counter-extremism programme.
It also includes increased security, which will affect the post they are given and books they are permitted to read.
They have to spend two-thirds of their sentence imprisoned before being eligible for parole. But parole for Terrorism Act sentences is incredibly rare, and the defendant must denounce their political beliefs to be granted parole.
Once released on licence, they will have really strict and repressive conditions until the end of their sentence – potentially limiting who they can see, where they can go, whether they can attend meetings or protests, and how they use phones or the internet. These are often arbitrary and ridiculous, designed to be impossible to adhere to.
After that, they then go on “notification”, where they are obliged to register phone numbers, emails, car registration, travel and bank details – and any new details of all of those – for 15 years. Fatema Zainab will only be allowed to attend a mosque chosen by the police, and she will be prohibited from socialising there.
If the defendants fail to keep up with any of these requirements, they could be sent back to prison for a further five years.
Protest outside Woolwich Crown Court on 12 June 2026. Martin Pope/Getty Images
The defendants were not charged with terrorism offences and the jury did not convict them of terrorism. What are your main due process concerns about a judge applying a terrorist connection at sentencing?
Judge Johnson secured the terrorism connection finding in order to prop up the proscription of Palestine Action. At the preparatory hearing for the “terrorism link”, he allowed “influencing the government of Israel” as a factor that satisfied the test for a terrorism connection. This is contrary to the legislation, which indicates that “influencing the government” means the British government or an intergovernmental body, such as the UN.
Influencing the Israeli government was the crux of the argument for the terrorism connection hanging over the case. The backbone of that argument was: “If you are destroying a weapon, you are influencing that government by preventing them from using that weapon.”
Yet at sentencing, he pivoted to make it about the British government. This ultimately satisfied the Home Office’s appeal for the proscription of Palestine Action, which was announced only three days later.
On top of this, he allowed for Elbit employees and employees of arms companies to constitute a “section of the public” so as to satisfy the test for a terrorism connection. I don’t think I need to explain how dystopian it is to refer to weapons-makers as a legitimate “section of the public” who could be victims of intimidation.
As most people know, Johnson did not allow the defendants to tell the jury that they were facing being sentenced as terrorists, which, of course, would have made it a much different decision for them to make.
In fact, throughout the whole case, he undermined the role of the jury, in effect deciding on matters which were for the jury to decide – principles of immediacy, value judgements, and reasonableness.
What is your response to the court’s framing of the action as intended to intimidate the government or Elbit, rather than as protest or direct action against alleged British complicity in Israeli war crimes? What context do you think was excluded or misunderstood?
Direct action for Palestine Action was a means of bypassing the government and going directly to the source.
One quote that the movement used throughout training was by anthropologist and activist David Graeber: “Protest is begging the powers that be to dig a well, direct action is digging the well and daring them to stop you.”
That quote was circulated in court, as it was included in training documents for the group, which were part of the evidence served by the prosecution.
Every single defendant spoke about having exhausted all democratic means, so turning to direct action to do the job themselves and stop the flow of weapons.
Judge Johnson did not misunderstand this. He manipulated the defendants’ closing speeches and defence statements to fit a narrative that ran counter to the entire case presented in court up to that point.
What precedent does this set for the remaining Filton defendants, Palestine Action cases more broadly, and other direct action or protest movements in Britain? Are you already seeing prosecutors or police lean on this ruling?
We are yet to see the effects of this and, at present, cannot comment on how it affects the rest of the Filton defendants.
However, to illuminate the wider picture, we need to look at the timeline leading up to both the Filton arrests and the proscription of Palestine Action. Two months before the Filton action, a meeting took place that included the Crown Prosecution Service and Counter Terrorism. They discussed proscribing Palestine Action, but identified that they couldn’t proscribe the group without first proving the group was “concerned in terrorism”. In order to do this, they needed to secure some arrests under the Terrorism Act for actionists.
Then the Filton 25 arrests took place. As it transpired, the investigating officer on the case was also part of the review group for proscription. So, we say, the same officer was involved in both the criminal investigation of the Filton defendants and the process of building the case to ban Palestine Action. Judge Johnson should have acknowledged this at the abuse of process hearing in November 2025.
This entire case has been manufactured by the Home Office in order to appease the Zionist lobby and Israel’s weapons manufacturers. The use of the terrorism connection was a means of securing convictions that would satisfy the proscription.
The Filton 25 have been used as political pawns in the British government’s war against Palestine Action. Therefore, the main precedent we need to worry about here is the collusion between parties that should be entirely independent from one another when it comes to the prosecution of those effectively taking action for Palestine.
We are facing an entire establishment that, after years of meetings with the Israeli ambassador to the UK, the CEO of Elbit Systems UK, and members of the Knesset (the Israeli parliament), is now doubling down on its unlawful tactics to disturb the functioning of a movement.
A free pass has been granted to use the terrorism link to satiate political bias. We expect to see more actionists imprisoned under the Terrorism Act, but we will fight this all the way.
What are the immediate legal next steps after Friday’s ruling? Are you planning to appeal the sentence, the ‘terrorist connection’ finding, the conviction, or all three – and what grounds do you think are strongest?
The lawyers will be submitting an appeal on the “terrorist connection” and conviction, but not the sentencing.
We will be sharing full announcements in the next 10 days.
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.
Judge Johnson had proved his fascist credentials through rulings much earlier in the Filton trial than his vicious sentencing. Indeed, he had arguably already shown them when he released Tommy Robinson from a prison sentence, or when as a barrister he had chosen to work for the intelligence services and Ministry of Defence.
But in his incredibly vicious sentencing, Johnson did something quite extraordinary. It was not just that he added a “terrorist connection” to the sentencing – a possibility deliberately kept secret from the jury. But in sentencing he recounted the prosecution version of events in its entirety to justify his sentences, including explicitly setting out all the details of alleged violent disorder of which the defendants had been acquitted.
Here’s injustice Jeremy Johnson handing down the sentences at today’s disgusting stitched up Palestine Action trial.
Any faith I ever had in the fairness of the British justice system is completely is dead. pic.twitter.com/3c86cjplOz
In short Johnson used the “terrorist connection” to ignore the ruling of the jury and sentence them as though they had in fact been found guilty of all the things that Johnson had systematically rigged the trial to try to get them found guilty of – and failed.
…
We should remember that three of the four defendants were convicted of nothing except for criminal damage. They were found not guilty of aggravated burglary and of violent disorder. For a first offence of criminal damage, an absolute maximum of about three years imprisonment might be given in the most extreme circumstances. That would result in spending one year and two months in jail before release on parole – less time than the activists have already spent in prison on remand.
But the six-year sentences given by Johnson … – having a terrorist connection – are not eligible for parole. The activists will serve the full six years in jail: that is five times the length of sentence that might normally be expected in this case.
And all to ensure that there is no interruption to Israel’s ability to commit Genocide or Starmer’s complicity in it.
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.
More than 3,300 now arrested under the Terrorism Act since 5 July 2025
Yesterday’s arrestees include Massive Attack band member Robert Del Naja
Arrests made following Met U-turn, despite leading legal figures warning the force that arrests would be unlawful in light of High Court ruling
The Met Police have confirmed 523 arrests in Trafalgar Square yesterday, where protesters staged a silent vigil against the genocide and the unlawful use of terrorism laws to silence opposition to the genocide. This brings the total number of arrests for defying the Palestine Action ban from 2,779 to over 3,302.
Last month the Met announced that the number of arrests for proscription offences relating to Palestine Action since the ban came into effect in July 2025, was 2,779 arrests.
The Met chose to make the arrests yesterday despite the High Court ruling in February that the proscription of Palestine Action was unlawful as a violation of the democratic rights to free speech and peaceful assembly. Leading legal figures warned the Met that arrests at this peaceful vigil would be unlawful in light of the High Court ruling, pending the hearing in the Court of Appeal on 28 and 29 April.
Many of those arrested were elderly or disabled, with ages ranging from 18 to 87. Arrestees included Robert Del Naja, the artist and musician from Massive Attack. The arrests took the number of terrorism arrests for quietly holding cardboard signs to over 3,300 since 5 July 2025.
Earlier in the day, a former Met police chief told BBC Radio 4 that arresting these peaceful protestors creates optics which are “very challenging for the police” and that there “will be a huge amount of people who have sympathy with what is going on with the views of Palestine Action.”
The Met Police’s mass arrests of protestors comes despite their stating publicly in February that they would not arrest people for holding signs, given the illegality of the proscription order. They said at the time that not arresting people, pending the Government’s appeal, was “the most proportionate approach we can take”. On 25 March, for reasons that are unclear, they announced a U-turn on this policy.
Meanwhile, the Devon and Cornwall Police undermined the Met’s decision by refusing to make arrests under Terrorism Act in Truro on 11 April. Protesters in Truro held exactly the same sign as protesters in London and police chose not to arrest, whereas the Met arrested 523 people.
Former Met Police chief superintendent, Dal Babu, said on BBC Radio 4:
“I think the difficulty is, when you’ve got 700 or 800 people who are willing to be arrested, that just isn’t practical. The optics of this will be very challenging for the police.
“It will present some significant difficulties for the police in terms of how they manage it and also be aware of the fact there will be a huge amount of people who have sympathy with what is going on with the views of Palestine Action.” [1]
A spokesperson for Defend Our Juries said:
“It is truly surreal that over 500 people have been arrested for defying a ban the High Court has declared unlawful. An already absurdly authoritarian measure has now descended even further into farce ahead of the Court of Appeal hearing this month.
“The Met Police has inexplicably reversed its position that, in light of the High Court ruling and pending the Government’s attempt to appeal, it would not arrest peaceful protesters defying the ban. Leading legal figures warned these arrests could themselves be unlawful, and the Met now seems destined to face legal challenge over what may amount to hundreds, if not thousands of unlawful arrests.
“The fact that Devon and Cornwall Police chose not to arrest protesters yesterday for holding the exact same signs only deepens the chaos surrounding the unlawful ban on Palestine Action and underlines a simple truth: this ban is unenforceable.
“It’s obvious to every sane observer that the Israeli and US governments are committing war crimes in Gaza, the West Bank, Iran and in Lebanon. Instead of standing up to these atrocities, which are already having dire consequences for the British public, Keir Starmer’s government supports them, including by criminalising peaceful protest against these heinous crimes.
Everyone who cares for democracy and the rule of law should be appalled by what is happening, and should ask themselves what they can do personally to prevent the descent into fascism.”
Keir Starmer explains that UK is actively supporting Israel’s genocidal expansion and repeats his previous quotation that he supports Zionism “without qualification”. Keir Starmer said “I said it loud and clear – and meant it – that I support Zionism without qualification.” 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’.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.
Palestine solidarity activists on hunger strike in British prisons face life-threatening risks as their protest enters its third month.
Palestine solidarity activists on hunger strike in British prisons have long passed a critical point in their protest, with at least two now facing a risk of imminent death. Heba Muraisi and Kamran Ahmed, who have been on hunger strike since November, have both reported worsening symptoms that health professionals warn could signal permanent damage. Their deteriorating condition has led to yet another wave of appeals for the UK government, led by Keir Starmer, to finally address the strikers’ demands.
“As the hunger strike enters its third month, those still on hunger strike continue to deteriorate, and grave danger looms over them,” the group Prisoners for Palestine warned. “Despite this, they continue firm in their actions and beliefs, that continuing to strike is the only way to get justice in the face of the government’s contempt for life.”
Most recently, Muraisi has reported uncontrollable muscle spasms and increasing difficulty breathing, while Ahmed has experienced intermittent hearing loss and severe physical decline. He was hospitalized for the sixth time this week, with health workers reporting growing difficulty in providing care. “Healthcare staff found it extremely difficult to cannulate him due to the effect the hunger strike has had on his body, causing his veins to shrink and become very hard to find,” Prisoners for Palestine said in an earlier statement.
Muraisi and Ahmed are among the eight activists involved in what has been described as the largest hunger strike in Britain since the 1981 Irish political prisoners’ strike. A third activist, Lewie Chiaramello, remains on intermittent hunger strike and faces serious risks due to underlying medical conditions, namely diabetes. At the same time, activists who have paused or ended their strikes in recent days are struggling to recover their health. Teuta Hoxha, who paused her strike earlier this week, reported that prison authorities failed to ensure support for adequate supervised refeeding, potentially exposing her to the serious risks posed by refeeding syndrome.
The strikers are demanding guarantees of their right to bail and to communicate with family and support networks, as well as the deproscription of the direct action group Palestine Action and an end to British complicity in the genocide in Gaza, including a halt to all operations by Elbit Systems in the UK. Despite continuous appeals from families, human rights organizations, and members of Parliament, the British government has so far refused even to engage in dialogue.
“Keir Starmer’s government is not passive; it is actively complicit: enabling genocide abroad, escalating repression at home and giving a green light to Trump’s renewed imperialism,” MP Zarah Sultana wrote on January 6. “This is not neutrality. It is collaboration. Let there be no ambiguity: if Heba or Kamran die, that blood is on the hands of this Labour government.”
In contrast to the government’s stance, solidarity for the hunger strikers continues to grow both locally and internationally. Following appeals by Irish organizations and political parties drawing parallels with the experience of Irish prisoners in the 1980s, South African networks and individuals called on President Cyril Ramaphosa to urge British authorities to take action.
“Under apartheid, some detained unjustly by the regime used hunger strikes as the only form of resistance available to them, calling for justice for themselves and for all who were oppressed,” their letter, dated December 29, 2025, reads. “As a nation, we must therefore stand in solidarity with these six young people, support their reasonable demands, and urge the British government to end its injustices against them, actions that could ultimately cost them their lives.”
The Labour government’s continued refusal to reconsider its repressive approach to protest rights has been widely criticized, including in a recent report by Human Rights Watch. The warnings highlight a general climate in Britain that is increasingly hostile to popular dissent and is having a chilling effect on fundamental civil liberties.
Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAKeir 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.
