The government has come under pressure to justify the detention of 532 people arrested over the weekend under the Terrorism Act. Photograph: Jaimi Joy/Reuters
Huda Ammori says No 10’s allegations go against its own intelligence assessments, as pressure grows over mass arrests
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The number of people arrested for peaceful protests, together with the images of older people being led away and the demands placed on the criminal justice system, have led many to call into question the criminalisation of so many people.
On Monday, a Downing Street spokesperson responded by saying Palestine Action, which last month became the first direct action protest group to be banned, was “a violent organisation that has committed violence, significant injury, extensive criminal damage”.
The home secretary, Yvette Cooper, told the BBC that Palestine Action “is not a non-violent organisation” and claimed that court restrictions meant people “don’t know the full nature of this organisation”.
Palestine Action co-founders Richard Barnard and Huda Ammori. Photograph: Mark Kerrison/In Pictures/Getty Images
But Huda Ammori, co-founder of Palestine Action, said: “Yvette Cooper and No 10’s claim that Palestine Action is a violent organisation is false and defamatory and even disproven by the government’s own intelligence assessment of Palestine Action’s activities …
“It was revealed in court during my ongoing legal challenge to the ban that the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre’s (JTAC’S) assessment acknowledges that ‘Palestine Action does not advocate for violence against persons’ and that the ‘majority’ of its activities ‘would not be classified as terrorism’.
“Spraying red paint on war planes is not terrorism. Disrupting Israel’s largest weapons manufacturer, Elbit Systems, by trespassing on their sites in Britain is not terrorism. It is the Israeli Defense Forces and all those who arm and enable their war crimes who are the terrorists.”
Keir “I support Zionism without Qualification” Starmer supporting genocide.Palestine Action joke that appeared in the UK satirical publication ‘Private Eye’.Vote Labour for Genocide.
Police officers make an arrest at a “Lift The Ban” demonstration in support of the proscribed group Palestine Action in Parliament Square on August 9, 2025.
“Let us be under no illusion,” said one organizer. “The government is criminalizing the people of Britain for standing up against the biggest genocide of the 21st century, as it’s livestreamed from Gaza.”
British campaigners reported Saturday that the sheer volume of people who showed up in London’s Parliament Square to support the nonviolent advocacy group Palestine Action presented a major challenge for the Metropolitan Police, who had threatened to arrest anyone supporting the organization.
The campaign group Defend Our Juries reported that as of 4:00 pm local time, at least 200 people had been arrested for joining the protest, where more than 1,000 sat silently in the square with many displaying signs that read: “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.”
Others held signs reading, “Is this why you joined the police?” as officers arrested demonstrators including National Health Service workers; a blind man using a wheelchair; author Jonathon Porritt; and former Guantánamo Bay detainee Moazzam Begg, who now advocates for wrongly-imprisoned people swept up in the War on Terror.
BREAKING: Moazzam Begg, a never convicted former Guantanamo prisoner and senior director of CAGE international, was just arrested under the Terrorism Act.
Alongside approximately a thousand others, he held a sign which said "I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action" pic.twitter.com/UNFgE4zQPi
“The fact that unprecedented numbers came out today risking arrest and possible imprisonment, shows how repulsed and ashamed people are about our government’s ongoing complicity in a livestreamed genocide, and the lengths people are prepared to go to defend this country’s ancient liberties,” said a spokesperson for Defend Our Juries, which also organized a protest last month where more than two dozen people were arrested.
The protests have been held to demand that the government reverse its June decision to proscribe Palestine Action as a terrorist organization after it vandalized two military airplanes. The ban on the organization means that anyone who publicly supports Palestine Action risks up to 14 years in prison.
Palestine Action was formed in 2020 to demand an end to Israeli apartheid policies in the occupied Palestinian territories including Gaza and the West Bank. It has organized nonviolent actions since Israel began bombarding Gaza and blockading nearly all humanitarian aid in October 2023—killing more than 61,000 Palestinians, injuring more than 150,000, creating the largest per capita population of child amputees in the world, and starving at least 212 people so far.
“Palestine Action and people holding cardboard signs present no danger to the public at large, whereas the people who have lobbied for this ban—the arms companies and Israel lobbies—have the blood of 60,000 Palestinians on their hands,” said Defend Our Juries.
The government’s ban, announced by Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, faces a legal challenge scheduled to be heard by the U.K. High Court in November. The court granted a full judicial review to Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori.
United Nations human rights chief Volker Türk warned last month that the U.K.’s proscription of the group “is at odds with the U.K.’s obligations under international human rights law” and noted that “according to international standards, terrorist acts should be confined to criminal acts intended to cause death or serious injury or to the taking of hostages”—not property damage.
Defend Our Juries said the mass arrest of Palestinian rights advocates is taking place as Britain continues to provide support to the Israeli military, which is moving towards a full takeover of Gaza under the orders of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“They’re being arrested for holding signs in opposition to genocide and the ban of Palestine Action,” said the group as hundreds of people were carried away from Parliament Square by Metropolitan Police. “Meanwhile, the ones enabling the mass murder of Palestinians face no consequences.”
Mass arrests under the Terrorism Act are ongoing at Parliament Square.
They're being arrested for holding signs in opposition to genocide and the ban of Palestine Action.
Meanwhile, the ones enabling the mass murder of Palestinians, face no consequences pic.twitter.com/OWecwhX85J
Support from civil society groups for Palestine Action and the organizations demanding a reversal of the ban grew this past week ahead of the protest. More than 300 Jewish Britons including film director Mike Leigh; children’s author Michael Rosen; and Geoffrey Bindman, a former legal instructor to Prime Minister Keir Starmer, calling the ban “illegitimate” in a letter to Downing Street.
“The government should stop deflecting attention from genocide by linking nonviolent protest to terrorism,” read the letter.
Begg noted Saturday that “historically, civil disobedience has been employed in this country, as well as by the American civil rights movement and the anti-apartheid struggle in South Africa, to challenge unjust and oppressive laws.”
“This action is not about Palestine Action, but wider issues of how anti-terror legislation curtails basic freedoms and undermines the rule of law,” he said. “There can be no doubt that such laws have been, and continue to be abused and exploited, to suppress free speech and put in place an oppressive infrastructure that represents a danger to our civil liberties.”
“In such moments, all those who resist are acting in the public interest and are motivated by the desire to protect fundamental principles of fairness, equality, and justice,” he added. “How can it be a crime to call for an end to apartheid and genocide? The planned action on August 9 is motivated by the highest moral principles that have underpinned our society and made it the envy of the world.”
“Let us be under no illusion,” said Begg. “The government is criminalizing the people of Britain for standing up against the biggest genocide of the 21st century, as it’s livestreamed from Gaza. That is why it must be opposed.”in for standing up against the biggest genocide of the 21st century, as it’s livestreamed from Gaza. That is why it must be opposed.”
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Pro-Palestinian activists stage a solidarity protest outside Royal Courts of Justice as co-founder of Palestine Action Huda Ammori takes Home Secretary to High Court over proscription of the group as terror organization in London, United Kingdom on July 4, 2025. Ammori is seeking to block the proscription coming into effect. [İlyas Tayfun Salcı – Anadolu Agency]
Amnesty International UK has urged the Metropolitan Police against mass arresting peaceful demonstrators expressing support for the recently banned group, Palestine Action, ahead of a major protest planned in London on Saturday, Anadolu reports.
The protest organized by the activist group, Defend Our Juries, is expected to draw hundreds.
Since the group’s ban on July 5 under the Terrorism Act, more than 200 people across the UK have been arrested for displaying slogans such as “I Oppose Genocide. I Support Palestine Action.”
Police have indicated they may arrest hundreds more this weekend, and prison authorities have been asked to prepare for a potential influx of detainees, after the justice ministry initiated a “capacity gold demand,” according to reports.
Amnesty UK Chief Executive Sacha Deshmukh urged officers to exercise restraint and uphold international human rights law, in a letter to Metropolitan Police Commissioner Mark Rowley.
“Peaceful protesters must be free to express themselves this weekend without fear of reprisals, said Deshmukh. Arresting people on terrorism offences for peacefully holding a placard flies in the face of international human rights law.”
“At a time when people are quite rightly outraged by the genocide they see being perpetrated in Gaza, it is more crucial than ever that there is space to peacefully express that outrage,” he also said.
The letter argues that criminalizing protest slogans supportive of Palestine Action breaches the UK’s international obligations to protect freedom of expression and assembly.
It adds that under international law, protest speech can only be criminalized if it incites violence, serious property damage, hatred or discrimination — criteria which, Amnesty notes, are not met by holding a placard.
The letter also references the High Court’s recent decision to grant a full hearing to a judicial review challenge against the proscription.
The Court ruled that the case raised “serious issues to be tried,” meaning the legal foundation for arrests under sections 12 and 13 of the Terrorism Act is now in doubt.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights also publicly criticized the UK’s decision to ban Palestine Action.
And the UN Special Rapporteur on Counter-Terrorism and Human Rights has been granted permission to intervene in the judicial review.
Defend Our Juries, which focuses on civil disobedience and protest trials, has led peaceful demonstrations in Westminster since the Palestine Action ban took effect. The protest on Saturday is expected to include up to 500 demonstrators who are expected to hold placards in open defiance of the ban.
Amnesty International has urged police to focus on facilitating peaceful protest rather than suppressing it.
“I call again on the Met police to think carefully before making rash decisions this weekend – their job is to facilitate peaceful protest, not shut it down,” said Deshmukh.
In June, the government announced a ban under the Terrorism Act 2000 after activists from Palestine Action spray-painted planes at a Royal Air Force base, an act being investigated under counter-terrorism laws.
The ban was later passed in the House of Commons and the House of Lords in July.
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Keir “I support Zionism without Qualification” Starmer supporting genocide.UK Labour Party Shadow Foreign Secretary repeatedly heckled at a speech to the Fabian Society over his and the Labour Party’s support for and complicity in Israel’s genocide of Gaza.Vote Labour for Genocide.
The signatories of the open letter have expressed solidarity with protesters who may face arrest for taking part in a ‘mass action’ on 9 August. Photograph: Toby Melville/Reuters
Exclusive: Naomi Klein and Angela Davis among those demanding stop to ‘attack on fundamental freedoms’ of assembly and protest
Naomi Klein and Angela Davis are among dozens of international scholars and writers who have signed a letter to the Guardian calling on the UK government to reverse the ban on Palestine Action.
The letter applauds what it describes as a “growing campaign of collective defiance” against the ban and commends the hundreds of people who plan to risk arrest by declaring their support for Palestine Action during a mass protest in London on Saturday.
Signatories from major academic institutions around the world also say they are “especially concerned” about the ban’s possible impact on universities across Britain and beyond.
It comes as the pressure group Defend Our Juries plans to hold a “mass action” in London on Saturday where participants have been asked to hold up signs saying: “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action.” Police have warned they will carry out mass arrests of anyone contravening terrorism laws. A separate Palestine solidarity march is taking place in London on the same day.
Two women and a man have been charged with showing support for proscribed terror group Palestine Action following a protest in central London.
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The charges – the first in England and Wales – come before a planned protest in support of the group on Saturday afternoon in London’s Parliament Square, with organisers expecting more than 500 people to attend.
Protesters calling for the ban on Palestine Action to be lifted are planning to stage a demonstration in London on Saturday that could result in hundreds being arrested.
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Keir “I support Zionism without Qualification” Starmer supporting genocide.Vote Labour for Genocide.UK Foreign Minister David Lammy confirms that UK government and military are active participants in Israel’s genocides and that the F-35 parts that they suspended from supplying to Israel are instead simply diverted via the United States. He says see https://youtu.be/QILgUHrdWRE
