Palestine Action proscription High Court review
Today is the third and final day of a judicial review at the High Court; a legal challenge brought by the direct action group, Palestine Action, against its proscription by the Labour government in July this year.
Last month, the judges heard from the representatives of the Palestine Action group, but today, the final day, the judges are hearing from lawyers representing the Interior Ministry, known to Britons as the Home Office.
Set up in 2020, Palestine Action's stated goal is to end global participation in Israel's genocidal and apartheid regime.
It has mainly targeted weapons factories, especially those belonging to the Israeli group Elbit Systems.
In July this year, activists protesting against Israel's genocidal war on Gaza broke into an Air Force Base, RAF Brize Norton, Oxfordshire, located in Southern England, allegedly causing more than $9 million in damage to two aircraft.
Days later, the then Home Secretary Yvette Cooper declared the group a terrorist entity, effectively making membership or support for the group a criminal offense. The ban took effect on July 5.
It's a massive, massive overreaction and, frankly, an act of state repression to stop the people from mobilizing in a way that they feel is detrimental to their financial interests.
Protestor 01
Seeing this as an attack on their civil liberties, thousands have since come out in a string of rallies, holding up signs in support of Palestine Action.
At least 2,300 have been arrested, more than 200 charged with offenses that carry up to six months in prison.
Earlier this year, Palestine Action's co-founder, Huda Ammori, requested and won permission for a judicial review of the ban at this court and for the court to see if the ban was lawful, if the home office followed the correct procedure before proceeding to prescribe the group.
In October, the government tried and failed to block the challenge going ahead. And last month, after days of nationwide sign holding protests, the judicial review finally began, but at the last minute, Martin Chamberlain, the judge due to hear the legal challenge, was replaced by a panel of three judges without explanation.
Two of those replacement judges have links that campaigners say raised the appearance of a conflict of interest.
The case against some of the most formidable foes in the world; the British state, ... Israel ... the weapons industry.
These are not people who are going to take this lightly, so it doesn't surprise me that they're willing to sabotage the process.
Saeed Farouky, Defend Our Juries
Dame Victoria Sharp has familial links to prominent pro-Israel lobbyist and major Labour Party donor Trevor Chinn and a group which has been widely condemned as Islamophobic and for supporting far-right agitator Tommy Robinson.
Justice Jonathan Swift, who dismissed WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange’s extradition appeal back in 2023, has represented the home office, which is the defendant in this judicial review, on more than one occasion.
A judgment is expected at a later date, but if the judges in this court find in favor of Palestine Action, the group could potentially be de-proscribed, consequently the charges against its many supporters will have to be dropped.
And not only that, it will be a huge embarrassment for the British government which the pro-Palestine demonstrators in the country accuse of participation in Israel's genocidal war on Palestinians.
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