The High Court of England and Wales will hear a legal challenge this Friday by Palestine Action against its banning by the Starmer Labour government under counter-terrorism laws. The court’s agreeing to hear the challenge came as Home Secretary Yvette Cooper posted a draft order on the government’s website to proscribe PA as a terrorist organisation.

Lawyers for PA co-founder Huda Ammori appeared at the Royal Courts of Justice Monday morning, where their application for an urgent hearing was granted by Mr. Justice Chamberlain. Ammori is seeking a judicial review of the Home Secretary’s order to ban Palestine Action under Schedule 2 of the Terrorism Act (2000) alongside listed groups such as Al Qa’ida and ISIS.

If PA is proscribed, being a member or supporter will be punishable by up to 14 years’ imprisonment.

Palestine Action explained today that Ammori’s application for judicial review is on the following grounds: “ultra vires/improper purpose; error of law; irrationality; consideration of irrelevant factors/failure to consider relevant factors; breach of policy; breach of the Human Rights Act 1998; discrimination and Public Sector Equality Duty; and breach of natural justice.”

Ammori is represented by law firm Birnberg Peirce, which successfully defended WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange against extradition to the United States under the Espionage Act over his exposure of war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. Its lawyers are also defending Kneecap’s Mo Chara against a trumped-up charge under Section 13 of the Terrorism Act for his vocal opposition to the Gaza genocide.

Ammori, 31, is of Palestinian-Iraqi heritage and helped found PA in 2020. She said today: “This is the first attempt in British history to criminalise direct action, political protest, as terrorism, mimicking many authoritarian regimes around the world who have used counter-terrorism to crush dissent. This would set an extremely dangerous precedent, with repressive impacts right across the Palestine movement.”

She stated defiantly: “Spraying red paint on war planes is not terrorism. The terrorism and war crimes are being committed in Palestine by Israel, which is being armed by Britain, and benefitting from British military support.”

Starmer’s cabinet of warmongers remains undeterred. The Home Office stated this afternoon, “The Government will resist any legal challenge to its decision to proscribe Palestine Action.” A spokesperson for the Home Office said that following today’s draft statutory instrument proscribing Palestine Action, “the Parliamentary process will run as normal.”

On Wednesday, the House of Commons will vote on a banning order by Cooper that brackets PA together with the Maniacs Murder Cult, designated by the US Department of Justice as a “white supremacist group, which has targeted racial minorities and the Jewish community”, and the Russian Imperial Movement, listed as “Global Terrorists” by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in April 2020.

If MPs approve PA’s proscription, it will pass to the House of Lords on Thursday, and if approved there will become law by Saturday. But if the High Court grants PA’s application for interim relief on Friday, the ban would be suspended pending the outcome of a judicial review.

Even before PA is proscribed, counter-terrorism police have arrested six people in connection to the group’s protest at RAF Brize Norton last Friday, where two supply planes were doused with red paint. Five people were arrested Friday and Saturday on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism. Another was arrested for assisting an offender.

Mass opposition

PA’s legal challenge takes place amid a growing wave of popular opposition to Labour’s authoritarian measures, underlined by events at Glastonbury this weekend where tens of thousands of young people chanted in support of Kneecap and demanded freedom for Palestine, opposing its repressive measures and shouting “Fuck Keir Starmer”.

Today, more than 500 cultural figures wrote to the government demanding its moves to proscribe PA be ended, the Middle East Monitor reported.

Their letter stated: “Whether we as individuals support Palestine Action is irrelevant: what is at stake here is the very principle of freedom of expression”. Signatories include musician Brian Eno, writers Alan Hollinghurst and Reni Eddo-Lodge, comedians Frankie Boyle and Fern Brady. Guardian columnist George Monbiot who signed, told MEM that PA’s banning is “our ‘I’m Spartacus’ moment”.

The letter added, “Civil disobedience is not ‘terrorism’, as history shows us, from the suffragettes to Martin Luther King Jr. It is the right of all citizens in a democracy.”

Over the weekend, Skwawkbox reported that hundreds more people have signed an open letter by legal experts opposing moves to ban PA. The letter states, “The United Kingdom has a long and proud history of direct action that opposes military intervention. From Greenham Common to the 2 million marching in London against the invasion of Iraq, British governments of different political persuasions have respected people's right to peacefully protest.”

It warns, “Any attempt to criminalise peaceful direct action including by mislabelling it as 'terrorism' would raise grave concerns”. Signatories include the Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers, Michael Mansfield KC (Haldane President), former African National Congress MP Andrew Feinstein and The Good Law Project.

The Glasgow Trades Union Council is calling on the trade union movement to publicly oppose and take measures to block the proscription, reports the Herald in Scotland: 'We Are All Palestine Action: we must do everything we can to stop the UK government from designating them a terrorist organisation.”

Defending PA’s right to protest the Gaza genocide, Glasgow TUC urged, “While we're still allowed to say it, we call on the whole trade union movement to join us in supporting Palestine Action and campaigning publicly and privately to stop this crackdown. An injury to one is an injury to all.”

A broad spectrum of human rights groups, political and media organisations have called for the ban on PA to be halted. This includes top establishment figures such as Labour Peer Lord Falconer, Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice under Prime Minister Tony Blair. He stated that spray painting a RAF plane would not meet the legal threshold for a terrorism proscription, but added that PA “may have done other things” to justify the government’s ban.

Writing in a similar vein in the pro-Tory Telegraph, Simon Heffer judged that PA’s actions were “bonkers and loathsome” but could not be compared to terrorism, warning, “This devaluation of a word with a precise meaning is highly dangerous.”

Friday’s High Court hearing will take place at the same time as a pre-trial hearing of SOAS 2 member Sarah, a student at University of London’s, School of African and Oriental Studies, charged under the Terrorism Act for defending the right of the Palestinian people to resist Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

Today, hundreds of supporters of Palestine Action rallied outside a pre-trial hearing at Woolwich Crown Court in support of the Filton 18. They are being held in prison on remand over a protest last August against Israeli weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems, and their case has been designated as “terrorism connected”.