{"id":23731,"date":"2026-02-13T12:30:46","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T10:30:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jhb-webdevelopers\/channelafrica\/news\/uk-terrorism-ban-on-palestine-action-group-unlawful-court-rules-after-appeal\/"},"modified":"2026-02-27T16:34:29","modified_gmt":"2026-02-27T14:34:29","slug":"uk-terrorism-ban-on-palestine-action-group-unlawful-court-rules-after-appeal","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/uk-terrorism-ban-on-palestine-action-group-unlawful-court-rules-after-appeal\/","title":{"rendered":"UK terrorism ban on Palestine Action group unlawful, court rules after appeal"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"text-module__text__0GDob text-module__dark-grey__UFC18 text-module__regular__qJJtA text-module__small__sph8i body-module__full_width__kCIGb body-module__small_body__gOmDf article-body-module__paragraph__Ts-yF\" data-testid=\"paragraph-1\">\n<div class=\"text-module__text__0GDob text-module__dark-grey__UFC18 text-module__regular__qJJtA text-module__small__sph8i body-module__full_width__kCIGb body-module__small_body__gOmDf article-body-module__paragraph__Ts-yF\" data-testid=\"paragraph-3\">\n<div><span style=\"font-family: var(--global--font-secondary); font-size: var(--global--font-size-base);\">Britain&#8217;s ban on pro-Palestinian campaign group Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation was ruled unlawful by London&#8217;s High Court on Friday, though the ban will temporarily remain in place and the government said it would appeal against the decision.<\/span><\/div>\n<div id=\"ms-outlook-mobile-signature\">\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Palestine Action was proscribed in July, having increasingly taken &#8220;direct action&#8221; against Israel-linked defence companies in Britain, often blocking entrances or spraying red paint.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Britain argued the group&#8217;s escalating actions amounted to terrorism. They included a 2024 raid on Israel&#8217;s largest defence firm Elbit Systems, in which prosecutors said activists caused around 1 million pounds of damage and a police officer was hit with a sledgehammer, and culminated in a June break-in at the Royal Air Force&#8217;s Brize Norton air base.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Lawyers representing Huda Ammori, who co-founded Palestine Action in 2020, argued at a hearing last year that the move was an authoritarian restriction on the right to protest.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Giving a summary of the court&#8217;s ruling, Judge Victoria Sharp said that &#8220;Palestine Action is a group that promotes its political cause through criminality and the encouragement of criminality&#8221;.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>But the High Court ruled the ban was a disproportionate interference with the right to freedom of expression and freedom of assembly.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The ban will remain in place pending any appeal, meaning expressing support is still a criminal offence and being a member carries a maximum 14-year prison sentence.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Interior Minister Shabana Mahmood said in a statement: &#8220;I intend to fight this judgment in the Court of Appeal.&#8221;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\u2014Reuters\u2014<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":22022,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[26],"class_list":["post-23731","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Britain argued the group's escalating actions amounted to terrorism.","published_date":null,"news_description":"Britain argued the group's escalating actions amounted to terrorism.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/23731","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/23731\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26614,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/23731\/revisions\/26614"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22022"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23731"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=23731"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}