UK lawmakers vote to ban Palestine Action as ‘terrorist’ group

Amnesty slams determination arsenic ‘unprecedented ineligible overreach’, puts protesters against Gaza warfare connected a par with al-Qaeda, ISIL.

Lawmakers successful the United Kingdom person voted to proscribe run radical Palestine Action arsenic a “terrorist” organisation, raising fears astir state of look successful the country.

Parliament voted 385-26 successful favour of the measurement against the group connected Wednesday, the determination coming aft its activists broke into a military base past period and sprayed reddish overgarment connected 2 planes successful protestation astatine the UK’s enactment for Israel’s warfare connected Gaza.

Critics decried the chilling effect of the ban, which puts Palestine Action connected a par with equipped groups similar al-Qaeda and ISIL (ISIS) successful the UK, making it a transgression offence to enactment oregon beryllium portion of the protestation group.

“Let america beryllium clear: to equate a spray tin of overgarment with a termination weaponry isn’t conscionable absurd, it is grotesque. It is simply a deliberate distortion of the instrumentality to chill dissent, criminalise solidarity, and suppress the truth,” said lawmaker Zarah Sultana, a subordinate of the ruling Labour party.

Zarah Sultana not lone stands against the proscription of our group, she declares we are each Palestine Action❤️ pic.twitter.com/IyKzkFHfpC

— Palestine Action (@Pal_action) July 2, 2025

Sacha Deshmukh, main enforcement of Amnesty International UK, slammed the determination arsenic “unprecedented ineligible overreach”, pointing retired that it gave the authorities “massive powers to apprehension and detain people, suppress code and reporting, behaviour surveillance and instrumentality different measures”.

“Using them against a direct-action protestation radical is an egregious maltreatment of what they were created for,” helium said.

Reporting from London, Al Jazeera’s Milena Veselinovic said that protesters gathering extracurricular Westminster had showed “defiance”.

“[They are] saying that they would inactive find a mode to amusement enactment and hopefully not get arrested. But adjacent if they bash get arrested, galore of them person told america that it is not the worst happening successful the world,” she said.

The proscription bid volition scope parliament’s precocious chamber, the House of Lords, connected Thursday. If approved there, the prohibition connected Palestine Action would go effectual successful the pursuing days.

The group, which has called its proscription unjustified and an “abuse of power,” has challenged the determination successful tribunal and an urgent proceeding is expected connected Friday.

Lawmakers ‘boxed in’ by vote

Launched successful July 2020, Palestine Action says it uses “disruptive tactics” to people “corporate enablers” and companies progressive successful weapons manufacture for Israel, specified arsenic Israel-based Elbit Systems and French multinational Thales.

The British authorities has accused the radical of causing millions of pounds of harm done its actions.

On Tuesday, the radical said its activists had blocked the entranceway to an Elbit tract successful Bristol, southwestern England. Other members reportedly occupied the rooftop of a subcontracting steadfast successful Suffolk, eastbound England, that the radical had linked to Elbit.

United Nations experts appointed by the UN Human Rights Council had antecedently urged the UK authorities to reconsider its menace to proscribe the group, arguing that acts of spot harm without the volition to endanger beingness should not beryllium considered “terrorism”.

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, the UK’s interior minister, says that unit and transgression harm person nary spot successful morganatic protest, and that a zero-tolerance attack was indispensable for nationalist security.

In summation to Palestine Action, the proscription bid approved by parliament includes neo-Nazi radical Maniacs Murder Cult and the Russian Imperial Movement, a achromatic supremacist radical which seeks to make a caller Russian imperial state.

Al Jazeera’s Veselinovic said lawmakers had felt “boxed in” by the vote, feeling that they had nary prime but to proscribe each 3 organisations.

“If they had voted ‘no’, that would person meant that those 2 different organisations that they wanted to prohibition could not person been banned,” she said.

Source:

Al Jazeera and quality agencies