[News] Free speech target or terrorist gang? The inside story of Palestine Action – and the plan to ban it

[Anti-Imperialist News]

theguardian.com
<https://www.theguardian.com/politics/ng-interactive/2025/jun/28/palestine-action-proscription-free-speech>
Free speech target or terrorist gang? The inside story of Palestine Action
– and the plan to ban it
Haroon Siddique
June 28, 2025
------------------------------

If this interview had taken place in a week’s time, Huda Ammori might have
been arrested. If this interview had been published in a week’s time, the
Guardian might also have been breaking the law.

Ammori, a co-founder of Palestine Action, said she was finding it “very
hard to absorb the reality of what’s happening here”. She said: “I don’t
have a single conviction but if this goes through I would have co-founded
what will be a terrorist organisation.”

By “this” she means the UK government’s hugely controversial proposal to
ban Palestine Action
<https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/23/yvette-cooper-vows-ban-palestine-action-anti-terrorism-laws>
under anti-terrorism laws, placing it alongside the likes of Islamic State
and National Action – the first time a direct action group would be
classified in this way.

If the group is proscribed next week, as is expected, being a member of or
inviting support for Palestine Action will carry a maximum penalty of 14
years. Wearing clothing or publishing a logo that arouses reasonable
suspicion that someone supports Palestine Action will carry a sentence of
up to six months.
[image: A woman holding a sign saying ‘end this genocide’ confronts police
officers at a protest]
Palestine Action protest in London after the hugely controversial UK
government proposal to ban the group under anti-terrorism laws. Photograph:
James Veysey/Shutterstock

As far as the government is concerned – and campaign groups that have been
lobbying ministers – Palestine Action deserves it. This week Yvette Cooper
<https://www.theguardian.com/politics/yvette-cooper>, the home secretary,
decried its “long history of unacceptable criminal damage” and claimed:
“Its methods have become more aggressive, with its members demonstrating a
willingness to use violence.”

Beyond the claim and counter-claim, the debate over the decision to ban
Palestine Action is as much about free speech and the use of
counter-terrorism laws to stop protests.

If Ammori is concerned for herself, she does not show it. In an exclusive
interview, she said: “Obviously people in Palestine Action understand the
severity of what’s happening and there’s a sense of frustration, but
there’s also a lot of unity in terms of wanting to fight this and not
crumble to pressure.

“I think they’re completely shooting themselves in the foot if they do this
– they are completely delegitimising their own laws, which I think are
already quite illegitimate, but in the sense that there have been thousands
of people who’ve come out on the streets, so many people on social media,
people in the media etc who’ve come out in support. I can’t think of any
precedent for that, where a group is facing proscription and there’s an
outpouring of support from the general public. I think that says enough
about whether or not we should be labelled terrorists.”

Cooper announced the proscription plan on Monday, three days after
Palestine Action broke into RAF Brize Norton
<https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/jun/20/palestine-action-to-be-banned-after-vandalising-planes-at-raf-base>
in Oxfordshire and sprayed paint into the jet engines of two military
aircraft that it claimed were helping to refuel US and Israeli fighter
jets. It was a deeply embarrassing security breach at a time when the
government is trying to bolster its defence credentials.
Footage shows Palestine Action breaking into Brize Norton airbase – video

It was a far cry from when Palestine Action started out in 2020. Ammori
said they had so little funds that they would go to actions carrying
supplies in plastic carrier bags and make stencils out of cardboard.

The 31-year-old said her activism was piqued by volunteering with refugees
in Greece while she was at university. Many of them were from Palestine and
Iraq, where her father and mother respectively are originally from, and she
realised “you have to tackle the root cause of these issues”.

She later worked for the Palestine Solidarity Campaign on boycott and
divestment campaigns and lobbying MPs, but she left after two years after
feeling as if “you’re constantly banging your head against a brick wall,
you’re constantly trying to reason with people, with the facts, and what
you get back is nothing and the complicity continues”.

Ammori then joined up with others who had carried out direct actions (as
she had done in 2017) against the Israeli arms manufacturer subsidiary
Elbit Systems UK, to form Palestine Action “with the aim of ending British
complicity with the colonisation of Palestine”.
[image: Huda Ammori]
Huda Ammori, co-founder of Palestine Action. Photograph: Abdullah Bailey

She estimates the group has carried out hundreds of actions, occupying
buildings, spraying red paint and destroying equipment, taking video
footage to share on social media, going from “strength to strength”.

As its activities have increased since Israel began its assault on Gaza
after the 7 October 2023 attacks by Hamas, so has pressure on the
government to clamp down on the group, even though its activists are
already routinely arrested and charged under existing laws for offences
such as criminal damage, violent disorder and burglary.

Cooper said they had caused millions of pounds of damage during a
“nationwide campaign of direct criminal action against businesses and
institutions, including key national infrastructure and defence firms”.

Ammori believes part of the reason for proscription is that Palestine
Action activists have regularly been acquitted, and where convicted jail
time has been rare, although she estimates that dozens have spent time in
prison while awaiting trial.

“They’ve tried to do a few different things to try and deter us, from
making it harder to rely on legal defences or increasing use of remand, or
they raid you a lot more and then put more severe charges on you,” she
said. “It hasn’t [deterred us] so now they’re hugely overreaching because
they don’t like us or agree with our cause.”

She cites activists previously cleared by courts
<https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2007/may/22/politics.iraq> for actions
against UK military bases trying to stop war crimes in Iraq, East Timor and
Yemen, “but as soon as it’s done for Palestine that’s it, you’re branded as
a terrorist. It’s terrifying for everyone that Britain thinks it’s
appropriate to call to label this a terrorist organisation. The
counter-terrorism laws in Britain are so extreme – it’s one of the only
countries, the only country, where it’s actually an offence to recklessly
show support for a proscribed organisation. So it’s a complete assault on
free speech.”

She also points out that none of the overseas chapters of Palestine Action
– unaffiliated to but inspired by the UK group – have been banned as
terrorists.
[image: A Palestine Action activist being arrested]
Palestine Action activists are already routinely arrested and charged under
existing laws for offences such as criminal damage, violent disorder and
burglary. Photograph: Martin Pope/ZUMA Press Wire/REX/Shutterstock

Ammori believes the Conservatives would not have resorted to proscription,
as they had ample opportunity to do so while in government, and it is only
under Labour that activists have been arrested – but not charged so far –
under the Terrorism Act, which allows for them to be held without a
charging decision for 14 days.

“[Ministers] have gone off the back of what pro-Israel lobby groups have
said about us, from probably Elbit Systems and the Israeli government over
the years as well, rather than do any factchecking,” she said. “It’s just
completely rushed and done for political agenda, and without any
consultation with us.”

Freedom of information requests have shown that the UK government has
separately met Elbit and Israeli embassy officials
<https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/aug/20/israeli-embassy-officials-attempted-to-influence-uk-court-cases-documents-suggest>,
although documents have been heavily redacted so that details are scarce. A
2022 briefing note for the then home secretary, Priti Patel, before a
meeting with Elbit had a section titled “Past lobbying” but all details had
been redacted. When asked previously about the document, Elbit did not
comment. It did not respond to a request to comment on the matters raised
in this article.

Elements of Cooper’s ministerial statement mirrored claims made by We
Believe in Israel in a report published this month
<https://x.com/WeBelieveIsrael/status/1932019636473598380> calling for
Palestine Action to be banned – namely references to activists targeting
infrastructure supporting Ukraine, Nato and Jewish-owned businesses and
universities.

Ammori insisted Palestine Action targeted “all companies who work with
Elbit Systems, regardless of the owners identity.”

The We Believe in Israel report also said the group had been investigated
in 2022 for links to Hamas-aligned networks abroad, citing a “classified
Metropolitan police briefing”, although no charges resulted. It did not say
how or why it had seen the briefing, but it reinforced Ammori’s fears about
UK government and law enforcement being swayed by external forces.

A week ago, We Believe in Israel tweeted
<https://x.com/WeBelieveIsrael/status/1936535851120447528>: “Behind
Palestine Action’s theatre of resistance stands a darker puppeteer: the
[Iranian] Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.” The only evidence it provided
was that the IRGC’s vocabulary “echoes in Palestine Action’s slogans”.

Two days later, the Times was briefed
<https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/anger-over-palestine-action-ban-as-home-office-investigates-iran-link-9fjkdr763>
by anonymous Home Office officials that they were investigating whether
Palestine Action was funded by Iran, although Cooper did not mention this
in her statement.

Ammori rejected the allegation, insisting the group was funded by multiple
individuals donating small amounts of cash. As proof, she pointed to a
fundraiser for legal fees for the fight against proscription, which by
Friday morning had raised more than £150,000, with an average donation of
about £35.

She said Palestine Action had shown people “that you really have a lot of
power and that you don’t have to accept the fact that when our own
government’s breaking the law, when these factories are operating building
weapons to kill people in Palestine, or weapons that they market as
battle-tested on Palestinians and they are openly committing war crimes,
that you actually have the power to stop that.

“I think that’s something that’s captured a lot of people’s attention and
hearts, and that’s why we’ve gained so much support. People in these areas
resonate more with the people on the roof than they do with the company
building weapons to massacre people.”

The Home Office was approached for comment.
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