What is Palestine Action and why was it proscribed?<\/p>\n
Palestine Action<\/a> is a British protest group which was founded six years ago and describes itself as a movement \u201ccommitted to ending global participation in Israel\u2019s genocidal and apartheid regime\u201d.<\/p>\n It says it uses \u201cdisruptive tactics\u201d to target \u201ccorporate enablers\u201d and companies involved in the manufacture of weapons for Israel, such as Israeli group Elbit Systems, Italian aerospace company Leonardo, French multinational Thales and Teledyne from the United States. The group has targeted British facilities linked to those companies.<\/p>\n In all, British police have said action by the group has resulted in millions of pounds of criminal damage.<\/p>\n Palestine Action\u2019s protests include:<\/p>\n In 2021, members protested for six days on the roof of Elbit Systems\u2019 subsidiary, UAV Tactical Systems in Leicester, until some were arrested by police. Days after the Brize Norton attack, members of parliament voted in favour<\/a> of proscribing the group. That classified Palestine Action as a \u201cterrorist\u201d organisation, bringing it into the same category as armed groups such as al-Qaeda and ISIL (ISIS).<\/p>\n Critics decried the vote, arguing that while members of the group have caused damage to property, they have not committed violent acts that amount to terrorism.<\/p>\n More than 130 high-profile public figures<\/a>\u00a0have spoken out against the proscription.<\/p>\n At least 1,600 arrests linked to support for Palestine Action were made in the three months following the ban.<\/p>\n What is Monday\u2019s Court of Appeal judgment about?<\/p>\n Last August, Palestine Action\u2019s co-founder, Huda Ammori, challenged the government\u2019s proscription in the High Court. In November, the High Court heard a three\u2011day judicial review.<\/p>\n In February, the High Court ruled that the government\u2019s \u201cterror group\u201d ban was unlawful and disproportionate.<\/p>\n The government immediately said it would appeal. \u201cI am disappointed by \u2060the court\u2019s decision \u2060and disagree with the notion that banning \u2060this terrorist organisation \u2060is disproportionate,\u201d \u2060Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood \u2060said.<\/p>\n \u201cI intend to fight this \u200cjudgment in the Court of \u200cAppeal.\u201d<\/p>\n Although the High Court found the ban unlawful, the proscription remains in force, pending the outcome of the government\u2019s appeal at the Court of Appeal on Monday.<\/p>\n Four activists from the\u00a0Palestine Action<\/a> group were sentenced as \u201cterrorists\u201d<\/a> on Friday, despite most of them only being convicted of criminal damage by a jury in May.<\/p>\n Dozens of protesters were arrested outside Woolwich Crown Court in London ahead of the sentencing of the four members of the group \u2013 Charlotte Head, 30, Samuel Corner, 23, Leona Kamio, 30, and Fatema Zainab Rajwani, 21 \u2013 for causing criminal damage at the Elbit Systems facility in Filton, near Bristol in west England.<\/p>\n Corner was also found guilty of striking a police officer with a sledgehammer and convicted of inflicting grievous bodily harm.<\/p>\n While the convictions are for criminal damage, the court had leeway to decide whether their actions were related to \u201cterrorism\u201d, which carries heavier penalties.<\/p>\n Judge Jeremy Johnson handed down sentences of about five to eight years to the four defendants after branding their August 2024 raid on the Elbit Systems site in Bristol a \u201cterrorist act\u201d.<\/p>\n Having their convictions linked to \u201cterrorism\u201d means the activists will have to serve their entire sentences in prison, unless they have already completed at least two\u2011thirds of their sentences and a parole board decides they can be released.<\/p>\n Samuel was jailed for seven years and eight months, Charlotte was sentenced to five years, along with Leona, while Fatema was ordered to serve four years and eight months in prison.<\/p>\n They will be recorded as \u201cterrorists\u201d for the rest of their lives, will be required to register new mobile devices, email addresses and bank accounts with the police for their lifetime, and face being returned to prison if they breach their licence conditions or reoffend.<\/p>\n Amnesty International said the sentencing was \u201ccompletely disproportionate\u201d.<\/p>\n The organisation\u2019s UK chief executive, Kerry Moscogiuri, said: \u201cToday\u2019s sentencing hearing risks marking a new low in the ongoing crackdown against protest across the UK. Criminal damage has never been treated as terrorism within the UK justice system before, and it is completely disproportionate to do so because the offence occurred at a protest.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe use of terrorism laws to suppress direct action protesters sets a dangerous precedent for our fundamental rights in this country and must come to an end.\u201d<\/p>\n On Wednesday, ahead of the sentencing, a group of more than 50 lawyers and law professors published an open letter denouncing potential plans to sentence the four Palestine Action members as terrorists.<\/p>\n The letter highlights that damage to property has been a recurring feature of protest campaigns from the Suffragettes who fought for women to have the right to vote a century ago, to the modern environmental protest group Extinction Rebellion.<\/p>\n \u201cIt has never previously even been suggested that those taking such action should be treated as terrorists. Blurring the distinction between principled direct action and terrorism is the hallmark of authoritarian regimes,\u201d the open letter stated.<\/p>\n The letter has been signed by law professors from universities in the UK, the Netherlands, Norway and Canada as well as by dozens of practising barristers and solicitors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The United Kingdom\u2019s Court of Appeal is expected to rule on Monday whether the British government was right…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":638043,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[31322,1343,924,591,936,9881,59,80,57,58,937,590,50,229,3283,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-638042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-civil-rights","tag-courts","tag-crime","tag-europe","tag-explainer","tag-gaza","tag-gb","tag-government","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-human-rights","tag-israel-palestine-conflict","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-protests","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=638042"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638042\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/638043"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=638042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=638042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=638042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nIn 2022, the group broke into a Thales equipment factory in Glasgow, causing damage to weapons worth more than a million pounds ($1.3m).
\nIn 2024, 10 months into Israel\u2019s genocidal war on Gaza, Palestine Action activists broke into an Elbit Systems UK facility near Bristol in southwest England, causing another million pounds of damage.
\nOn June 20, 2025, Palestine Action activists broke into the Royal Air Force base at Brize Norton <\/a>in Oxfordshire and sprayed two military aircraft with red paint.<\/p>\n![\"Palestine](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/AP26118445373931-1781278957.jpg\")
Palestine Action protesters at the Royal Court of Justice in London, April 28, 2026 [Kin Cheung\/AP]What is the broader context?<\/p>\n