Sally Lane

🚨BREAKING: Huda Ammori’s appeal to the Supreme Court over the ban on Palestine Action has concluded. Here’s our summary: Ammori was given permission to appeal the ban on one ground, focussing on whether it is compatible with freedom of expression and assembly. This represents the last legal opportunity to challenge the proscription in Britain, with the fate of thousands arrested for allegedly supporting Palestine Action hanging in the balance. Day one saw Ammori’s lawyers argue that the ban represents a “colossal invasion” of the rights to freedom of expression and assembly enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights. Raza Husain KC told the court that less than one percent of the group’s actions (3 in 385) over a period of five years had been classed as terrorism – even using the government’s overly broad definition. Husain said Palestine Action, unlike other proscribed groups, had sought to prevent genocide and uphold international humanitarian law. The group’s objectives were thus “aligned with rather than abhorrent to liberal democratic values”. The court also heard that Palestine Action fell “within the British tradition of direct action protest groups motivated by conscience” such as the Suffragettes, who used more extreme methods. They resorted to “fire-bombing, arson, serious property damage”, Husain said, refuting the lower court’s claim that they were pacific, and were ultimately “proven right by history”. “The uncontroverted evidence shows that [the] suffragettes, anti-war groups, environmental groups, animal rights protesters all used tactics similar to or more extreme than Palestine Action yet they were not regarded as terrorists or proscribed”, the court was told. Civil society organisations and UN experts had also “expressed deep concern at the proscription”, the court heard. A former MI6 director, Richard Barrett, had been amongst those saying in terms that “proscription goes too far”. A new argument was also introduced, with Husain raising the prospect that the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg could conclude that arrests for “supporting” Palestine Action were in “breach of convention rights”. If that happens, a broad swath of terrorism convictions could be quashed, contributing to a broader “crisis in confidence” in the UK’s terrorism laws arising from the arrests of thousands of people for holding placards. The five-judge panel in the Supreme Court, all men, expressed a general aversion to these submissions. Former British diplomat Craig Murray estimated that Ammori’s lawyers were disrupted over 100 times, making it difficult for them to develop their arguments. Outside the court, protesters held placards inspired by a tweet from Sarah Helm, wife of the UK government’s National Security Adviser Jonathan Powell. She had written “God help us authors who support Palestine and Palestine Action“ and was not arrested, but several outside the Supreme Court brandishing similar messages were. Sir James Eadie KC, acting for the home secretary, closed day one and opened day two. Eadie told the court that attempts to characterise Palestine Action “as part of a long and honourable tradition of civil disobedience on conscientious grounds” were “completely at odds” with the lower courts’ rulings. He said that such arguments have “no substance whatsoever”, later declaring Palestine Action the “antithesis of civil disobedience groups”. He went on to argue that Palestine Action incidents had involved violence (Filton) and “throwing pyrotechnics where people were being evacuated” (Thales). Eadie continued that Palestine Action’s “cell structure”, a “lack of candour” from Ammori, the group’s “escalating trajectory”, and the institutional competence vested in the home secretary, weighed in favour of upholding the proscription. Minutes ago, Husain delivered his closing statement for Ammori. He declared: “There are probably hundreds of thousands of people whose profoundly important rights of political speech, association and assembly on the most acute moral and political issue of our times - that is to say Israel’s annihilation of an already besieged and occupied people, and the role of UK-based corporate actors in that atrocity - those rights have been extinguished or interfered with”. A “closed” session will take place this afternoon, meaning evidence is being submitted by Britain’s security agencies that neither Ammori nor her lawyers can see or contest. In a statement, Ammori said: “The overwhelming evidence presented to the Supreme Court by UN experts, Amnesty International, Liberty and even the former Director of MI6 is that this dangerous and disproportionate proscription has criminalised legitimate protest as terrorism for the first time in British history, unleashing an unprecedented assault on free speech in this country”. The court is expected to reserve judgement until a later date.