Freedom of expression: Palestine Action ruling draws line between criminal protest and terrorism
Alice Johnson, IBA Multimedia JournalistFriday 13 March 2026
Palestine Action protest in London, 6 September 2025. Indigo Nolan, CC BY 4.0/Flickr.
In February, the High Court of England and Wales found that the UK government’s decision to proscribe Palestine Action under the 2000 Terrorism Act was unlawful. The proscription of the direct-action group was highly controversial and led to the arrests of over 2000 people alleged to have expressed support for the organisation.
The government proscribed Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation in 2025 on the basis that it carried out ‘a series of violent attacks against national security targets’, which is estimated to have caused millions of pounds worth of damage, including to the UK premises of Elbit, Israel’s largest arms company. Tactics included breaking into facilities, vandalism and destroying equipment.
The Court ruled that the decision to proscribe, taken by former Home Secretary Yvette Cooper and approved by Parliament, was a ‘disproportionate’ interference with freedom of expression and protest rights and that it was not consistent with the government’s own policy on proscription. The Home Office told Global Insight that it is appealing the ruling and ‘will always take the strongest possible action to protect our national security, and our priority remains maintaining the safety and security of our citizens’. The group remains proscribed pending the appeal.
The proscription of Palestine Action placed the group on a list of terrorist organisations including Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, despite not being accused of the same levels of extreme violence against civilians associated with those groups. The judges said in the High Court ruling that while under UK terrorism law ‘a very small number of its actions have amounted to terrorist action’, the ‘nature and scale’ of the actions had not reached the level and persistence that would justify terrorist proscription. The judges concluded that most of Palestine Action’s activities could be prosecuted under criminal law.
‘The wider constitutional significance is that the ruling draws a bright line between criminal protest, which the law can and should address in the normal way, and terrorism, which carries exceptional stigma and consequences,’ says Mark Stephens CBE, Co-Chair of the IBA’s Human Rights Institute. Following the action targeting Elbit, authorities have charged more than 20 Palestine Action activists with criminal damage, which carries a maximum ten-year sentence, with some being convicted and others acquitted.
As soon as the government starts shutting down large parts of legitimate speech that’s when democracy itself begins to fray at the edges
Professor Ben Saul
UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Terrorism
The proscription of Palestine Action triggered mass protests and led to the arrest of more than 2000 people on suspicion of terrorist offences, mostly for simply holding up signs in support of Palestine Action. The judges, while giving little weight to the impact on protestors directly expressing support for the group, held that the interference of the proscription with Article 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights – which protect speech and freedom of association – was ‘very significant’ and recognised that the proscription created a chilling effect on lawful speech and the ability of civil society organisations to campaign against the use of the power to proscribe.
‘The critical danger in this proscription policy action is the effect it has on chilling the democratic space more generally,’ says Professor Ben Saul, the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and Terrorism, who intervened in the case to provide expert evidence on international human rights law. ‘As soon as the government starts shutting down large parts of legitimate speech that’s when democracy itself begins to fray at the edges.’
Saul says that the High Court decision brings the UK more closely in line with international treaties, including those on maritime and aviation safety, as well as the Terror Bombings Convention, where property damage is only considered terrorism in very specific circumstances, which usually involves high levels of harm to civilians. ‘In international law generally, there is lots of support for the view that acts that intentionally cause death or serious bodily injury are really the core of what terrorism is,’ he says.
Yasmine Ahmed, the UK Director of Human Rights Watch, says that following the ruling the government should review the definition of terrorism under the UK Terrorism Act to ensure the law cannot be used to silence dissent or protest. ‘The fact that it includes criminal damage and does not qualify that criminal damage in terms of violence against civilians or impact on national security is extremely problematic,’ she says.
Following the ruling, charges against those alleged to have supported Palestine Action have been thrown into doubt. The Chief Magistrate of England and Wales, Paul Golfspring, said that people charged with offences related to Palestine Action would not face court until the appeal is concluded. The Metropolitan Police said officers would stop arresting people who show support for Palestine Action but will continue to gather evidence for potential future prosecutions.
Ahmed says that the judgment is significant as a rare example of a court limiting the discretion of the state regarding national security. ‘Whilst absolutely there is always going to be a margin of appreciation provided to the state in terms of deciding what is appropriate for national security, it is appropriate that the court ensures that those actions don’t infringe on other fundamental rights that are otherwise lawful, particularly when it impacts so many individuals in our society,’ she says.