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The Home Office has won its bid to ban Palestine Action after a year-long legal tussle.
The Government successfully challenged a High Court's ruling made in February which found then-Home Secretary Yvette Cooper had acted unlawfully in proscribing the group under terror legislation.
The ban, which began on July 5 last year, made membership of, or support for, the direct action group a criminal offence punishable by up to 14 years in prison, and has remained in force as the Home Office has attempted to challenge the ruling.
Five Appeal Court judges - The Lady Chief Justice Baroness Carr, Sir Geoffrey Vos, Lord Justice Edis, Lady Justice Whipple and Lord Justice Lewis - today ruled in favour of the Home Office, although the decision may yet be referred to the Supreme Court.
Announcing that the decision to ban Palestine Action as a terror organisation was lawful, Baroness Carr said: 'We are satisfied the proscription decision was justified and proportionate,' and that it 'struck a fair balance' between freedom of expression and national security.
She said that comparisons with groups such as the suffragettes were 'seriously flawed'.
Thousands of people have been arrested following the proscription, including more than 100 who turned up to see four activists sentenced for breaking into an Israeli-linked weapons factory at Woolwich Crown Court on Friday last week.
There are more than 700 cases currently pending where suspects are alleged to have been a member of the banned group.
Raza Husain KC, lawyer for Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori, told the High Court last year that the ban was an 'ill-considered, discriminatory, due process-lacking, authoritarian abuse of statutory power'.
Palestine Action supporters wept as the decision filtered through to crowds outside the Royal Courts of Justice
There were tears as five Court of Appeal judges ruled the Government had acted lawfully in banning the organisation last year
Several protesters gathered outside the Royal Courts of Justice in central London for today's ruling
Many of them arrived with handmade signs pledging their support for Palestine Action
The ruling today followed a year-long legal tussle between the Government and Palestine Action
One protester dressed up as the Grim Reaper outside the Royal Courts of Justice
Protesters outside Woolwich Crown Court on Friday where four Palestine Action activists were jailed for raiding a weapons factory in Bristol
Hundreds of people have been arrested in the last year for supporting Palestine Action after the Government banned the organisation
But Home Office barrister Sir James Eadie KC said the ban struck 'a fair balance between interference with the rights of the individuals affected and the interests of the community'.
Baroness Carr told the hearing at London's Royal Courts of Justice today: 'We have agreed that Palestine Action was an organisation engaged in causing serious damage to property, using weapons, including sledgehammers.
'It presented a very real risk of injury, not only to property but also to members of the public.'
And she added: 'It was not a sustainable proposition to portray Palestine Action as a non-violent organisation, and not accurate for Ms Ammori to paint Palestine Action as an ordinary protest group engaged in activities falling within the well-established tradition of peaceful protest.'
Ms Cooper, who is now the Foreign Secretary, previously defended the ban, which has left some police forces uncertain as to whether or not officers should arrest activists.
Ms Cooper said previously: 'I followed the clear advice and recommendations going through a serious process the Home Office goes through … which was very clear about the recommendation about prescription of this group.
'The court has also concluded that this is not a normal protest group, it found that this group had committed actions of terrorism, that this group is not simply in line with democratic values and has promoted violence as well.'
The High Court's ruling in February was a massive blow to the Government and meant that more than 2,000 people who were arrested for holding signs or displaying messages supporting the group may now have proceedings dropped.
The ban made membership of, or support for, Palestine Action a criminal offence punishable by up to 14 years in prison
The Home Office decision to make Palestine Action a proscribed organisation was declared unlawful by judges in February
Supporters described the Elbit Systems raiders as 'political prisoners' when they arrived for the sentencing hearing at Woolwich Crown Court on Friday
The ban came in a year ago after some high-profile violent protests, including the 2024 raid on Elbit Systems in Bristol, which saw violent thug Samuel Corner jailed for seven years and eight months after he attacked police sergeant Kate Evans with a seven–pound sledgehammer.
As a result, being a member of, or showing support for, the group became an offence punishable by up to 14 years in prison.
The group has carried out a series of protests in recent years, including breaking into RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire and spray-painting two RAF Voyager planes and causing millions of pounds worth of damage.
This came a year after they stormed Elbit Systems in Bristol, causing around £1.2 million worth of damage.
In 2022, five activists scaled the Thales UK building in Glasgow and staged a demonstration on top of the weapons factory.
Members also spent nearly a week on the roof of an Elbit Systems' building in Leicester in 2021.
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