Palestine Action ban created ‘culture of fear’, UK appeal court hears

The ban on Palestine Action has created a “culture of fear” among those campaigning for Palestinian rights and judges were right to deem it unlawful , the court of appeal has heard. Shabana Mahmood is challenging the high court’s decision in February that Palestine Action’s proscription, the first of a direct action protest group, represented a “very significant interference” with the rights to freedom of speech and assembly. It also found that the ban, which remains in place pending the appeal, was a breach of the home secretary’s own policy on proscription. On Tuesday, Sir James Eadie KC, representing Mahmood, said in written submissions that the high court’s conclusion that the ban’s interference with human rights outweighed the importance of proscribing the group was “overstated and wrong”. He also told the court of appeal that it did not breach her policy, which gave her “broad discretion” on counter-terrorism and was not intended to “straitjacket” her. In his submissions, Raza Husain, representing Huda Ammori, co-founder of Palestine Action, said: “The consequences of [Palestine Action’s] proscription are severe. It has caused – as intended – the total destruction of a protest group with considerable popular support, which seeks to prevent atrocity crimes by Israel against Palestinians, while those crimes are ongoing and extensive. …