Best-selling novelist Sally Rooney has vowed to support Palestine Action ‘in whatever way she can’ by donating her British book sale profits and royalties from BBC adaptations of her books.
Rooney, 34, publicly reaffirmed her support for the activist group, which was proscribed as a terrorist organisation by the Home Office last month.
This decision means that showing support for the group is made illegal under the Terrorism Act in the UK, punishable by a maximum of 14 years in prison.
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The Normal People novelist hit out at the arrest of over 500 “brave individuals” in a moving piece published in the Irish Times. The individuals were arrested for holding placards declaring “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action” in London’s Parliament Square last weekend.
“In this context I feel obliged to state once more that – like the hundreds of protesters arrested last weekend – I too support Palestine Action,” she wrote.
“If this makes me a ‘supporter of terror’ under UK law, so be it. My books, at least for now, are still published in Britain, and are widely available in bookshops and even supermarkets.
“In recent years the UK’s state broadcaster has also televised two fine adaptations of my novels, and therefore regularly pays me residual fees.
“I want to be clear that I intend to use these proceeds of my work, as well as my public platform generally, to go on supporting Palestine Action and direct action against genocide in whatever way I can,” she continued.
Rooney goes on to say that she would happily publish this same statement in a UK paper, but pointed out that that would now, in fact, be illegal.
She accuses the British government of stripping its citizens of basic rights and freedoms, all “in order to protect its relationship with Israel”.
“The ramifications for cultural and intellectual life in the UK – where the eminent poet Alice Oswald has already been arrested, and an increasing number of artists and writers can no longer safely travel to Britain to speak in public – are and will be profound,” she continued.
Alice Oswald, 58, was among those detained in London last week. Oswald won the TS Eliot prize in 2002 and was a professor of poetry at the University of Oxford.
Afterwards, Ms Oswald explained her motivation for the matter as she used to give online poetry classes to young people and children in Gaza.
According to Metropolitan Police figures, half of the protestors who were detained and are now facing potentially life-changing terror convictions were over the age of 60.
Secretary of State for the Home Department, Yvette Cooper, defended the decision to ban Palestine Action, claiming it is more than “a regular protest group,” per The Observer.
Cooper claims counterterrorism intelligence showed that Palestine Action passed tests to be proscribed under the 2000 Terrorism Act with “disturbing information” concerning future attacks.
Protestors have since vowed to continue ignoring the ban as the group’s founder, Huda Ammori, will legally challenge the ban in the High Court in November