UN experts and hundreds of lawyers have urged Yvette Cooper to scrap plans to ban Palestine Action, arguing proscribing the group would conflate protest and terrorism.
In two different letters addressed to Yvette Cooper, both the Network for Police Monitoring (Netpol) and the Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers cautioned that banning the group could establish a troubling precedent.
Cooper announced her plans to proscribe Palestine Action following the group’s latest and most high-profile action at RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, which involved two activists spraying paint into the engines of two Voyager aircraft. Sir Keir Starmer described their actions as “disgraceful” and an “act of vandalism”.
A spokesperson for Palestine Action, however, criticised the government for continuing “to send military cargo, fly spy planes over Gaza and refuel US and Israeli fighter jets,” adding their stunt was made “to symbolise Palestinian bloodshed”.
The Netpol lawyers’ group letter, seen by the Guardian, has been signed by 266 solicitors, barristers and legal academics.
The letter reads: “Proscription of a direct-action protest group is an unprecedented and extremely regressive step for civil liberties. The conflation of protest and terrorism is the hallmark of authoritarian regimes. Our government has stated that it is committed to respecting the rule of law: this must include the right to protest.
“To use the Terrorism Act to ban Palestine Action from direct action would be an abuse of this legislation and an interference with the right to protest. Misusing terrorism legislation in this way against a protest group sets a dangerous precedent, threatens our democratic freedoms, and would be a terrifying blow to our civil liberties.”
The letter from the Haldane Society, set to be delivered to the home secretary ahead of today’s parliamentary vote, has been endorsed by KCs who represented victims of the Grenfell Tower tragedy, as well as politicians like Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell.
They write: “It [a ban] would leave many ordinary members of the public vulnerable – for example, simply wearing a T-shirt saying ‘I support Palestine Action’ would be seen as violating the proscription and action would need to be taken.
“There are many dangers to proscribing peaceful direct action groups, even if their objectives are those some of us may disagree with. Current and future governments may misuse this precedent to attack other interest groups in future, offering no avenues for peacefully venting dissent.”
Cooper intends to proscribe Palestine Action under the Terrorism Act 2000, which allows her to ban groups the government reasonably believe to be “concerned in terrorism”.