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Proscription of direct action group has led to more than 700 people being charged under Terrorism Act
Protesters arrested for allegedly supporting Palestine Action have expressed anger at the court of appeal’s decision that the ban on the direct action group was lawful.
On Monday, five judges overturned the high court’s February ruling that proscription was unlawful, meaning that more than 3,000 people who have been arrested under the Terrorism Act since proscription, more than 700 of whom have been charged, could now face prosecution.
While the Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori, has said she will appeal to the supreme court, any prospect of the ban being quashed and prosecutions being discontinued – which seemed a possibility after the high court judgment – is off the table for now.
One of those charged, Deborah Hinton, 82, a former magistrate from Truro, Cornwall, described the judgment as “devastating and shocking”. She said of a prison sentence under the Terrorism Act: “Obviously I’m very upset, I’m very nervous, but I couldn’t do anything else but do what I did. I didn’t have a choice. We are heading towards an authoritarian state, and as I saw it, it was my duty to take a stand.
“One did hold out hope that the government [would] see sense. We haven’t got enough money to have a proper defence system for this country and yet they’re wasting millions and millions on this ridiculous prosecution of people holding placards.”
The vast majority of those arrested were holding placards saying “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action” at Defend Our Juries demonstrations.
Marianne Sorrell, 81, from Wells, Somerset, who was held by police for almost 27 hours after being arrested, during which officers forced their way into her house and searched it, described Monday’s judgment as a travesty of justice. “I’m thinking very seriously of getting arrested again for the same offence,” she said.
“I haven’t up to now, because it meant going to London but I’m so incensed by what’s going on and very perturbed that I’m thinking I will go to London if the action to support Palestine Action is to continue.”
Both Hinton and Sorrell also expressed outrage about the lengthy custodial sentences imposed on Friday on four Palestine Action activists who smashed up drones and other equipment at an Israeli arms manufacturer’s UK factory after a judge ruled that there was a “terrorist connection” to their offending. Hinton described it as “completely out of all proportion and of anything that one could expect in a civilised country like ours”.
Father John McGowan, 75 – who was one of 532 people arrested at a demonstration in Parliament Square on 9 August last year, said he too was angry and disappointed by the court of appeal’s decision but it did not affect how he felt about what he did.
“[Being arrested and charged] is an inconvenience for me compared to what the people are currently experiencing in Gaza, and still are,” he said. “My judge is myself, my conscience, I’m at peace with myself and with what I’ve done and so let’s see what happens. I’m prepared even to go to prison. I don’t think that will happen but I’m prepared to do that.”
In her written judgment on Monday, the lady chief justice, Sue Carr, said: “When the severity of the effects of proscription on [an individual’s rights to freedom of expression and assembly] are balanced against the importance of the objectives of protecting national security and the rights and freedoms of others … we find that the latter in this case outweighed the former.”
The court of appeal’s decision also prompted renewed criticism of the ban from human rights groups.
Tom Southerden, Amnesty’s legal programme director, said: “We have long said that the banning of Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation was a grave misuse of sweeping counter-terrorism powers with serious consequences for human rights, and today’s outcome does not alter that assessment. It is fundamentally disproportionate to treat direct action protest as terrorism.
“The images of people from all walks of life – from nurses and pensioners to military veterans – being bundled into police vans for peacefully holding placards will be long remembered as a deeply shameful chapter in our history.”
The rate of human-induced warming remains at an all-time high, according to the latest Indicators of Global Climate Change report.
The world is edging dangerously close to the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C warming threshold, with human-induced warming reaching 1.37°C in 2025, a major new report warns.
If emissions continue at current levels, the 1.5°C limit will be crossed around 2030, according to the analysis by more than 70 scientists from 56 institutions across 17 countries.
The fourth edition of the Indicators of Global Climate Change (IGCC), published today (11 June) in the journal Earth System Science Data, tracks the key measurements that tell us how fast the climate is changing and why. It paints a clear picture: the Earth is warming at an accelerating rate, driven almost entirely by human activity.
“Our study shows greenhouse gas emissions are at an all-time high, mainly from the burning of fossil fuels,” says Dr. William Lamb, Senior Researcher at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), Germany.
“The good news is that solutions are already available. By investing in renewables and electrification, governments can cut emissions while building cleaner, more reliable and more secure energy systems.”
World’s carbon budget will be exhausted in three years
The carbon budget – the total amount of CO2 that can still be emitted while keeping warming less than 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels – now stands at just 130 billion tonnes from the start of 2026. At current emissions levels, that will be exhausted in around three years.
The 1.5-degree limit is the cornerstone of the 2015 Paris Agreement, an international treaty designed to prevent the most catastrophic impacts of the climate crisis.
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Yet the west is still building fossil fuel infrastructure.
This ring was created from a diamond giardinetti stickpin (circa 1830) by removing the stem and riveting it onto a 1940s era lapis lazuli ring. The ring is 14k gold; while the giardinetti is silver.
Conservationists say cherished creatures such as whales, dolphins and seabirds are being killed in large numbers by fishing tackle
Thousands of Britain’s most charismatic and protected marine wildlife, including whales, porpoises, dolphins, seals and seabirds are being killed as “collateral damage” by fishing vessels every year, according to the first-ever analysis of bycatch data.
The analysis, by the Wildlife and Countryside Link, a coalition of voluntary conservation groups, reveals the devastating toll bycatch, the accidental capture and killing of non-target species by fishing vessels, is having on marine species.
The “shocking” scale of annual deaths in the report, Hidden in the haul: The true scale of bycatch is likely to be “the tip of the iceberg”, it said, as only a fraction of the UK fishing fleet monitor bycatch. Only 0.05% of dredging vessels monitor this. They, like the bottom trawlers exposed in the recent David Attenborough film Oceans, drag heavy gear across the sea floor and are known for doing damage to marine life on the sea bed. Non-UK vessels operating in UK waters were not included in the data.
The deaths estimated in the report, which were extrapolated from datasets on bycatch and discard numbers, were more than 1,000 harbour porpoises and common dolphins killed annually, 10,000 seabirds and 500 seals. Six humpback whales and 30 minke whales were also found dead in Scottish creel ropes. Over 1,000 endangered Atlantic salmon and 120 tonnes of protected sharks, skates and rays are also caught and killed as bycatch by commercial fishing vessel every year.
In English waters, the use of gillnets, a type of static net that hangs like a curtain in the water, is the highest risk for seabird bycatch. Birds including puffins, gannets and razorbills get caught and drown when they dive for food. Gillnets cause 400,000 seabird deaths globally, according to research by BirdLife International.
[Richard Benwell, the chief executive of Wildlife and Countryside Link] said: “The government mustn’t let these terrible losses continue. To protect marine wildlife, Ministers must finally deliver strong bycatch action plans, backed by strict mandatory monitoring and enforcement, before more wildlife is pushed closer to extinction.”
Cetaceans dying as bycatch is a key reason the UK is failing to meet its legal obligations to achieve good environmental status in some British seas, the report found.
Successive governments have failed to address this “silent and largely unseen” crisis, [Ruth Williams, head of marine conservation at the Wildlife Trusts] said.
The coalition is also calling on the government to require remote electronic monitoring on all fishing vessels operating in English waters, inclupding small vessels under 10 metres that it said are responsible for a large proportion of bycatch.
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