United Kingdom intensifies repression against anti-genocide group

The United Kingdom police arrested on Saturday (5) 29 people in London for supporting the group Palestine Actionin a clear sign of the new policy of repression adopted by the British government against solidarity movements to Palestine.

The arrests occurred a few hours after the group was officially classified as a terrorist organization under the Terrorism Act 2000.

The legislation, approved in Parliament last Wednesday (2), and confirmed by the court, provides up to 14 years in prison for those who demonstrate public support to the organization. Posters with phrases like “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action” were enough for the Metropolitan police to lead protesters to custody.

The arrests were recorded during a peaceful protest in Parliament Square, in the center of London.

Among the detainees, according to the group Defend Our Jurieswere a priest and several health professionals. The action generated immediate reaction of passers -by, who denounced police repression.

“Who do you protect? Who do you serve?” and “British police, outside our streets.” Since the entry into force of the group’s proscription, even singing slogans or displaying posters with the name of the group has been considered a crime.

Parliament and Justice equalize Pro-Palestina group to armed organizations

O Palestine Action It was officially framed as a terrorist organization in the UK after a vote in the House of Commons that approved the measure by 385 votes to 26. The decision came from the Interior Secretary, Yvette Cooper, on the grounds that the group would have caused “unacceptable damage” to military facilities.

The main action used as a justification was the invasion of RAF Brize Norton air base in June, when activists sprayed red ink on two British Air Force aircraft.

Last Friday (4), the high cut rejected the group’s co-founder’s request, Huda Ammori, to temporarily suspend the measure. Hours later, the Court of Appeals confirmed the decision at an emergency hearing.

From midnight, it became a crime to demonstrate any form of support for the group, even through public demonstrations or symbolic statements.

The measure legally equates the Palestine Action groups such as Islamic State and al-Qaeda, although there is no record of weapons or civilian violence by the organization.

Direct actions against the arms and bonds industry with Israel motivated persecution

Created in July 2020, the Palestine Action It claims to have the mission to interrupt the United Kingdom military production chain that feeds the Israeli army.

Over the past four years, the group has carried out hundreds of direct actions, with the main focus on the facilities of Israeli company Elbit Systems and its partners, such as French Thales and the American Lockheed Martin.

In 2022, after successive occupations and blockages, the group celebrated the closure of the Elbit unit in Oldham, northern England.

In 2024, he broke into Elbit’s headquarters in Bristol, peppered red the Ministry of Defense and vandalized with Ketchup the statue of Arthur Balfour within the British parliament.

Already in June 2025, activists used electric scooters to break the safety of RAF Brize Norton air base, causing the episode used as a justification for proscription. None of the actions resulted in injured.

Parliamentarians and jurists denounce criminalization of solidarity

The decision of the British government was widely criticized by independent parliamentarians and members of the Chamber of Lordes itself. The former minister and veteran of the anti-apartheid campaign Peter Hain said he was “deeply embarrassed” from the labor party for supporting the proscription.

He compared the repression of Palestine Action The persecution suffered by Nelson Mandela and the suffrage, who also resorted to direct action against property as a form of political protest.

“The logic used to ban the Palestine Action could have classified the suffrage as terrorists. They used homemade bombs, set off mailboxes and attacked government properties to demand female vote, ”said Hain.

“Comparing red paint on military planes with terrorism is intellectually bankrupt, politically without principles and morally wrong.”

Independent deputy Zarah Sultana also criticized the decision: “Equipping a spray can to a suicidal attack is not just absurd – it is grotesque. A deliberate distortion of the law to criminalize solidarity and suppress the truth.”

Roger Waters challenges government and denounces ‘genocidal foreign power’

Hours after the ban on the ban, musician Roger Waters, former Pink Floyd, published a video openly challenging the Keir Stmermer government.

“Today is Independence Day, July 5, 2025. I declare my independence from the United Kingdom government. Palestine Action It is not violent. He is not a terrorist at all, ”he said.

Waters also accused the Labor Prime Minister of being “corrupted by agents of genocidal foreign power,” in reference to the covenant with Israel.

In response, the pro-Israel organization Campaign Against Antisemitism It threatened to open a private criminal prosecution against the artist if the prosecutor does not sue him.

Human rights organizations denounce abusive use of anti -terrorism legislation

Amnesty International has classified the group’s proscription as “unprecedented legal abuse,” warning of the risk that legislation is used to suppress freedom of expression and the right to protest.

According to Sacha Deshmukh, the entity’s executive director in the UK, the measure “gives the state massive powers to arrest, watch, censor and stop any political opponent.”

UN Human Rights Experts had already asked the British government to reconsider the prohibition proposal, arguing that damage to the property with no intention of injury or killing does not constitute terrorism.

Even so, the interior secretary kept the hard line, stating that there is no room for “violence and criminal damage” in legitimate protests.

Criminalization of solidarity to Palestine advances in Europe

The offensive against the Palestine Action It is part of a broader scenario of repression of the Solidarity Movement to Palestine in various liberal democracies.

In France and Germany, Pro-Palestinian demonstrations and slogans have already been prohibited in specific contexts, and activists have been targets of surveillance and persecution.

In the United Kingdom, the case opens the government’s attempt to restrict the field of political dissent through the equalization between civil protest and terrorism.

The Israel War against Gaza, which began on October 7, 2023, has left more than 57 thousand Palestinian deadaccording to local health authorities. Given this scenario, criminalizing those who oppose genocide seems, for many, the attempt to silence the political conscience of society.