Police arrested dozens of protesters across the UK on Saturday during a second weekend of demonstrations against the government’s controversial decision to classify the activist group Palestine Action as a “terrorist organization.”
In central London, 42 people were arrested by the Metropolitan Police after staging a sit-in at the foot of the statues of Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela in Parliament Square. The demonstration, organized by the civil liberties campaign group Defend Our Juries, was one of several coordinated across the country in response to what activists say is the criminalization of protest.
Protests also took place in Manchester, Cardiff, and Derry. In Manchester, 16 people were arrested near the Emmeline Pankhurst statue in St. Peter’s Square. Among those detained were three vicars and several pensioners. In Cardiff, 13 people were arrested outside the BBC Cymru Wales headquarters for allegedly expressing support for the banned group.
According to Defend Our Juries, over 300 police officers were deployed in London alone. Officers surrounded protesters who held cardboard signs bearing messages of support for Palestine Action, which was officially proscribed under the Terrorism Act 2000 last week. Protesters remained silent throughout, some lying on the ground while others held handmade signs before being detained and led into waiting police vans.
Saturday’s events follow the UK government’s move to designate Palestine Action as a terrorist organization, the first direct action protest group to be banned under the Terrorism Act. The decision, announced by Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, was prompted by a series of recent actions by the group, including a break-in at a Royal Air Force base where activists allegedly defaced military aircraft with spray paint.
UN human rights experts have condemned the UK’s move. In a recent statement, they urged the government not to ban the group, warning it unjustifiably conflates protest with terrorism: “According to international standards, acts of protest that damage property, but are not intended to kill or injure people, should not be treated as terrorism.”
Experts also noted that while the UK’s national laws criminalize property damage as terrorism, international best practice limits the definition to acts that aim to cause death, serious injury, or hostage-taking. “Mere property damage, without endangering life, is not sufficiently serious to qualify as terrorism,” they argued, citing the UK’s own support for UN Security Council resolution 1566, which promotes this narrower standard.
