The United Kingdom’s Court of Appeal is set to decide on Monday whether the government acted lawfully in proscribing the activist group Palestine Action as a “terrorist” organisation, a designation introduced last July and now under legal challenge.
The ruling follows a High Court judgment in February that found the ban unlawful, although it remains in force while the appeal process continues, reports Al Jazeera.
The case centres on whether the Home Office was justified in classifying the direct-action protest group as a terrorist organisation, a status that has led to arrests, prosecutions and sentencing linked to criminal damage protests targeting defence firms connected to Israel.
Palestine Action, founded six years ago, describes itself as a campaign movement opposing what it calls Israel’s “genocidal and apartheid regime”.
It says it uses disruptive protest tactics against firms it labels “corporate enablers” of weapons manufacturing, including Israel’s Elbit Systems, Italy’s Leonardo, France’s Thales and US-based Teledyne, with actions also directed at UK-linked facilities.
British police have said the group’s activities have resulted in millions of pounds in criminal damage. Among its most notable actions were a six-day rooftop protest at UAV Tactical Systems in Leicester in 2021, a break-in at a
Thales facility in Glasgow in 2022 causing more than £1m of damage, and a 2024 incursion into an Elbit Systems site near Bristol also causing about £1m in losses. In June 2025, activists entered RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire and sprayed military aircraft with red paint.
Following the Brize Norton incident, members of parliament voted to proscribe the organisation, placing it in the same legal category as armed groups such as ISIL and al-Qaeda.
Critics argued the move was disproportionate, saying the group’s actions involved property damage rather than violence that meets the threshold of terrorism.
More than 130 public figures have since opposed the ban, while authorities have recorded at least 1,600 arrests linked to alleged support for the group in the three months after proscription.
Legal proceedings were initiated by Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori, who challenged the ban in the High Court last August.
After a three-day judicial review in November, judges ruled in February that the proscription was unlawful and disproportionate.
The government, led by Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, immediately appealed the decision, arguing the ban was justified.
The High Court ruling did not suspend the designation, meaning Palestine Action remains proscribed until the Court of Appeal delivers its judgment. In parallel, a London court earlier this month ruled that four convicted activists would be sentenced on the basis that their offences carried a “terrorist connection”, despite being found guilty primarily of criminal damage.
Those four activists — Charlotte Head, 30, Samuel Corner, 23, Leona Kamio, 30, and Fatema Zainab Rajwani, 21 — were sentenced on Friday for their roles in a 2024 raid on an Elbit Systems facility in Filton, near Bristol.
The court also heard that Corner had been convicted of assaulting a police officer with a sledgehammer, causing grievous bodily harm.
Judge Jeremy Johnson imposed sentences ranging from about four years and eight months to seven years and eight months, after characterising the incident as a “terrorist act”.
The court determined that their convictions carried a terrorism link, meaning they will serve longer portions of their sentences in custody and remain subject to enhanced monitoring conditions, including lifetime registration of devices and financial accounts.
Under the ruling, the defendants will only be eligible for release after serving at least two-thirds of their sentences, subject to parole board approval. Authorities said they will remain formally recorded as terrorists for life and could face recall to prison if they breach licence conditions.
Amnesty International described the sentencing as “completely disproportionate”, with its UK chief executive Kerry Moscogiuri warning it marked a “new low” in restrictions on protest in Britain. She said criminal damage had not previously been treated as terrorism under UK law and warned of a dangerous precedent for civil liberties.
On Wednesday, more than 50 lawyers and law professors published an open letter opposing the approach taken in the case.
It argued that property damage has long been a feature of protest movements, from the Suffragettes to Extinction Rebellion, and warned against conflating direct action with terrorism.
The letter, signed by academics and legal practitioners from several countries, stated that treating such conduct as terrorism risked undermining fundamental rights and reflected patterns seen in authoritarian systems. The
Court of Appeal’s ruling on Monday is expected to clarify the legal limits of the UK government’s use of terrorism designations in relation to protest movements.
