Amnesty slams transfer as ‘unprecedented authorized overreach’, places protesters in opposition to Gaza battle on a par with al-Qaeda, ISIL.
Lawmakers in the UK have voted to proscribe marketing campaign group Palestine Motion as a “terrorist” organisation, elevating fears about freedom of expression within the nation.
Parliament voted 385-26 in favour of the measure in opposition to the group on Wednesday, the transfer coming after its activists broke right into a military base final month and sprayed pink paint on two planes in protest on the UK’s help for Israel’s battle on Gaza.
Critics decried the chilling impact of the ban, which places Palestine Motion on a par with armed teams like al-Qaeda and ISIL (ISIS) within the UK, making it a felony offence to help or be a part of the protest group.
“Allow us to be clear: to equate a twig can of paint with a suicide bomb isn’t simply absurd, it’s grotesque. It’s a deliberate distortion of the regulation to relax dissent, criminalise solidarity, and suppress the reality,” stated lawmaker Zarah Sultana, a member of the ruling Labour occasion.
Zarah Sultana not solely stands in opposition to the proscription of our group, she declares we’re all Palestine Motion❤️ pic.twitter.com/IyKzkFHfpC
— Palestine Motion (@Pal_action) July 2, 2025
Sacha Deshmukh, chief government of Amnesty Worldwide UK, slammed the transfer as “unprecedented authorized overreach”, declaring that it gave the authorities “large powers to arrest and detain folks, suppress speech and reporting, conduct surveillance and take different measures”.
“Utilizing them in opposition to a direct-action protest group is an egregious abuse of what they had been created for,” he stated.
The proscription order will attain parliament’s higher chamber, the Home of Lords, on Thursday. If accredited there, the ban on Palestine Motion would change into efficient within the following days.
The group, which has referred to as its proscription unjustified and an “abuse of energy,” has challenged the choice in courtroom and an pressing listening to is anticipated on Friday.
Zero tolerance
Launched in July 2020, Palestine Motion says it makes use of “disruptive techniques” to focus on “company enablers” and firms concerned in weapons manufacture for Israel, resembling Israel-based Elbit Programs and French multinational Thales.
The British authorities has accused the group of inflicting thousands and thousands of kilos of injury by way of its actions.
On Tuesday, the group stated its activists had blocked the doorway to an Elbit web site in Bristol, southwestern England. Different members reportedly occupied the rooftop of a subcontracting agency in Suffolk, japanese England, that the group had linked to Elbit.
United Nations specialists appointed by the UN Human Rights Council had beforehand urged the UK authorities to rethink its menace to proscribe the group, arguing that acts of property injury with out the intention to hazard life shouldn’t be thought-about “terrorism”.
Dwelling Secretary Yvette Cooper, the UK’s inside minister, says that violence and felony injury haven’t any place in reliable protest, and {that a} zero-tolerance method was obligatory for nationwide safety.
Along with Palestine Motion, the proscription order accredited by parliament consists of neo-Nazi group Maniacs Homicide Cult and the Russian Imperial Motion, a white supremacist group which seeks to create a brand new Russian imperial state.