LONDON: Arrests for terrorism offenses in the UK have spiked by a massive 660 percent year-on-year due to support for Palestine Action, new government figures show.
The pro-Palestine group was listed as a terrorist organization and banned in July. Now any public demonstration of support for the group is outlawed, and hundreds of protesters — who have used the slogan “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action” — opposing the ban have been arrested in recent months, with the act now an offense under UK anti-terrorism legislation.
Of the 1,886 arrests in the year up to September for terrorism-related activity, 1,630 — or 86 percent — were linked to support for Palestine Action, government data released on Thursday shows.
In the previous year, 248 arrests were made in relation to incidents falling under anti-terrorism laws.
Among those arrested for supporting Palestine Action, protesters were 4.4 times more likely to be female, and were remarkably older, on average, than people typically arrested for alleged terror offenses.
The average age of those arrested in relation to Palestine Action was 57, compared to 30 among those arrested for all unrelated terror offenses.
Before the banning of Palestine Action, there were 63 arrests for terror-related activity between April and June this year.
Following the ban, the number of arrests within the category surged by 2,608 percent, with 1,706 arrests recorded from July to September.
The group’s proscription has been challenged in the High Court by co-founder Huda Ammori, whose barristers have argued that the ban’s impact was “dramatic, severe, widespread and potentially lifelong.”
Then-Home Secretary Yvette Cooper’s decision to ban the group was “novel and unprecedented,” Raza Husain KC told judges, adding: “This is the first direct action civil disobedience organization that does not advocate for violence ever to be proscribed as terrorism.”
The government’s decision in July was “so extreme as to render the UK an international outlier,” he said.
Cooper’s government body, the Home Office, was advised by the Foreign Office that Palestine Action’s “activity is largely viewed by international partners as activism and not extremism or terrorism.”
Representing the government, Sir James Eadie KC argued that Parliament reserved the right to decide what constitutes terrorism.
