British Lawyers for Hamas Urge U.K. To Revoke Terror Label, Saying Group Poses No ‘Threat’ to Britain
The group behind the October 7 massacre ‘is not a terrorist group’ but ‘a Palestinian Islamic liberation and resistance movement,’ a Hamas official says.
Hamas, in an effort to achieve political legitimacy abroad, is appealing to the British government to revoke its designation as a terror group. The 106-page long legal application was sent to the U.K.’s Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, this week.
The dossier contains a witness statement from a senior Hamas official, Moussa Abu Marzouk, who suggests that his organization “is not a terrorist group” but “a Palestinian Islamic liberation and resistance movement whose goal is to liberate Palestine and confront the Zionist project.”
The British lawyers representing Hamas released a video on Wednesday morning showing themselves walking up to the Home office building in slow motion with an application in hand urging Ms. Cooper to have “some courage” and “make the right decision.”
The application, which the lawyers published online under its own website, lays out several arguments for removing Hamas from the terrorist list. It begins with the claim that Britain’s designation violates the European Convention on Human Rights by “unlawfully restricting” the members of Hamas’s rights to freedom of speech and assembly given because the group poses “no threat to the UK people.”
The lawyers also claim that the classification is antithetical to the “duties of the British state” to “end genocide” and contends that the proscription “undermines the possibility” of Hamas brokering “a peaceful settlement” in the Middle East.
The lawyers further challenge the “wide definition” of terrorism under the U.K.’s “Terrorism Act 2000,” declaring that “the definition also covers all groups and organisations around the world that use violence to achieve political objectives, including the Israeli armed forces, the Ukrainian Army and, indeed, the British Armed Forces.”
Hamas’s military wing, the Qassam Brigades, was designated a terrorist group by Britain in 2001. Twenty years later, a former home secretary, Dame Priti Patel, extended the proscription to the entirety of the organization, citing that “distinguishing between the various parts of Hamas is artificial.” Under U.K. policy, it is a criminal offense to belong to or openly support a designated terror group, with a maximum penalty of 14 years in prison.
Hamas, the Arabic acronym for the Islamic Resistance Movement, has been the de facto governing body of the Gaza strip since 2007 when it ousted the Palestinian Authority following a brief civil war. The group refuses to recognize Israel as a legitimate state and has been open about its intentions to destroy the Jewish state.
On October 7, 2023, Hamas invaded Israel, slaughtered an estimated 1,200 men, women, children, and infants, including some 200 foreign nationals, and captured at least 240 individuals which they dragged into Gaza as hostages. Hamas terrorists filmed and shared footage of the massacare, including the rape and tortute of civilians.
The Hamas official, Mr. Marzouk, however, is peddling the attack as a legitimate “military manoeuvre” that targeted Israel’s Southern military command and he claims that any “individual crimes” that were “allegedly committed by our soldiers” were subject to internal investigation and discipline.
He criticized the British government’s classification of Hamas as “symptomatic of its unwavering support for Zionism, apartheid, occupation and ethnic cleansing in Palestine for over a century” and accused the United Kingdom of “ongoing complicity in the genocide of our people.”
Mr. Patel, who is now Britain’s shadow foreign secretary, chided supporters of the campaign for failing “to understand the seriousness of the threats and danger this terrorist organisation poses.”
“Eighteen months ago, Hamas carried out the worst terror attack in Israel’s history and the most murderous pogrom against the Jewish people since the Holocaust. It continues to hold 59 innocent hostages in cruel captivity. Nobody should be in any doubt about the true nature and intentions of Hamas,” Mr. Patel declared.
The U.K.’s shadow justice secretary, Robert Jenrick, lambasted the lawyers representing Hamas, saying that “It’s sickening that a UK law firm thinks there are arguments for their ban to be lifted. It comes as no surprise this firm specialises in immigration cases.”
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp offered a similar rebuke, arguing that “The fact lawyers are seriously arguing our weak human rights laws could be twisted to protect murderous terrorists shows why these laws are no longer fit for purpose.”
The appeal was submitted by Fahad Ansari, the director of a law firm in South London, Riverway Law, along with two other London-based barristers. The lawyers involved in the case have denied receiving any payment from Hamas for their services, which would be illegal under current U.K. law, given Hamas’s terror group status.
Mr. Ansari, who describes himself on his X page as a “lawyer, writer, activist, tea lover,” is an outspoken anti-Israel activist and specializes in immigration asylum cases. Just two days after the October 7 attack, Mr. Ansari expressed his support for Palestinians’ right “to resist the racist, colonial setter state imposed upon them for over 75 years” on social media.
Another member of the legal team, Franck Magennis, is a self declared “communist” who represents asylum speakers and is “developing legal arguments in relation to the international crime of apartheid as a ground for asylum.” His cover photo on X is of a former senior official of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Ghassan Kanafani.
Ms. Cooper has 90 days to respond to the filing. Should she choose to reject the application, Hamas could file an appeal, which could bring the case to judicial review.
