More Than 70 Arrested in Second Weekend of Protests as Britain’s Palestine Action Is Designated a Terror Group

British police over the weekend arrested at least 70 supporters of Palestine Action, whose leadership is vowing to fight its new designation as a terror group — a label earned after members vandalized two planes at a Royal Air Force base last month. The arrests in three cities followed protests by supporters of the group, whose new classification as a terror organization was upheld Friday by a judge in London’s High Court who rejected a petition to temporarily block the designation. The addition of the group to the list of terror organizations puts it on par with 81 other organizations, including Hamas and Al Qaeda. The designation means that the group’s members could face up to 14 years in prison for their association with the organization.The attorney for one of the group’s founders, Raza Husain, called the court’s decision to uphold the designation an “authoritarian abuse of statutory power.” The group is appealing the designation and has a court hearing on July 21.The classification follows the arrest of four of Palestine Action’s members for a June 20 incident against the Royal Air Force base at Brize Norton at Oxfordshire, England. They are facing charges of conspiracy to commit criminal acts against the interests of the U.K. and are scheduled to appear on July 18 at the Central Criminal Court in London. Police say vandalism, which included using crowbars to break in and splashing red paint on the planes, caused around $9.4 million in damage. In Saturday’s London arrests, 41 people were charged with showing support for a proscribed terror group as defined by the Terrorism Act of 2000. Another person was arrested for common assault. An additional 13 people were arrested in Cardiff and 16 in Manchester. This is the second weekend in a row of arrests in London among protesters supporting the group. Palestine Action, formed in 2020 by a Briton of Palestinian and Iraqi heritage, Huda Ammori, whose father is a surgeon with the National Health Service, and activist Richard Barnard has targeted companies they say are manufacturing drones, circuits, and other weapons systems for Israel. The group has vandalized, occupied, and thrown smoke bombs at U.K.-based defense firms Elbit Systems, Leonardo, and Thales as well as American firm Lockheed Martin’s British facility. The group has also targeted the Metropolitan police station, the BBC, and the London Stock Exchange, among others.Though members of the group have faced multiple arrests for vandalism, few have been convicted. Among the convictions is Barnard for one count of criminal damage for vandalism at an Elbit factory. In March, British police closed a case without taking action against four members of the group who filmed themselves at Cambridge University’s Trinity College on March 8, 2024, spray painting a painting of Lord Balfour, the former British prime minister and foreign minister whose 1917 Balfour Declaration pledged support for the establishment of Israel as “a national home for the Jewish people.”

More Than 70 Arrested in Second Weekend of Protests as Britain’s Palestine Action Is Designated a Terror Group

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