Legal action launched by pro-Palestine lawyer against politically motivated Schedule 7 detention

_London – _The recent detention of human rights lawyer Fahad Ansari at a UK border under Schedule 7 powers, was a politically motivated attempt to intimidate a lawyer with a track record of challenging Britain's authoritarian national security infrastructure. Legal action has been launched today by Ansari’s legal representatives against the unlawful detention. 

Ansari has been pursuing a legal challenge against the government over the proscription of Palestinian political and resistance group, Hamas. 
The detention was conducted under the notorious Schedule 7 power, which has long been used to intimidate and silence lawyers, journalists and activists.

Ansari was travelling back from Ireland with his family on 6 August 2025 when he was detained and interrogated by border police in a flagrant abuse of terrorism powers. The detention is now the subject of a judicial review.

Both the line of questioning employed during his interrogation and the seizure of his work phone suggest that the detention was targeted and politically motivated.

As reported by The Guardian and Computer Weekly, police were insistent on ascertaining Ansari’s views on Palestine and interrogated him at length about the recently proscribed Palestine Action (PA). Questions included whether Ansari associated with the organisation, if he knew any of the group’s members, if he had knowledge of PA meetings and his opinion on the proscription.

As is common with Muslims, police asked Ansari about which mosques he attended and how often he prayed there.

The police then quizzed Ansari about Hamas. He was upfront that publicly available information made it clear that he had legally represented Hamas and that he would not disclose privileged client information.   
While Ansari was released later that night, police held on to his work phone for an additional six days, despite it containing legally privileged material. 

In violation of privacy rights, his device appears to have been used during this period to try and access his 14-year-old daughter’s phone via a parental monitoring app.

In 2017, CAGE International’s Managing Director Muhammad Rabbani led a legal challenge against Schedule 7 after he was charged for refusing to handover passwords to electronic devices containing sensitive information from a torture survivor. An acclaimed and hard-hitting 2023 documentary on the incident, Phantom Parrot, showcased the relentless efforts of activists resisting state surveillance and police coercion. 

Muhammad Rabbani, Managing Director of CAGE International said: 

“Today, as the UK’s counter-terror legal framework comes under increasing domestic and international scrutiny due to Palestine Action’s proscription, it is becoming ever clearer that it was never really about ensuring public safety, but about setting up mechanisms for intrusive state surveillance and repressing dissent.”

“For over two decades, CAGE International has campaigned against this very framework. Our milestone report, ‘Harassment at Borders’, extensively documents the Islamophobic nature of Schedule 7 powers. The consistent warnings that these powers were ripe for abuse against lawyers, journalists and activists has once again proven true. It is now being exploited to full effect to delegitimise and disrupt activism against a live streamed genocide in Gaza.”

“The counter-terrorism legal framework must be abolished.”