Palestine Action: Deproscription Theatre Cannot Justify Terrorism Laws

London — Today, the Court of Appeal hears the government's challenge to the High Court's February ruling that the proscription of Palestine Action was unlawful. It will be seen whether the judiciary will continue the catalogue of capitulations we’ve documented over two decades.  

When Palestine Action was proscribed in July 2025, it was a clear example of how the architecture of anti-terrorism legislation primed for over two decades of exploiting fears and prejudices against Muslims was weaponised to enable the state to clamp down on those who refused to be complicit in a genocide. 

Under intense public pressure, the High Court struck down the proscription. In February, it found that the proscription was both unlawful under the Home Secretary's own policy and a disproportionate breach of fundamental rights to freedom of expression and association. Nearly 3,000 people have been arrested in the interim as terrorists for expressing support for Palestine Action.

We are now in the extraordinary position of watching a government spend public money contesting a court's finding that it acted unlawfully, while Palestine Action supporters continue to face arrest and prosecution under a ban that has already been deemed unjust. The proscription order remains in force pending today's proceedings. Every day it does, the injustice continues.

This appeal must be seen in that wider context. In recent weeks, we have witnessed the trial of Majid Freeman in Birmingham - an activist and humanitarian prosecuted for expressing solidarity with Palestine. The infrastructure of terror legislation was built to do exactly this: to narrow the space for dissent, and to protect the interests of states and corporations over the conscience of ordinary people.

We hope the Court of Appeal upholds the decision that the ban is unlawful. But whether it does or not, we must demand the wholesale abolition of proscription powers and the counter-terrorism legislation that enables them.

Anas Mustapha, Head of Public Advocacy at CAGE International, said:

"The government has chosen to drag this case back to court rather than accept that it acted unlawfully. It has already spent hundreds of thousands of pounds defending a decision that the High Court found to be both contrary to its own policy and a breach of fundamental rights. That should be a source of profound shame. These laws were not perverted to reach this outcome, rather they worked exactly as intended. The public sees that. The attempt to criminalise resistance to genocide has not and will not succeed."