A pro-Palestinian protest group has been banned as a terrorist organization by the British government, putting it on the same legal footing as the Islamic State and Al Qaeda in the first use of far-reaching security laws in response to property damage.
The group, Palestine Action, which has targeted Israel-linked defense companies and vandalized military planes at Britain’s largest Royal Air Force base, lost a legal bid to temporarily delay the law, and it is set to go into effect at midnight local time.
Palestine Action’s full legal challenge against the British government is still pending, with the next hearing scheduled for July 21.
The ban makes it illegal to be a member of Palestine Action, or to support it in a number of other ways, including by raising money for the group, “glorifying” its activities, arranging meetings, sharing the group’s social media material or wearing its merchandise.
It is the first time the British government has used part of its 25-year-old definition of terrorism that covers “serious damage to property” to ban a group — rather than prohibiting them because of the use or threat of violence — prompting criticism from a broad range of human rights groups and international bodies.
In a statement issued on Tuesday, a group of United Nations special rapporteurs said they had contacted the British government to voice concerns that the ban would “criminalize legitimate activities” and that “acts of protest that damage property, but are not intended to kill or injure people, should not be treated as terrorism.”
The British home secretary, Yvette Cooper, who is responsible for law enforcement and national security, said last month that the group’s campaign of direct action had put Britain’s national security at risk and met the legal definition of terrorism because those terms included “serious damage to property.”
Palestine Action had applied for the High Court in London to stop the law coming into effect until the next stage of their legal challenge is considered later this month.
The High Court judge, Justice Martin Chamberlain, refused the application on Friday afternoon, but Palestine Action appealed his ruling in an emergency late-night hearing where its lawyers argued that the judge had “erred in law.” The Court of Appeal rejected that case.
The Lady Chief Justice, Sue Carr, who is the most senior judge in England and Wales, said judges could only “interpret and apply the law,” and that the merits of the British government’s decision to ban Palestine Action as a terrorist group were “not a matter for the court.”
Judge Carr said the High Court judge had not made any error and that British courts are legally bound to “show great respect to the judgment” of government ministers about risks to national security.
Palestine Action’s lawyers, however, said earlier on Friday that no “reasoning or evidence” had been presented about why the ban had to come into effect before the next stage of the legal battle in under three weeks’ time.
Addressing the High Court hearing earlier on Friday, Raza Husain, a lawyer representing Palestine Action, said it was the first time in Britain’s history that terrorism laws had been used against a “direct action civil disobedience group.”
Mr. Husain said the ban was an “ill-considered, discriminatory, authoritarian abuse of statutory power that is alien to the tradition of common law and contrary to the Human Rights Act.”
Blinne Ni Ghralaigh, another lawyer representing Palestine Action, said the move would have a “chilling effect” on freedom of speech because of widespread confusion about what would be illegal when the ban comes into effect.
She described Palestine Action as a “loose network of individuals” without a formal membership structure, and said that the raft of criminal offenses that would apply after the ban were “so widely drawn that it’s difficult to know what behavior might be caught.”
Ben Watson, who represents the British government, told the High Court that the ban would apply to Palestine Action as an organization and “not to broader expressions of political belief.”
Ms. Cooper, the British home secretary, announced that Palestine Action would be deemed a terrorist group and banned on June 23, days after activists broke into R.A.F. Brize Norton air base and vandalized two military planes. Four people have been charged over that incident.
Evidence submitted to the High Court by the home secretary’s legal team showed that she received advice that Palestine Action met Britain’s statutory definition of terrorism on March 13, five days after its activists vandalized President Trump’s Turnberry golf resort in Scotland.
Palestine Action has mainly targeted facilities linked to military companies, including Elbit Systems, an Israeli weapons manufacturer.
The legal order to ban Palestine Action was approved by Britain’s Parliament this week, but also included bans on two international neo-Nazi groups that have been involved in violence and murder.
Lawmakers from different political parties said in Parliament that they would have voted against the order if it were solely targeted at Palestine Action, and accused the government of manipulating parliamentary process by combining multiple groups within the same law.
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