THE decision to proscribe Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation has been described as “absurd” by Home Office staff, it has been reported.
The Guardian spoke to a senior civil servant in the department who said the move will be “impossible” to enforce.
Last week, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper announced plans to ban the group after they claimed responsibility for breaking into RAF Brize Norton, where they sprayed red paint into the engines of two aircraft.
The move would be the first time the UK has classified a protest group as a terrorist organisation. It would put them in the same category as al-Qaida, National Action and the Islamic State, and has been condemned as draconian.
Members of Palestine Action, or inviting support for it, would become a criminal offence under the Terrorism Act, after they are officially proscribed. This could carry a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison.
“My colleagues and I were shocked by the announcement,” a senior Home Office official told the newspaper, speaking anonymously.
“All week, the office has been a very tense atmosphere, charged with concern about treating a non-violent protest group the same as actual terrorist organisations like Isis, and the dangerous precedent this sets.
“Are they really going to prosecute as terrorists everyone who expresses support for Palestine Action’s work to disrupt the flow of arms to Israel as it commits war crimes?
“It’s ridiculous and it’s being widely condemned in anxious conversations internally as a blatant misuse of anti-terror laws for political purposes to clamp down on protests which are affecting the profits of arms companies.”
It comes after the UK Government has come under pressure for continuing to supply Israel with F-35 fighter jet components.
A top Westminster committee wrote to the Business Secretary and Foreign Secretary, raising concerns that this breached the UK’s international human rights obligations. A court case on the issue is currently ongoing.
On Friday, it was announced that four people had been arrested in connection with the RAF Brize Norton protest by counter-terrorism police in the south-east of England.
Cooper previously said the protest was part of a “long history of unacceptable criminal damage committed by Palestine Action”.
In response to the arrests, three of which were on suspicion of the commission, preparation, or instigation of acts of terrorism, Palestine Action said that “proscription is not about enabling prosecutions under terrorism laws – it’s about cracking down on non-violent protests which disrupt the flow of arms to Israel during its genocide in Palestine”.
