LEADING academics and public intellectuals from around the world have signed an open letter calling on the UK Government to reverse the ban on Palestine Action.
The letter, signed by figures including Angela Davis and Naomi Klein, hailed the “growing campaign of collective defiance” against the group’s proscription under terror laws and commended the hundreds of people who plan to risk arrest on Saturday at a protest in support of the organisation.
Expressing support for the group, banned in an unprecedented move by the Home Secretary earlier this year, can result in a prison sentence of up to 14 years.
Signatories to the letter, published in The Guardian, include Ilan Pappe, Judith Butler, the writer Tariq Ali, novelist China Mieville. Two representatives of Scottish universities are also included: Rahul Rao, of St Andrews and Emilios Christodoulidis of Glasgow.
The letter said: “As scholars dedicated to questions of justice and ethics we believe that Yvette Cooper’s recent proscription of Palestine Action represents an attack both on the entire pro-Palestine movement and on fundamental freedoms of expression, association, assembly and protest.”
It added: “As hundreds of people again risk arrest by joining street protests on August 9 and as students and teachers prepare for the start of another turbulent academic year, we express our full solidarity with those mobilising on their campuses or in their workplaces and communities to put an immediate stop to the escalating genocide and to end all UK complicity with Israel’s crimes.”
More than 500 people have pledged to protest in support of Palestine Action outside the Houses of Parliament in Westminster this weekend. The Metropolitan Police said it was prepared to make mass arrests.
Palestine Action was banned after activists caused an estimated £7 million worth of damage to planes at the RAF Brize Norton military base.
Co-founder Huda Ammori is attempting to overturn the ban through the courts and this week accused Home Secretary Yvette Cooper of making “false allegations” against the group.
It comes after 300 Jewish public figures, including director Mike Leigh and author Michael Rosen, wrote to the Prime Minister protesting the ban.
The letter, by the human rights lawyer Geoffrey Bindman KC and the playwright Gillian Slovo, accused the Government of “hand-wringing over the level of slaughter and suffering in Gaza and the West Bank” and of offering “tacit support” for Israel’s actions.
