Palestine Action has raised over £130,000 to fight the UK Government’s bid to proscribe it as a terrorist organisation.
The group has instructed Gareth Peirce, a veteran human rights solicitor, to represent them in court.
Peirce has worked on a number of high-profile cases involving allegations of human rights injustices, including the Guildford Four — Gerry Conlon, Paul Hill, Paddy Armstrong, and Carole Richardson, who were wrongly convicted for the 1974 Guildford pub bombings.
As of Thursday, Palestine Action had raised a total of £130, 785, exceeding their target of £100,000.
It comes as Home Secretary Yvette Cooper announced she will proscribe Palestine Action as a terror group under UK law, after activists broke into RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire and spray-painted two military planes red.
The group believes it can block efforts to add it to a list of proscribed terror organisations, which would make membership of and support of the group illegal with a maximum punishment of 14 years in jail.
They described the move by the government as a “draconian attack on our movement” as well as an attack on civil liberties and the right to protest.
There are currently 81 organisations that are proscribed international terrorist groups, including Hamas and al Qaida.
However, only five groups have succeeded in being removed from the list since the proscription process was set up 25 years ago.
The Home Secretary can proscribe an organisation if they believe it is concerned in terrorism.
The UK government defines terrorism as “the use or threat of action which: involves serious violence against a person; involves serious damage to property; endangers a person’s life (other than that of the person committing the act); creates a serious risk to the health or safety of the public or section of the public or is designed seriously to interfere with or seriously to disrupt an electronic system”.
It specifies that “the use or threat of such action must be designed to influence the government or an international governmental organisation or to intimidate the public or a section of the public, and must be undertaken for the purpose of advancing a political, religious, racial or ideological cause”.
Protesters have said on the crowdfunder: “The Home Secretary is trying to rush through a vote in Parliament to make joining or supporting Palestine Action a terrorist offence. If they're successful, it would rank Palestine Action amongst ISIS and National Action, despite our actions being in line with a long history of direct-action protests targeting property and weapons linked to war crimes.”
They added: “Whilst we hope to stop the proscription process, we need to also prepare for the potential fight to de-proscribe Palestine Action.”
