Today’s decision by the High Court to overturn the government’s classification of Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation highlights the insidious influence of foreign elements in the British judicial and political system.

While we welcome the ruling, seeing it as a potential victory for free speech and a slap in the face of malevolent state power, we cannot but bridle at the perverse situation it creates whereby the group is declared lawful but remains banned pending a likely government appeal.

This travesty is only possible because of the extent of Israeli infiltration of our political and judicial system, an influence that weighed heavily in the government’s decision to ban Palestine Action in the first place as well as the arrests of many of its activists.

It has taken a genocide and the indomitable resistance of activists for the veil to be lifted, allowing the whole world to see clearly the threat that Israeli groups pose to our cherished freedoms.

The disturbing leverage that pro-Israel groups and politicians possess over the levers of state should be deeply worrying for everyone who believes in free speech and the right to dissent, especially since the ban on Palestine Action opened the floodgates for a compromised political class to demonise all pro-Palestine activism and advocacy in order to conceal their own support for the Gaza genocide.

We hope that this success, along with the recent release of the Filton 6, marks the beginning of a wider fightback against legislation that has steadily eroded fundamental personal liberty in Britain over approximately the last three decades.

[ENDS]

For more information or comment please contact the Press Office on (+44) 208 904 0222  or (+44) 7958 522196 or email media@ihrc.org
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IHRC is an NGO in Special Consultative Status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations.
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