UK government challenges lifting of ban on pro-Palestinian group

Lawyers for the British state argued at London's High Court on Tuesday that a ruling by UK judges lifting a government ban on pro-Palestinian group Palestine Action should be scrapped.

Appealing the court ruling, the lawyers said the judges' earlier description of the impact of the ban on human rights had been "overstated and wrong".

The government banned Palestine Action in July last year, days after activists protesting against Israel's genocide in Gaza broke into an air force base in southern England and caused millions of pounds worth of damage to two aircraft.

The UK government is now appealing against the High Court's ruling from February that the ban on Palestine Action was "disproportionate" to the risk it posed and should be lifted.

James Eadie, for the government's Home Office, said the court had failed to consider that parliament had deemed the ban "both effective and appropriate".

"The protection of national security and of the public from terrorism was central (to the ban)," he said in written submissions to the court.

Read: Trump, unhappy with latest peace proposal, says Iran 'figuring out its leadership'

The 2025 ban by the Labour government of Prime Minister Keir Starmer put Palestine Action on a blacklist that also includes Palestinian Hamas and the Lebanese Iran-backed group Hezbollah, and sparked a severe backlash.

The ban made it a criminal offence to be a member of the group or to demonstrate support for it -- punishable by up to 14 years in prison under terror legislation.

"The line between criminality, sometimes violent criminality, and terrorism is not a bright one," Eadie said, adding that the criminal law had "demonstrably failed" to prevent the escalation of the group's activities.

Speaking in court, he added that Palestine Action was "not engaged in what can be properly described as merely civil disobedience".

Palestine Action met the "statutory definition of being concerned in terrorism", he said.

The ban has led to the arrest of thousands of supporters.

The High Court, however, ruled against the government at the February hearing following a legal challenge by co-founder Huda Ammori.

A three-judge panel found that the ban had resulted in a "very significant interference with the right to freedom of speech and free assembly".

Set up in 2020, Palestine Action's stated goal on its now-blocked website is to end "global participation in Israel's genocidal and apartheid regime".

It has mainly targeted weapons factories, especially those belonging to the Israeli defence group Elbit Systems.

The hearing was due to conclude on Thursday.