Britain's ban on the campaign group Palestine Action reached the country's highest court on Wednesday, November 4, when co-founder Huda Ammori opened her Supreme Court appeal against the government's decision to proscribe the group as a terrorist organisation. Ammori argues the ban is disproportionate and undermines Britain's counter-terrorism laws, Reuters reported from London.

Source: Reuters

The two-day hearing, listed as R (Ammori) v Secretary of State for the Home Department, runs on November 4 and 5 before a panel headed by Lords Reed, Sales, Lloyd-Jones, Briggs and Stephens, according to Sky News. Garden Court North Chambers, whose counsel are on Ammori's legal team, said it is the first time the Supreme Court has considered the Home Secretary's power to proscribe an organisation in the context of human-rights law.

Only three of 385 actions met the terrorism definition, court told

Lawyers representing Ammori told the court that, at the time the group was proscribed, government officials had assessed that just three of Palestine Action's 385 actions over five years had met the definition of terrorism, Reuters reported. Her counsel Raza Husain KC said the suffragettes and other historical groups 'used tactics similar or more extreme than Palestine Action', citing the suffragettes' early 20th-century bombing campaign.

Founded in 2020, Palestine Action carried out hundreds of direct actions, many involving obstructing or occupying premises, or spraying graffiti and breaking windows at businesses it said were linked to supplying arms to Israel. The British government proscribed the group last year after a series of incidents mostly targeting defence firms, culminating in a break-in at the Royal Air Force's Brize Norton air base in which two planes were damaged.

Home Office defends the ban

The Home Office argues the group's escalating actions caused serious property damage and amounted to terrorism. It says a 2024 raid on Israeli defence firm Elbit Systems caused an estimated £1 million (about $1.35 million — yaani roughly Rs 12 crore) of damage and, it says, involved violence and weapons against security staff and police, including an officer who suffered a spinal injury when hit with a sledgehammer. Sir James Eadie KC is representing the Home Office at the hearing, Sky News reported.

Source: Sky News via Radio Royal

More than 3,600 people were arrested for showing support for the group between proscription in July 2025 and this June — more than one-third of all terrorism arrests in Britain since the September 11, 2001 attacks, according to Home Office statistics reported by Reuters. With over 300 arrests last weekend outside the US embassy in London and around two dozen more outside the Supreme Court on Wednesday, the reported total is now above 4,000. Any resulting charges could be dropped if the ban is overturned. Awaaz Punjab covered the embassy arrests as they happened.

Source: Reuters

The Supreme Court hearing follows the weekend protests outside the US embassy in London, where the arrests of Palestine Action supporters rose into the hundreds. Read: London Palestine Action arrests rise to 325 in US embassy protest

A legal road that has already reversed twice

London's High Court ruled in February 2026 that the proscription was unlawful — a disproportionate interference with the rights to freedom of expression, assembly and association under Articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The Court of Appeal overturned that ruling in June 2026 and held the ban lawful. The Supreme Court granted Ammori permission to appeal in the summer on the Convention-rights ground, and Amnesty International UK and Liberty have been allowed to intervene jointly in support of the challenge, according to their solicitors Deighton Pierce Glynn.

Source: Deighton Pierce Glynn

The ban has also drawn in prominent supporters. Irish novelist Sally Rooney's books can no longer be sold in Britain because of her plans to provide royalties to the group, Reuters reported, and the United States designated Palestine Action as a terrorist group in August. President Donald Trump has described activists who targeted his Turnberry golf resort in Scotland last year as 'terrorists'.

What happens next

The hearing continues on Thursday, November 5, with part of the final session expected to be held in closed court for national-security material. The judges are expected to reserve their decision and deliver judgment at a later date. If the Supreme Court quashes the proscription, charges built on supporting the group could fall away; if it upholds the Court of Appeal, the ban — under which membership of or support for Palestine Action carries a prison sentence of up to 14 years — stays in force.