The UK government's decision to ban Palestine Action has sparked a "crisis in confidence" in the country's anti-terrorism legislation and led to an unprecedented wave of civil disobedience from ordinarily law-abiding citizens, the Supreme Court has heard.

Legal Challenge Opens

On Wednesday, as the hearing into the group's proscription began, supporters of Palestine Action gathered outside the Supreme Court. The Metropolitan Police reported that 27 protesters were arrested during the demonstrations.

Lawyers for co-founder Huda Ammori opened a significant legal challenge to the ban, arguing that no other protest organisation has been treated in the same manner. They told the five justices that the UK's highest court has never before had to consider whether banning a group under terrorism legislation is compatible with the rights to freedom of speech and protest.

Thousands Arrested

Henry Blaxland KC, representing Ammori, told the court that since the ban was imposed last year, thousands of elderly people, many of whom are veterans of other radical causes, have been arrested for holding signs expressing support for the group. Home Office figures seen by the BBC indicate that more than 4,000 arrests have been made at protests where individuals displayed signs backing Palestine Action. In practice, many demonstrators have been arrested multiple times, with 1,200 charges authorised by prosecutors to date. Those trials are suspended pending the outcome of this case.

Blaxland argued that "far from depriving Palestine Action of the oxygen of publicity" and "far from discrediting its brand", the proscription has had the opposite effect. "All it's done is to pour fuel on to a fire of one of the most publicly-contested issues of our time," he said. "It was disproportionate to do that and in my submission completely unnecessary."

Direct Action or Terrorism?

During often tense exchanges with the judges, Ammori's legal team accepted that Palestine Action could not be described as an ordinary and peaceful protest group. They said its members had carried out "direct action" protests by occupying or vandalising firms linked to Israel's military. However, they pointed out that only three of 385 incidents assessed by the Home Secretary were deemed to constitute an offence under the Terrorism Act.

The UK's definition of terrorism includes incidents of serious damage to property for a cause. At least two break-ins at defence firms have been described in criminal courts as having caused millions in damage. Raza Husain KC, also for Ammori, said the judges must set aside allegations of criminality, for which the state has many powers, and consider whether the Home Secretary's decision to label the group as terrorists was disproportionate.

"Palestine Action was proscribed on the basis of less than one per cent of its actions over five years assessed as falling within the outer limits of a definition of terrorism," he said. "The Home Secretary's own experts confirmed the vast majority of its direct action would not constitute an act of terrorism on the basis that any damage to property is typically more minor. Common tactics include graffiti, petty vandalism, occupation, and lock-ons."

One Palestine Action member has been convicted and jailed for fracturing a police officer's back with a sledgehammer, but the court was told that the group had never advocated such violence.

Free Speech and Community Fears

The Supreme Court has received arguments from free speech campaigners who argue that the ban interferes with the right to protest. However, a coalition of Jewish groups has submitted that Palestine Action is a "sinister" organisation intent on attacking its community interests. Adam Wagner KC, in written submissions for the Jewish communal groups, said: "The Court of Appeal rightly concluded that PA is a violent organisation concerned in terrorism with a wide range of targets." He continued: "Its activities are often undertaken covertly with no suggestion of restraint or proportionality, and that at the point it was proscribed it had an escalating trajectory of seriousness and an expanding focus."

Wagner said Palestine Action's "crosshairs" had moved from targeting Elbit, a defence firm with an Israeli parent company, to "figures or institutions deemed by PA to be 'Zionist'". He added: "Because most British Jews and Jewish institutions have a connection with Israel, a campaign against institutions PA's activists consider to be 'complicit' with Israel is, in practice, a campaign that threatens the mainstream Jewish community."

The case continues on Thursday, with a judgment expected at a later date.