UPDATE 2-UK's Palestine Action loses bid to pause ban as 'terror group'

Pro-Palestinian campaign group Palestine Action's co-founder on Friday lost a bid to pause the British government's decision to ban the group under anti-terrorism laws pending their legal challenge.

Huda Ammori, who helped found Palestine Action in 2020, asked London's High Court to stop the proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation, before a full hearing of her case that banning the group is unlawful, later this month. British lawmakers this week decided to ban Palestine Action after its activists broke into a Royal Air Force base and damaged two planes in protest against what the group says is Britain's support for Israel.

Proscription would make it a crime to be a member of Palestine Action that carries a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison. Proscribed groups under British law include Islamic State and al Qaeda. Palestine Action has increasingly targeted Israel-linked companies in Britain with direct action, and accuses the British government of complicity in what it says are Israeli war crimes in its ongoing bombardment of Gaza.

Israel has repeatedly denied committing abuses in its war in Gaza, which began after Palestinian militant group Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023. Ammori's lawyer Raza Husain said the proscription marked the first time Britain had sought to ban a group carrying out such direct action, describing it as "an ill-considered, discriminatory, authoritarian abuse of statutory power".

Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, Britain's interior minister, has said that violence and criminal damage have no place in legitimate protest and her lawyers say the case should be brought at the Proscribed Organisations Appeal Commission instead. Judge Martin Chamberlain ruled against Ammori, meaning the proscription of Palestine Action will come into force at midnight.

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