Will Palestine Action be ‘terrorists’ for a record short amount of time?

Many people and groups have been called terrorists, banned as terrorists and/or imprisoned as terrorists – only for the political tides to change and that all to end.

Who has been a terrorist for the shortest amount of time? Could Palestine Action be the winner in this arbitrarily decided competition to see which victim of the politicisation of terrorism was most rapidly judged to be a valid part of society again? You won’t find this information in the Guinness Book of Records.

The Stansted 15 – 781 days as terrorists – current shortest time as terrorists

On 10 December 2018, a group of activists who locked themselves around a plane to stop a deportation flight in 2017 were sentenced after being found guilty of terror-related offences. The Stansted 15’s punishment for terrorist offences, which carried a maximum sentence of life in prison? Community service and suspended sentences make a mockery of the seriousness of a terrorism charge.

Their appeal took over two years, but on 29 January 2021, the Lord Chief Justice found that they:

should not have been prosecuted for the extremely serious offence.

More importantly he also said:

There was, in truth, no case to answer.

This confirmed what many suspected all along, that pressure from Theresa May’s government had led the Crown Prosecution Service to wrongly charge the Stansted 15 with terrorism offences.

Lyndsay Burtonshaw, one of the Stansted 15, incidentally also my partner, said:

The Stansted 15 case shows that the government can use terrorism charges arbitrarily and wrongfully to persecute direct action that they don’t like, for instance those that inconveniently illuminate their racist policies at home and internationally.

Palestine Action have been targeted harder than even we were: being held on remand in prison, more arbitrary restrictions on juries, a formal ban under the terrorism act, and now callously ignoring those on hunger strikes.

Saint Nelson Mandela – 911 days as a terrorist

Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress (ANC) were condemned as terrorists by then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in October 1987. Just months after his release from prison in 1990, Mandela visited the UK, and declined an invitation to meet with Thatcher (sick burn). So it is safe to assume he was no longer considered a terrorist then. At least in the UK that is – Mandela remained on the USA terrorist list until 2013!

Just before the ban of Palestine Action came into force, I asked former ANC MP Andrew Feinstein what he thought. He told us:

Nelson Mandela and all of us in the ANC were engaged in a liberation struggle against a brutal apartheid state. We were described as terrorists and the ANC was banned as a terrorist organisation.

So, so many Irish people

There are so many Irish people who were terrorists, and then were not, that it’s hard to pick. There are wrongful convictions like the Guildford Four (5,111 days as terrorists) who falsely confessed to bombings under police torture and the Maguire Seven (5,487 days) who were convicted of supplying the explosives for Guildford Four. Both groups famously had their trials rigged by prejudiced judges and police.

Then there is Gerry Adams (7,976 days) and Martin McGuinness (7,305 days). Both were arrested repeatedly in the 70s for being terrorists. They were banned from travelling to Great Britain by the Prevention of Terrorism Acts as late as 1982.

Bizarrely, their voices were censored in the UK until 1994. It’s hard to get a precise number of days for them, as they kept being released to negotiate with the government and getting elected to various positions. They both ended up as MPs, so being a terrorist can’t be all bad.

The one pattern that Irish people deemed terrorists have in common, is that it took ages to clear their names.

Various groups banned under the Terrorism Act 2000

The government has been popping various groups (mainly from our former empire) on and off the banned list for years. Right now they are trying to work out which former enemies in Syria are now our pals, following the fall of Assad.

The People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (2,645 days), the International Sikh Youth Federation 5,507 days), the Afghan political party Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin (7,383 days) and the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (5,136 days) show the range of international groups that like Palestine Action were proscribed under the Terrorism Act 2000. Shifting geopolitics mean that yesterday’s terrorists are today’s legitimate groups, so all have been unbanned.

So how long will Palestine Action be ‘terrorists’?

If this shows one thing, it is that Palestine Action are not the first group to be designated terrorists to further the government’s own narratives and political ends.

Huda Amori’s judicial review of the proscription of Palestine Action could end Palestine Action’s proscription as terrorists early in the New Year. Unless the government tries to bury the news over the festive period, this could come as early as 5th January. That would mean that Palestine Action could be terrorists for only 181 days – which would be a record short amount of time.

Unfortunately, whoever wins the judicial review, the other side will almost certainly appeal. There could even be further appeals after that. If we call that a year (optimistic after Tory and now Labour defunding of the courts) then at 546 days they would still be a dubious winner.

Regardless of what the courts say, history has a tendency to vindicate nonviolent direct action. Let’s not forget that suffragette tactics included arson, bombing, vandalism, slashing paintings and cutting telegraph wires. On the very day that Palestine Action was banned, MPs cosplayed as them inside Parliament.

Featured image via Progressive International