UK: Palestine Action activists sentencing hearing risks ‘new low’ in crackdown against protest

Ahead of today’s sentencing hearing of the Palestine Action 'Filton 4' protesters, Kerry Moscogiuri, Amnesty International UK’s Chief Executive, said:

"Today's sentencing hearing risks marking a new low in the ongoing crackdown against protest across the UK. Criminal damage has never been treated as terrorism within the UK justice system before, and it is completely disproportionate to do so because the offence occurred at a protest.

"A terrorism sentence carries restrictions that stay with a person for the rest of their life. We should all be worried about what this means for other individuals taking direct action in protest at a genocide or any other issue. After all, the right to protest is one of the most effective tools we have to hold our leaders to account.

“The use of terrorism laws to suppress direct action protesters sets a dangerous precedent for our fundamental rights in this country and must come to an end."

Background

Today, four activists connected with Palestine Action are due to be sentenced, following convictions for criminal damage arising out of their involvement in direct action at the Elbit Systems factory in Filton, near Bristol. One will also be sentenced for GBH without intent.

The judge will rule, among other things, whether these convictions have a 'terrorist connection', within the meaning of Section 69 of the Sentencing Act 2020. As Amnesty International has set out in a paper on the issue, until recently the UK courts have largely operated an approach to dealing with protests and other forms of direct action with a degree of toleration. Criminal law has always been applied, and in the context of protest acts, such as criminal damage, have been distinguished from ordinary criminality and treated more leniently than ordinary criminality. The approach of toleration, while still applying the criminal law, has been central to meeting the UK’s human rights obligations to act proportionately in its treatment of the rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association.

Amnesty is seriously concerned that resorting to a Section 69 finding in cases of criminal damage committed during direct action would invert this principle and misconstrue activists’ conscientious motivation for their actions, and instead consider them an aggravating factor to justify the use of terrorism sentencing powers.