Henley demonstrator "vindicated" after Palestine Action ban ruled unlawful

A MAN from Henley who was arrested during a Palestine Action protest said he felt “vindicated” after the high court ruled on Friday the government ban on the group was unlawful.

Anthony Campbell, 47, was detained by the Metropolitan Police at a protest in London in October for carrying a sign saying he opposed genocide and supported Palestine Action.

He had decided to attend the protest to “stand on the side of justice, peace and humanity” and set an example for his three children.

He was charged and released on bail and asked to return to Plumstead police station at a future date, but was later told this was no longer required, pending the outcome of the legal challenge.

The filmmaker, who lives in Valley Road, said he felt “relieved” after a panel of High Court judges ruled last week the government had acted unlawfully in proscribing the organisation.

Mr Campbell said: “Everything was pending based on the court case so it’s a big relief effectively to know the people who were arrested were not the people who were acting unlawfully and, actually, it was the Government. Anyone who values democracy just understands that’s common sense. We live in quite Orwellian times, where we’re asked not to believe what we hear and see.

“The fact is peaceful protesters, demonstrating against genocide, aren’t terrorists and they shouldn’t be arrested and I think any right-minded person can see that.”

Mr Campbell was arrested and detained under the Terrorism Act under section 13, for holding a handwritten placard which read “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action”.

Organisers, Defend Our Juries, said about 1,000 people took part in the “silent vigil” around Trafalgar Square to defy the Government’s ban on the group.

Palestine Action was proscribed by then home secretary Yvette Cooper on July 5, making membership or support of the group illegal, punishable with sentences of up to 14 years in prison.

Weeks earlier, members of the group had broken into RAF Brize Norton and damaged two military aircraft with paint.

Last Friday, judges said while Palestine Action carried out acts “amounting to terrorism” its activities had not crossed the very high bar to make it a terrorist organisation.

The judges upheld the challenge brought by Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori on the grounds the ban was in breach of the Home Office’s own policy requiring such proscriptions to be “proportionate”.

Judges also said the ban disproportionately interfered with the rights to freedom of expression and freedom of assembly set out in the European Convention on Human Rights.

But they made it clear the ban was still in place allowing time for the Government to appeal.

Ms Ammori said the verdict was a “monumental victory both for our fundamental freedoms here in Britain and in the struggle for freedom for the Palestinian people”.

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood said she was “disappointed” by the ruling and the Government would appeal.

Mr Campbell said the landmark decision showed he and other protesters had acted on the “right side of history”.

He said: “History will judge our Government and its decision to support Israel and genocide, and my feeling is it’s going to judge it very badly.

“All of the people who stood up and said, ‘no, not in my name’, will be found to have been on the right side.”

According to Defend Our Juries, more 2,700 people have been arrested across the UK for holding signs supporting Palestine Action.

In a statement following the high court ruling, Scotland Yard said it would stop arresting protesters who hold up the signs, while continuing to “identify offences” and gather material of overt support for the group.

The MET Police alone are reported to have spent more than £10m policing protests following the ban, which categorised the group alongside groups like Islamic State and al-Qaeda.

Mr Campbell said he had wanted to “stand up and be counted” and wanted to set a good example for his three daughters, Taba, 12, Kiki, 11, and Indie, eight.

He said: “I’ve never protested in my life before, but this is something that felt so important to me I had to. The line was crossed for me seeing all these conscientious objectors being arrested for peacefully holding a sign.

“I was watching that thinking this is patently wrong and then I thought long and hard about whether I could just watch that and I decided I couldn’t and I had to stand alongside them.

“I’m a father and there comes a point where everyone has to stand up for their beliefs. My girls will understand one day why I did that.”

Mr Campbell was arrested wearing the same black tails and pinstripe grey trousers he wore when he married his wife Katie in 2012 on “Super Saturday” of the London Olympics.

He said that on his wedding day the country felt like a “very different place”.

In a video on social media, he said: “We were hosting the world through the Olympics, we were celebrating this amazing multicultural event, and we were also celebrating our tolerant, peaceful multicultural country that I still believe we have.

“Today I wanted to think back to those days and reclaim this flag I think has been hijacked over the last six months or so.

“I want to go to this protest today which is in solidarity with free Palestine, with Gaza, it’s against genocide, and for me the ‘best of British’ is all of those things. It’s tolerance, it’s peace, its unity.”

During the protest he found himself next to a cross section of society, including a vicar, a human rights lawyer and an academic in film and literature.

He said: “It was incredibly peaceful, really dignified and everyone was sitting down.

“Obviously, the vast majority of people there were older because they have less to lose by being arrested

“These are incredibly educated people, who have got massive life experience, who are saying this is wrong.”

Mr Campbell criticised the Government for what he saw as the unjust criminalisation of peaceful protesters, calling it “a very slippery slope to authoritarianism”

He also argued the UK government was complicit in the UN-recognised genocide for its role in arming Israel.

He said: “Authoritarianism is when people cannot peacefully object to Government decisions. When you arrest people for peacefully protesting — that is authoritarianism.

“We look at other places in the world where that happens, Russia or North Korea, and we rightly say that’s wrong.

“So then when it happens underneath our own noses, we don’t seem to have the same reaction. It’s almost difficult to believe that it’s happening.

“It is happening and we need people to understand it’s happening.”