Yvette Cooper has confirmed Palestine Action will be proscribed as a terror organisation alongside two violent extremist groups – the Russian Imperial Movement and sinister Maniacs Murder Cult.
The Home Secretary announced the dramatic move after Palestine Action activists broke into RAF Brize Norton and damaged two military aircraft with red paint last week. But the decision has sparked fury from human rights groups who say it’s an attack on protest rights.
Cooper said in Parliament yesterday: “National security is the first duty of any Government, we will always take the action needed to protect our democracy and national security against different threats.
Maniacs Murder Cult, Palestine Action and the Russian Imperial Movement have each passed the threshold for proscription based on clear national security evidence and assessments.
The banning will place Palestine Action on par with al-Qaeda, ISIS and Hamas if MPs approve it next Monday. Anyone caught being a member or supporting the group could face 14 years in prison.
Palestine Action has been targeting defence companies and military sites since 2020, claiming they’re protesting UK arms sales to Israel. The group’s activists spray-painted “drop Elbit” on a Jewish-owned business in north London just last month.
But critics say comparing paint-throwing activists to murderous terror groups is ‘unhinged.
The Maniacs Murder Cult is a neo-Nazi group founded by Ukrainian Yegor Krasnov that films beatings of homeless people and promotes mass killings. Its leader Mikhail Chkhikvishvili was arrested for plotting to poison Jewish children in New York City with ricin.
Members must complete “entrance exams” that include assault, murder and arson to join. The group’s “Hater’s Handbook” encourages school shootings and using children as suicide bombers against racial minorities.
Russian Imperial Movement is white supremacist organisation that runs paramilitary training camps near St Petersburg. The US designated them terrorists in 2020 after they trained Swedish neo-Nazis who bombed a refugee centre and cafe in Gothenburg.
Cooper’s announcement came days after Palestine Action activists broke into the UK’s largest RAF base and sprayed two Voyager aircraft with red paint, damaging the engines with crowbars. Prime Minister Keir Starmer condemned it as “disgraceful.
The UK’s defence enterprise is vital to the nation’s national security and this Government will not tolerate those who put that security at risk,” Cooper said.
More than 13 people were arrested when hundreds protested the decision in Trafalgar Square on Monday. Police banned demonstrations outside Parliament.
Author Sally Rooney wrote in The Guardian: “Israel kills innocent Palestinians. Activists spray-paint plane. Guess which the UK government calls terrorism.”
The group is now taking legal action to block the ban. At an urgent hearing at Royal Courts of Justice, lawyers said they’d seek “interim relief” on Friday that could stop the proscription.
Human rights groups have condemned the move. Amnesty International’s Sacha Deshmukh warned it “risks an unlawful interference with the fundamental rights of freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly.
The Quakers also spoke out, with Oliver Robertson saying: “Nonviolent protest, and even acts of vandalism, should not be labelled as terrorism.”
Palestine Action said the decision was an “unhinged reaction to an action spraying paint in protest the UK Government arming Israel’s slaughter of the Palestinian people.
If Parliament approves the order, Palestine Action will become the 81st group proscribed in the UK. The Russian Imperial Movement has been training foreign fighters at its ‘Partizan’ camp since 2015, where attendees learn urban warfare, shooting and bomb-making.
The group’s members fought alongside Russian separatists in Ukraine’s Donbas region and have established links with neo-Nazi groups across Europe and America.
Image credit:
No more war, Stop Arming Israel – Barclays Action, 29 November 2014. Photo by Alisdare Hickson, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.
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