Retirees making up some of the nearly 3,000 people arrested for supporting Palestine Action since the organisation was proscribed have said they feel “vindicated” by the high court’s decision to overturn the ban this week.
However, uncertainty remains over whether their trials under terror laws may still go ahead after the government revealed it plans to appeal against the judgment made on Friday by three of the UK’s most senior judges.
A former army colonel and ex-military attache, Chris Romberg, who was yet to enter a plea after his Palestine Action arrest last August, said he was “pleased and satisfied that this proscription, which we knew was illegitimate, has now been shown to be unlawful as well”.
Since July last year, police have arrested at least 2,787 people across the UK for holding signs displaying statements such as “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action”, according to the civil liberties organisation Defend Our Juries.
Chris Romberg was arrested last August and is yet to enter a plea. Photograph: Christopher Thomond/The Guardian
In a written judgment, Dame Victoria Sharp, president of the king’s bench division, ruled the proscription of Palestine Action was unlawful on two grounds: breaching human rights laws and the home secretary’s own proscription policy requiring the government to take into account the genuine threat to the UK posed by the group.
While the ban was overturned by the court in principle, Sharp said she would hear from both sides before issuing an order to remove the proscription while the appeal process was in place.
The Metropolitan police said on Friday that, as a result of the decision, officers would cease arresting people expressing support for the organisation, but would continue to gather evidence at protests.
Trisha Fine, who was arrested in Cardiff and spent 27 hours in police custody – during which officers failed to tell her husband what had happened to her – described the ruling as “good news, but with big reservations”.
Trisha Fine spent more than 27 hours in custody after her arrest. Photograph: Sam Frost/The Guardian
“Quite a lot of friends have got in touch to say: ‘Yay, aren’t you lucky it’s all over?’ It bloody isn’t. It seems like our jolly government has got all the cards in their hands.”
Richard Whitmore-Jones, who was arrested on 9 August last year at a silent vigil in Parliament Square, said celebration had given way to caution. “Obviously yesterday was such a good day, we were all ecstatic that the prescription ban was overturned, but I think today I’m feeling a little bit more circumspect about what might happen in future with the appeal.”
Father John McGowan, a Catholic priest arrested at the same protest, said he “would have been really upset had the judgment gone against us”. “So yes I’m pleased, I’m very pleased,” he said.
He was, however, “angry at the government, and even angrier now that they should want to appeal”.
“They do not seem to understand the anger of probably the majority of British people at them for supporting Israel. If they want to know the reason why they’re unpopular, this is one of them. Their unconditional support for Israel,” said McGowan, who lived in Jerusalem for five years.
Richard Whitmore-Jones, who was arrested in Parliament Square last year, said the crackdown was a waste of public money. Photograph: Martin Godwin/The Guardian
For McGowan, it was clear the government was “on the wrong side of history” and he said “it just struck me how out of touch the government is with the people in this country”.
Romberg, a member of Holocaust Survivors and Descendants against the Gaza Genocide, said he thought the Palestine Action ban had come about due to “the type of political class we have now, which doesn’t seem to believe in anything”.
“We have a government that seems to have given up on its values, on its liberties, on rights, happy to turn on its own people, and even to lie, and it hasn’t worked for them,” he said. “It may go to the supreme court, but whatever happens, this has been a big blow for the government because their credibility, I think, is completely shot.”
He was pleased that “lots of talk about secret evidence that would definitely prove that [Palestine Action] should be banned as a terrorist organisation hasn’t convinced the judges”.
Whitmore-Jones lamented the saga’s cost to the public purse, money which he thought could be put to better use. “It’s clearly just a disgraceful waste of money to keep arresting people for this and putting them in prison and holding people on remand for excessive periods,” he said. “It’s just unconstitutional and disgraceful.”
All those with outstanding charges or an open police investigation remain in limbo while the appeals process takes place. It is not clear yet whether they may still have to stand trial on terror charges.
Father John McGowan, who was arrested in London last August, said he was angry with the government. Photograph: Alicia Canter/The Guardian
Whitmore-Jones, who was arrested six times and has so far pleaded not guilty to the first of the charges, joked that he still had “a number of bad-boy appointments at magistrates courts”. On Friday, he received a summons to a plea hearing through the post while he was away celebrating the high court’s decision outside the Royal Courts of Justice.
All the arrestees the Guardian spoke to said they would repeat their actions, apart from Fine, who said: “I’m not sure that I would.
“I want to get my life back. I’ve had enough,” added Fine, who was denied antibiotics she needed for a serious gum infection while in custody, and was subjected to a travel ban which made it difficult to go away with her husband who was recovering from cancer treatment.
“I’d do it all over again, no question,” said McGowan. Whitmore-Jones echoed the sentiment adding, “in a heartbeat”.
McGowan added: “And if I have to go to prison, I would do so. I could justify it to my conscience. It isn’t an easy thing to do, to break the law, to get arrested, but I’d be willing to do it over again. It’s just an inconvenience to me, compared to what people are going through in Gaza.”
They all also spoke about their frustration that while all this was going on, Israel continued to kill Palestinians in large numbers as part of a continuing genocide. Whitmore-Jones said: “I’m concerned that all this fiddling around with the law doesn’t prevent civilians being killed in Palestine.”
He added: “At least one child is being murdered every day in Gaza. I think yesterday there were 30 or 40 people killed. People are dying from cold, lack of medicine, and they’re being killed by munitions. And our country is supporting it. I’m just horrified.
“I’ve just been talking to my grandchildren and I came out with this rather trashy quote that bad things happen when good people stand around and allow it to happen. And that’s exactly the situation that we’re in.”
