Sally Rooney has hailed the high court’s decision that it was unlawful to ban Palestine Action under anti-terrorism laws as a victory for civil liberties in Britain.
Ministers suffered a humiliating legal defeat a week ago when three senior judges ruled that proscription of the direct action group, which targets organisations it considers complicit in arming Israel, was disproportionate and unlawful.
The Irish author gave two witness statements in support of the case brought by Huda Ammori, which were cited by the lawyers for the Palestine Action co-founder as evidence of the ban’s negative impact on freedom of impression.
After the ruling, the author of Normal People and Conversations with Friends said she intended to use proceeds from her works to support Palestine Action. In September, she cancelled a trip to the UK to receive an award for fear of arrest.
In an exclusive interview with the Guardian, Rooney said: “I am of course immensely pleased and heartened that the high court has found the proscription of Palestine Action unlawful. This is a victory not only for the Palestine solidarity movement but also for civil liberties in Britain.
“The proscription of a political protest group under the Terrorism Act represents a truly extreme assault on ordinary rights and freedoms, and the high court acknowledged as much.”
The “very significant interference” with the rights to freedom of speech and freedom of assembly was one of two grounds on which Ammori’s claim was successful. Rooney said the issue was fundamental to the ban, as the legal question was “not whether Palestine Action is justified in carrying out its activities, but whether it ought to be a criminal offence even to have that debate”.
She added: “It’s important to bear in mind that the primary purpose of the Terrorism Act is not to criminalise acts of violence, which are already illegal, but to criminalise otherwise lawful acts of speech, association, financial dealings, and so on.
“These measures, which represent a significant infringement on free speech and other rights, were intended for use against armed groups that pose a serious threat to the public. The parliamentary debate on the Terrorism Act at the time of its passing testified clearly to this intention.
“The use of such measures against a protest group that poses no threat whatsoever to the public is totally unprecedented and, we now know, unlawful,” she added.
While the judges’ found in favour of Ammori, they rejected the idea that Palestine Action was non-violent or that it was engaged in civil disobedience, describing it as an organisation that “promotes its political cause through criminality and encouragement of criminality”.
Responding to the judgment, the home secretary, Shabana Mahmood, cited those findings while expressing disappointment at the result. “The proscription of Palestine Action followed a rigorous and evidence-based decision-making process, endorsed by parliament,” she said.
“As a former lord chancellor, I have the deepest respect for our judiciary. Home secretaries must, however, retain the ability to take action to protect our national security and keep the public safe. I intend to fight this judgment in the court of appeal.”
The high court said the proposition that Palestine Action was non-violent “rests on the premise that damage to property, regardless of extent, does not involve the use of violence. That is a view that many would struggle to comprehend, and we for our part are unable to accept.”
Rooney disagreed. “To me, and I think to many other people, the word ‘violence’ implies harm to a living being,” she said. “Inanimate objects cannot suffer. And damaging one’s own property – for instance, breaking up old belongings in order to dispose of them – clearly is not a form of violence. Does the same act become violence if the property belongs to someone else? That’s a philosophical question as much as it is a legal one.
“Of course, Palestine Action does intentionally use property damage in service of a campaign against genocide and apartheid. This is absolutely consistent with the tradition of civil disobedience, from the suffragettes to the environmental movement. I must admit that I am baffled by the judges’ claim that civil disobedience must be ‘characterised by restraint’. We have obviously been reading very different history books.
“So yes, I disagree with some sections of the judgment – though, unlike the home secretary, I do agree with its conclusions.”
In her second witness statement in the case, Rooney said it was “almost certain” that she would no longer be able to publish new work in the UK while the ban on Palestine Action remained in effect and that her existing books might have to be withdrawn from sale, describing such a scenario as “a truly extreme incursion by the state into the realm of artistic expression”.
While the judges said they proposed quashing the proscription decision, for the time being Palestine Action remains banned as the court said it would await arguments from the Home Office on why it should remain in place pending an appeal.
“If an order is found to be unlawful or unconstitutional, then it seems to me that it ought to be quashed there and then,” said Rooney. “But I am now feeling confident that the order will soon be quashed altogether, and that my work will remain in print in the UK as a result. I will look forward to visiting Britain again when that time comes.”
