Palestine Action policing guidance suggests protesters wrongly arrested

Scores of protesters detained after the Palestine Action ban may have been arrested on false grounds, an internal Counter Terrorism Policing document obtained by Declassified suggests.

The seven-page “tactics guidance”, dated 28 August, offers advice to British police forces about how to approach cases of those suspected of showing support for the proscribed group.

It specifically states that acts such as brandishing a Private Eye cartoon or holding placards stating “Genocide in Palestine, Time to Take Action” should not be grounds for arrest.

Other forms of protests such as displaying Palestine Action signs within private residences or wearing “Plasticine Action” t-shirts would be permitted, according to the guidance.

Signs saying “I support Palestine, Action is needed now”, “Oppose genocide, Support Palestine”, and “If you’re looking at Palestine and think there should be no Action, you’re on the wrong side of genocide” were also deemed acceptable.

The group was banned in July, marking the first time in British history that a direct-action organisation has been branded a terrorist organisation.

Over 2,000 people have since been arrested for allegedly showing support for the group including those whom the guidance now suggests should not have been.

A spokesperson for Defend Our Juries, which has been organising a civil disobedience campaign against the ban on Palestine Action, told Declassified: “It seems that after months of outright popular defiance and ridicule of the ban by members of the general public, police officers were so confused that counter-terror police needed to clarify what constituted an offence and what did not”.

Hidden from the public

Media and civil society organisations have expressed dismay at the government’s lack of transparency surrounding the implications of the ban.

Freedom of Information requests asking for guidance on policing Palestine-related protest activity after the ban have been refused, often on “national security” grounds.

The police guidance obtained by Declassified is marked as “FOIA exempt”, but it was referenced in the High Court legal challenge over the group’s proscription and subsequently obtained through the court.

It is labeled as “an open gist of a closed document”, suggesting it is a summary of a broader piece of evidence submitted in the portion of the judicial review held in closed session.

Britain’s counter terror police failed to explain why this information has been kept hidden from the public, with a spokesperson saying: “Decisions relating to proscription are a matter for the government. We await the outcome of the judicial review and will not be commenting further until proceedings have concluded”.

Declassified is publishing the guidance for the first time here: