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LONDON: The first people charged with supporting Palestine Action after the UK government banned it as a “terror” group appeared in court in London on Tuesday.
Hundreds of people have been arrested at protests accused of showing support for the pro-Palestinian organization since it was proscribed by the UK government in July.
The trio who appeared on Tuesday, two of whom are in their 70s, were greeted outside Westminster Magistrates’ Court by several dozen supporters, some chanting slogans and waving Palestinian flags.
Inside, more supporters packed the public gallery.
Jeremy Shippam, 72, Judit Murray, 71, and Fiona Maclean, 53, all entered not guilty pleas and were released on bail until a trial set for March 16 next year.
They were arrested after a protest in Westminster on July 5, when London’s Metropolitan Police detained 41 people for allegedly supporting the group.
They are accused of displaying an article in a public place and arousing reasonable suspicion that they are a supporter of a proscribed organization, according to the charge sheet.
The charges come under section 13 of the Terrorism Act 2000.
They allegedly held placards reading “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action” prior to their arrest.
The government proscribed Palestine Action following several acts of vandalism, including against two planes at a Royal Air Force base which caused an estimated £7.0 million ($10 million) in damage.
At the time, Palestinian Action said: “Despite publicly condemning the Israeli Government, Britain continues to send military cargo, fly spy planes over Gaza and refuel US/Israeli fighter jets.”
“Britain isn’t just complicit, it’s an active participant in the Gaza genocide and war crimes across the Middle East.”
Critics of the ban, including the United Nations, have condemned it as legal overreach and a threat to free speech.
Kay Wagland, a fellow protester and friend of one of those charged, told AFP the government had banned a “non-violent direct action group as terrorist.”
“That means no-one can take any physical action. The protests are about this being a bad law,” the 66-year-old retired environmental projects manager said.
“It is a slippery slope,” warned another supporter, 69-year-old retired boat driver Sarah Green.
Since the ban came into force, there have been multiple protests and arrests.
Police said earlier this month they had arrested 890 people in one London protest on September 6, the majority under anti-terror laws.
Organizers of that protest, campaign group Defend our Juries (DOJ), said the rally had been the “picture of peaceful protest.”
Most demonstrators charged face six months in jail but organizers could be sentenced to up to 14 years if found guilty.
Six activists appeared in court on September 4 charged with “various offenses of encouraging support for a proscribed terrorist organization,” relating to 13 online meetings they attended to allegedly prepare for protests to support Palestine Action over the summer.

PARIS: France on Tuesday repatriated three women and 10 children from Syrian prisons for alleged jihadists, anti-terror prosecutors said, in the first such operation in two years.
Repatriation is a deeply sensitive issue in France, which has been a target of Islamists over the last decade, notably in 2015, when jihadist gunmen and suicide bombers staged the worst attack on Paris since World War II, killing 130 people.
More than five years after the Islamic State group's territorial defeat in Iraq and Syria, tens of thousands of people are still held in Kurdish-run camps and prisons in northeastern Syria, many with alleged or perceived links to IS.
The women repatriated early Tuesday morning are aged between 18 and 34.
Two of them have been taken into police custody, while the third faces possible indictment, according to France's anti-terror unit PNAT.
The 10 children were handed over to child care services and will be monitored by the anti-terror unit and local prosecutors, it added.
France's foreign ministry thanked "the Syrian transitional authorities and the local administration in northeastern Syria for making the operation possible".
Since 2019, France has repatriated 179 children and 60 women, according to a diplomatic source.
The country halted such operations two years ago.

- 'Immense relief' -

Matthieu Bagard, the head of the Syria unit at Lawyers Without Borders, said that Tuesday's repatriation showed France "has the capacity to organise such operations".
Marie Dose, a lawyer who represents the repatriated women, hailed the move.
"For families who have waited more than six years for the return of their grandchildren, nephews and nieces, this is an immense and indescribable relief," Dose said in a statement to AFP.
But she added that 110 French children remained detained in the Roj camp controlled by Kurdish forces, describing France's repatriation policy as "arbitrary".
Dose accused France of seeking "to make these children pay for their parents' choices".
As of June, some 120 children "guilty of nothing" and 50 French women remained in the camps, according to the United Families Collective, which represents their families.
In February, the semi-autonomous Kurdish administration in northern Syria said that in coordination with the United Nations, it aimed to empty camps by the end of the year.

- International pressure -

Several European countries, such as Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands, have recovered many of their citizens from the Syrian camps.
International organisations have for years called on France to take back the wives and children of suspected IS fighters held in the camps since the group was ousted from its self-declared "caliphate" in 2019.
France has refused blanket repatriation, saying the return of potentially radicalised IS family members would pose security risks in France.
In 2022, Europe's top human rights court condemned France's refusal to repatriate two French women who were being held in Syria after joining their Islamist partners.
The following year, the United Nations Committee Against Torture said that in refusing to repatriate women and minors, France was violating the UN Convention against torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
On Monday, three French women went on trial in Paris, accused of travelling to the Middle East to join IS and taking their eight children with them.
One of the women is a niece of Jean-Michel and Fabien Clain, who claimed responsibility on behalf of the IS group for the 2015 attacks in Paris.