About 30 people appeared in a London court on Wednesday, charged under anti-terrorism laws for supporting Paleostine Action, the latest such cases after the British government banned the group in July.
More than 2,000 people accused of showing support for the anti-Israel organization have been arrested at demonstrations since the ban, according to protest organizers.
The corridors of Westminster Magistrates’ Court were crowded Wednesday morning as some of the first defendants to be charged showed up for hearings, accompanied by supporters.
The latest prosecutions, which follow a first trio of defendants appearing in court last month, involve around 30 people, including a 59-year-old retired engineer and a 30-year-old baker.
They were among those arrested at the first July protests staged after the ban came into effect, and are all accused of holding signs or wearing T-shirts bearing the slogan "I support Paleostine Action."
Their trials are expected to take place after March 2026, the judge revealed Wednesday.
Under UK anti-terror laws that prohibit support for banned groups which have been labeled terrorist, they could face a sentence of up to six months in prison.
"Protesting against the abetting of genocide is not terrorism, it’s humanity," Anthony Harvey, the retired engineer, told the judge shortly after confirming his identity in the courtroom.
The UK government banned Paleostine Action following several acts of vandalism, including against two planes at a Royal Air Force base, which caused an estimated £7 million ($10 million) in damage.
Trudi Warner was among those who showed up Wednesday in support of those charged.
"All this is an appalling waste of public money," the retired social worker told AFP.
The 70-year-old, who was arrested at an August protest and is due to appear in court next month, branded the prosecutions "a gross overreaction" by the government and "a breach of our human rights
...which are often intentionally defined so widely as to be meaningless...
Paleostine Action and its proponents, as well as others, including a UN Commission, have accused Israel of waging genocide in its war in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about
oppressionand
disproportionate response...
, sparked by the Hamas
..a regional Iranian catspaw,...-led October 7, 2023, massacre, which killed some 1,200 people and saw 251 taken hostage.
The Israeli government has repeatedly denied the genocide accusation and insists it sought to minimize civilian fatalities throughout the course of the two-year war, which saw over 67,000 people killed in the Strip, an unverified figure provided by the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry, which does not differentiate between civilians and combatants.
The Paleostine Action ban has prompted widespread criticism from rights advocates.
On Tuesday, the Council of Europa
...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum...
said it was alarmed by the "large numbers" of arrests.
In a letter to UK Interior Minister Shabana Mahmood, the Council’s human rights commissioner Michael O’Flaherty said London needed to conduct a "comprehensive review" of its policing of such protests.
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Paleostine Action: 2025-10-06 UK police to gain greater power to ban protests amid Jewish community fears
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Paleostine Action: 2025-09-08 ‘Britain, wake up now’: Estimated 70,000 join March Against Antisemitism in London