{"id":317418,"date":"2026-06-15T12:00:41","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T11:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=317418"},"modified":"2026-06-15T09:40:31","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T08:40:31","slug":"uk-terrorist-sentence-for-palestine-action-activists-marks-dangerous-move-against-right-to-protest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2026\/06\/uk-terrorist-sentence-for-palestine-action-activists-marks-dangerous-move-against-right-to-protest\/","title":{"rendered":"UK: Terrorist Sentence for Palestine Action Activists Marks ‘Dangerous’ Move against Right to Protest"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

13 Jun 2026 –\u00a0<\/em>In response to Judge Mr Justice Johnson\u2019s announcement to the Court that he would be sentencing the Palestine Action \u2018Filton 4\u2019 protesters on the basis that their raid of Elbit Systems had a “terrorist connection”, Kerry Moscogiuri, Amnesty International UK\u2019s Chief Executive, said:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cThe defendants in today\u2019s case were sentenced as terrorists because prosecutors want to make an example of them and set a precedent for how direct action protesters could be treated in the future.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cCriminal damage has never been treated as terrorism within the UK justice system before and it is dangerous to treat them as the same thing. We should all be worried about what this means for other individuals taking direct action in protest of a genocide or any other issue.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThe right to protest is one of the most effective tools we have to hold our leaders to account and today is another step in the ongoing crackdown in this country against it.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cIt is completely disproportionate to punish protesters for criminal damage as if they were terrorists, a sentence that will stay with them for the rest of their lives.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThe use of terrorism laws against direct action protesters must end.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>

\u00a9 Leah Rustomjee<\/p><\/div>\n

Background<\/b><\/p>\n

Today, the four Palestine Action activists known as \u2018the Filton 4\u2019 \u2013 Charlotte Head, 29; Samuel Corner, 23; Leona Kamio, 30; and Fatema Rajwani, 21 \u2013 were told by Judge Mr Justice Johnson they would be sentenced as having a \u2018terrorist connection\u2019 following convictions for criminal damage arising out of their involvement in direct action at the Elbit Systems factory in Filton, near Bristol.<\/p>\n

As Amnesty International has set out in a paper on the issue<\/a>, until recently the UK courts have largely operated an approach to dealing with protests and other forms of direct action with a degree of toleration. Criminal law has always been applied, and in the context of protest acts, such as criminal damage, have been distinguished from ordinary criminality and treated more leniently than ordinary criminality. The approach of toleration, while still applying the criminal law, has been central to meeting the UK\u2019s human rights obligations to act proportionately in its treatment of the rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association.<\/p>\n

Amnesty is seriously concerned that resorting to a Section 69 finding in cases of criminal damage committed during direct action would invert this principle and misconstrue activists\u2019 conscientious motivation for their actions, and instead consider them an aggravating factor to justify the use of terrorism sentencing powers.<\/p>\n

Go to Original – amnesty.org.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cCriminal damage has never been treated as terrorism within the UK justice system before and it is dangerous to treat them as the same thing. We should all be worried about what this means for other individuals taking direct action in protest of a genocide or any other issue.” — Kerry Moscogiuri, Amnesty International UK\u2019s Chief Executive<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":246661,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[229,1634,1924,609,433,3223,2376,87,865,88,1243,427,639,70,1025],"class_list":["post-317418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-activism","tag-activism","tag-amnesty-international","tag-authoritarianism","tag-demonstrations","tag-europe","tag-fake-justice","tag-freedom-of-speech","tag-gaza","tag-genocide","tag-israel","tag-nonviolent-action","tag-palestine","tag-uk","tag-usa","tag-west-bank"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=317418"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317418\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":317420,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/317418\/revisions\/317420"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/246661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=317418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=317418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=317418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}