UK police have arrested over 139 protesters opposing the ban on the Palestine Action group and may press charges of supporting a terrorist organization, amid objections from MPs and international organizations.
Foreign news agencies reported that London police arrested at least 139 demonstrators outside the US Embassy in London after they defied warnings against protesting the government’s designation of the "Palestine Action" group as a "terrorist organization" under UK law.
Police stated that most of those arrested will face charges of "expressing support for a proscribed organization under the law."
However, John McDonnell, a Labour Party MP, said public protests against the ban should not be automatically interpreted as supporting terrorism and considered the government’s initial decision to list the group as terrorist was a mistake.
The protest organizer group “Defend Our Juries” said, “The UK government banned Palestine Action to ‘curry favor’ with US President Donald Trump and Israeli arms companies, not because of any real terrorist threat.”
They added that since the ban on Palestine Action was announced in July 2025 GMT+7, over 4,000 people have been arrested under anti-terrorism laws for peaceful protests.
Meanwhile, Amnesty International UK described the images of peaceful protesters being arrested—from teenagers to the elderly—as a “shameful attack on freedom of expression” and called on the government to lift the ban on Palestine Action promptly.
Palestine Action was designated as a proscribed organization equivalent to terrorist groups like Al-Qaeda and ISIS by the UK government during former Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s tenure in July last year, prompting repeated protests against the ban.
The latest protest took place ahead of the Supreme Court hearing an appeal against the Palestine Action ban on Wednesday, 4 Nov 2025 GMT+7, marking the largest anti-ban protest since Prime Minister Andy Burnham took office in July.
Besides London, protests also occurred outside the US Consulate in Edinburgh, Scotland, but no arrests were reported there.
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Source:aljazeera