Arrested protesters devastated after appeal court rules ban on Palestine Action is lawful

Protesters arrested for allegedly supporting Palestine Action have expressed anger at the court of appeal’s decision that the ban on the direct action group was lawful.

On Monday, five judges overturned the high court’s February ruling that proscription was unlawful, meaning that more than 3,000 people who have been arrested under the Terrorism Act since proscription, more than 700 of whom have been charged, could now face prosecution.

While the Palestine Action co-founder, Huda Ammori, has said she will appeal to the supreme court, any prospect of the ban being quashed and prosecutions being discontinued – which seemed a possibility after the high court judgment – is off the table for now.

One of those charged, Deborah Hinton, 82, a former magistrate from Truro, Cornwall, described the judgment as “devastating and shocking”. She said of a prison sentence under the Terrorism Act: “Obviously I’m very upset, I’m very nervous, but I couldn’t do anything else but do what I did. I didn’t have a choice. We are heading towards an authoritarian state, and as I saw it, it was my duty to take a stand.

Deborah Hinton OBE at home in Gorran Haven, Cornwall. Photograph: Jim Wileman/The Guardian

“One did hold out hope that the government [would] see sense. We haven’t got enough money to have a proper defence system for this country and yet they’re wasting millions and millions on this ridiculous prosecution of people holding placards.”

The vast majority of those arrested were holding placards saying “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action” at Defend Our Juries demonstrations.

Marianne Sorrell, 81, from Wells, Somerset, who was held by police for almost 27 hours after being arrested, during which officers forced their way into her house and searched it, described Monday’s judgment as a travesty of justice. “I’m thinking very seriously of getting arrested again for the same offence,” she said.

Marianne Sorrell. Photograph: Sam Frost/The Guardian

“I haven’t up to now, because it meant going to London but I’m so incensed by what’s going on and very perturbed that I’m thinking I will go to London if the action to support Palestine Action is to continue.”