After 15 months of our civil liberties being dismantled, this is Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori’s last chance on British soil to overturn the government’s ban, writes Steven Methven.

We’ve seen our civil and legal liberties dismantled at breakneck speed over the last 15 months.

This week, Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori reaches her last legal opportunity on British soil to overturn the Labour government’s absurd ban of the group under the Terrorism Act. On Wednesday, the Supreme Court will hear her arguments that – duh – the proscription disproportionately interferes with our rights under the European Convention on Human Rights.

So what better time than now to go into a little detail on the ways the noose has tightened around us all since July last year.

This weekend, there were 325 arrests outside the US embassy in London, where those protesting the ban raised signs reading “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action”. According to organisers Defend Our Juries, that takes the total number of arrests under counter-terror law since July last year to over 4,000 – a rate of almost 300 per month.

British productivity may have fallen, but when it comes to terrorist output, we lead the way.

The sign-holders know they’re breaking the law. But what the court must consider this week is whether the proscription of Palestine Action has disproportionately impacted legal forms of protest against the ban or in support of Palestine. And right on cue, the Metropolitan Police announced, ahead of the US embassy action, that you can now get arrested just for being present at a protest.

“All those intending on coming to this event […] are essentially meeting to purposefully commit a crime,” said commander Adam Slonecki, “The public would rightly expect us to be proactive and not just standby and wait for offences to be committed.” What in the Minority Report?

Slonecki went on: “It is not just those who hold up placards who should expect to be arrested”. No, providing “logistical support” is also now an offence.

I await my summons for the banana I gave to a light-headed sign-holder at a Parliament Square protest last year.

This is far from the first time the police have arrested innocent people. Outside Westminster Magistrates’ Court in July, people appeared to get arrested for erecting a stage for a poetry reading. One woman told me she was arrested under section 12 of the Terrorism Act (a crime that carries up to 14 years in prison) for sitting on the pavement. And then another. Yet another told me she was arrested under the same section for clapping.

The list goes on. In July last year, Laura Murton was threatened with arrest for holding a legal sign reading “I support Gaza”. That August, Miles Pickering was arrested for wearing a legal ‘Plasticine Action’ t-shirt. Months later, a woman said she was arrested for holding a sign saying, legally, that she opposed the proscription of Palestine Action.

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The OTT policing of peaceful but civilly-disobedient protestors as actual terrorists by counter-terror police creates a chilling effect on speech. Across the country, counter-terror police have conducted dawn raids on scores of protestors, many of them pensioners. One, a mother, told me how almost a dozen police in full tactical gear flooded her house early one morning this summer. A terrifying event for her, her children who were in the house, and her husband.

But beyond that, as talk of such scenes spread, it’s likely all the neighbourhood, the kids’ school or the wider community hear is ‘Palestine’. Way to telegraph the message “this is what you get for opposing genocide”.

The proscription now seems to mean that just being somewhere is an arrestable offence under terror law. And its enforcement has turned suburban streets into a theatre from which state power against pro-Palestinian protest is projected.

Prime minister Andy Burnham appears happy to sustain that vision of Britain he inherited.  We’ll soon know whether the Supreme Court – the last British stop on this dystopia express – feels differently.

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