Protest is not terrorism

13 February 2026

Glasgow TUC welcomes the striking down of the ban on Palestine Action and today’s decision of the Judicial Review to proscribe the protest group as a terrorist organisation as unlawful.  We said it at the time and have maintained ever since: protest is not terrorism.  The exercise of our rights to freedom of expression and association are required now more than ever when our own government continues to provide diplomatic cover and economic and military assistance to rogue states such as Israel in its continued pursuit of an ethnically cleansed Palestine through genocide.

The ongoing complicity of the UK Govt can no longer be ignored or explained away.  It has attempted to criminalise the actions of thousands of ordinary citizens who have tried to ensure the UK Govt does everything in its power to prevent and punish the crime of genocide, as is required by the Genocide Convention.  Instead, it has failed to prevent and often facilitated the actions of a genocidal, Zionist regime that it still wants to call an international ally.  We must now insist that those UK ministers who are complicit are held to account for their attempts to criminalise its population and electorate by the use of terrorist legislation, at the behest of foreign interests in the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity.  

We demand:

• The immediate release from internment of all those who are currently detained without trial on charges against the Israeli weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems or for any pro-Palestinian activism. 
• The immediate dropping of all charges against everyone who participated in civil disobedience to lift the ban, including holding of signs or wearing of t-shirts that expressed the opinion that the holder or wearer opposed genocide and supported the actions of Palestine Action and/or prisoners being unlawfully held in detention without trial 
• The immediate end to any and all attempts to remove trial by jury. Any moves by this, or any future, govt to remove trial by jury should be seen now for the threat it poses to both habeas corpus and due process – it has clearly only authoritarian intent and must be resisted at all costs. 
• The immediate end to UK complicity in Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people

Read the original statement on X here