PALESTINE ACTIVISTS AMONG RISING NUMBER OF POLITICAL PRISONERS IN UK, REPORT FINDS

Tue 26 May 2026:

A new report has found that the United Kingdom has since 2019 created a new class of political prisoners by clamping down on protesters supporting Palestine and climate action.

“This report strips away the illusion that Britain remains committed to democratic principles,” said Tim Crosland, of Defend Our Juries, which co-authored the report.

“It reveals that peaceful protesters are being jailed in ever-increasing numbers, under pressure from the oil and arms industries, the Israeli government and their lobbyists,” Crosland said.

The report titled Britain’s Political Prisoners was co-published by the Centre for Climate Crime and Climate Justice at Queen Mary University of London and Defend Our Juries.

The High Court recently ruled that the UK ban on the Palestine Action protest group was illegal, in a decision that the Home Office is appealing.

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David Whyte, the report’s co-author and professor of climate justice at QMUL, said: “These are exceptional sentences that are being used to apply to protests which are themselves profoundly political.

“So it’s clear that extreme sentences and the level of remand detentions [before trial] at an extreme level are being used to respond to one category of prisoners and that’s prisoners who’ve been detained because they’ve been involved in civil disobedience, direct action as a result of political protest. So there is something going on which is profoundly political. Very often those protesters are reflecting majority rather than a minority view.”

The report describes remand as “the first line of attack”, with the effect of chilling protest and civil disobedience. The researchers found that in 60% of cases, final sentences were more lenient than time already spent in custody awaiting trial. They highlight the “Filton 24”, who were charged with offences connected to a Palestine Action direct action protest at a factory near Bristol run by the Israeli weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems.

Whyte said: “The real danger is that you criminalise people for breaching something which is essentially a civil injunction. So that doesn’t start as a criminal offence but it ends up with a criminal penalty and that’s very concerning because it means that private companies, effectively, are imposing injunctions which lead to large numbers of people going to jail.”

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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