Palestine Action, protest, free speech and a proud history
JVL Introduction
Palestine Action has been an inspiration for many people desperate to do something concrete to stop the brutal occupation of Palestine and now the horrors of a live streamed genocide. While today a Judge has granted them the right to an urgent hearing, the prospect of proscription should be of great concern whether or not your support the actions or even the politics of Palestine Action.
Here, long term antiracism activist and leader, Suresh Grover, writes about how this goes against the proud history of protest in this country (and perhaps is more in line with the shameful history of brutal repression of protest through the centuries, even though so much we now take for granted was won on the back of protest, often violent protest.
He believes that Palestine Action’s “real crime is being fearless and audacious in exposing the British government’s complicity with the Israeli government”
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This article was originally published by The Guardian, Opinion on Sun 29 Jun 2025. Read the original here.
Palestine Action is part of Britain’s proud history of protest. Proscribing it is an assault on democracy
Through decades of anti-racist campaigning, I have seen that peaceful, direct action can be the only way to get results
Suresh Grover is founder of the Southall Monitoring Group and has led campaigns to help the families of Stephen Lawrence, Zahid Mubarek and Victoria Climbié
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If you’re talking civil disobedience the Poll Tax refusenics spring to mind and they didn’t label all of us activists as Terrorists, even though there were many thousands of people involved. That was also a peaceful protest. There was no violence involved and nobody got hurt. The dictionary definition of Terrorism cites violence, which Palestine Action has not committed.