Palestine Action Ban: CAGE Calls for Abolishing Anti-Terror Laws

CAGE Inter­na­tion­al has con­demned the UK’s pro­scrip­tion pow­ers, which it says are being used to tar­get ‘anti-geno­cide ‘activists, react­ing to the Home Office’s plans to crim­i­nal­ize the direct action group known as Pales­tine Action. On 21 June 2025, CAGE Inter­na­tion­al issued a state­ment claim­ing that the pro­posed ban expos­es the arbi­trary nature of ter­ror­ism laws and rep­re­sents an author­i­tar­i­an attempt to silence oppo­si­tion to Britain’s role in sup­port­ing what they describe as geno­cide in Gaza. The state­ment begins:

The government’s plans to ban Pales­tine Action, an anti-arms trade direct action group, have sparked wide­spread con­cern among civ­il soci­ety organ­i­sa­tions and cam­paign­ers. They argue that the move is a dan­ger­ous esca­la­tion in the use of counter-ter­ror­ism pow­ers against polit­i­cal dis­sent. The pro­posed ban would make it a crim­i­nal offence to belong to, sup­port, or pub­licly express sup­port for the group. Cam­paign­ers say this would have a chill­ing effect on free speech and protest rights. The plans come amid a wider crack­down on pro-Pales­tine activism and increased use of pro­scrip­tion laws. There are grow­ing calls for the abo­li­tion of such laws, which crit­ics say are being used to silence legit­i­mate dissent.

Read more: https://www.cage.ngo/articles/plans-to-ban-palestine-action-highlight-urgent-need-to-abolish-proscription-and-terror-laws

Key Points

• The UK gov­ern­ment is con­sid­er­ing ban­ning Pales­tine Action, cit­ing counter-ter­ror­ism pow­ers and nation­al secu­ri­ty concerns.

• CAGE warned this move could crim­i­nal­ize legit­i­mate protest and under­mine fun­da­men­tal civ­il lib­er­ties in the UK.

• The ban would make sup­port­ing or express­ing sup­port for Pales­tine Action a crim­i­nal offence under pro­scrip­tion laws.

• CAGE has become a promi­nent oppo­nent of West­ern counter-ter­ror­ism measures.

Radical Activists: How CAGE Fights Anti-Terror Legislation in the West

CAGE was found­ed in 2003 by British-Pak­istani activist Moaz­zam Begg as an advo­ca­cy body and plat­form for Mus­lims affect­ed by the US War on Ter­ror. Its lead­ers are known to have ties to the British Glob­al Mus­lim Broth­er­hood (GMB) net­work. The group has emerged as a lead­ing crit­ic of West­ern counter-ter­ror­ism poli­cies, fre­quent­ly fram­ing anti-ter­ror­ism oper­a­tions as unjust and tar­get­ing Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ties, as seen when the group described the killing of an Al-Qai­da leader as a devel­op­ment that would only threat­en prospects for peace in the region.

The orga­ni­za­tion is part of a broad­er net­work of British Islamist advo­ca­cy groups that have played a sig­nif­i­cant role in under­min­ing the legit­i­ma­cy of anti-ter­ror­ism ini­tia­tives, often by por­tray­ing such mea­sures as “Islam­o­pho­bic” and “author­i­tar­i­an.” Inter­na­tion­al scruti­ny has also high­light­ed CAGE’s lead­er­ship and alliances, link­ing the group to Islamist net­works with ties to the Mus­lim Broth­er­hood, rais­ing con­cerns among pol­i­cy­mak­ers about the oper­a­tional and ide­o­log­i­cal over­lap between CAGE’s cam­paigns and broad­er extrem­ist nar­ra­tives. In 2025, CAGE filed an appli­ca­tion with the Labour home sec­re­tary, say­ing Hamas’ pro­scrip­tion “vio­lates free­dom of expres­sion and is being applied in a dis­crim­i­na­to­ry manner.”

Exter­nal references:

• CAGE, MEND and IHRC co-launch inter­na­tion­al cam­paign against West­ern democ­ra­cies’ war on ter­ror (Pol­i­cy Exchange)

• Cage: Impor­tant human rights group or apol­o­gists for terror?

• UK Islamist Group Push­es To Take Hamas off Ter­ror List

Dis­claimer:

The Glob­al Influ­ence Oper­a­tions Report (GIOR) employs AI through­out the post­ing process, includ­ing gen­er­at­ing sum­maries of news items, the intro­duc­tion, key points, and often the “con­text” sec­tion. We rec­om­mend ver­i­fy­ing all infor­ma­tion before use. Addi­tion­al­ly, images are AI-gen­er­at­ed and intend­ed sole­ly for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es. While they rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als dis­cussed, they should not be inter­pret­ed as real-world photography.