A WEST Belfast grandmother has launched a legal challenge against the decision to proscribe Palestine Action as a terror organisation.
In July last year the British government made it a criminal offence to belong to or express support for Palestine Action.
A separate legal battle over proscribing the organisation is set to go to the Supreme Court after senior judges in England ruled the decision was lawful.
Maire Mhic an Fhaili (75) is seeking to judicially review both the government for outlawing the group and the PSNI for taking criminal enforcement action against her in connection with the ban.
The Poleglass woman was detained after attending a pro-Gaza rally in Belfast last August while wearing a T-shirt with the slogan ‘We are all Palestine Action’.
Her legal team claims the Home Secretary failed to consider the practical and constitutional implications of introducing the ban in a jurisdiction where there are further complexities to enforcing terrorism legislation.
She also alleges a disparity between the PSNI’s response to a peaceful Palestine solidarity protest and its approach to paramilitary flags and displays.
A Police Ombudsman investigation later concluded that an arresting officer had acted oppressively, according to her lawyers, with no meaningful effort made to obtain translation assistance.
During a brief hearing at the High Court in Belfast, she indicated human rights body the Committee on the Administration of Justice had been unable to intervene in the British case to raise issues related to the situation here in the North.
“I could face years in prison for saying I support Palestine Action, but if I wear this t-shirt [with the phrase ‘IRA undefeated army’] there is no comeback,” she claimed.
Her solicitor, Owen Winters of KRW Law, described it as an important milestone in the attempt to overturn what he called a “glaring injustice and human rights abuse”.
He said: “For many years the PSNI has operated on the basis that enforcement action relating to paramilitary flags should be reserved for the most extreme circumstances.
“Yet the effect of the Palestine Action proscription has been to shift attention away from the most harmful activity and material and towards conduct involving no expression of violence whatsoever.
“Instead, we have seen the criminal law deployed against elderly protesters such as this applicant whose motivation is opposition to the ongoing genocide in Gaza.”
Mr Justice McAlinden listed the judicial review for a two-day hearing in November.
