Council backs Palestine Action motion against own legal advice

People Before Profit councillor Shaun Harkin says charges against people arrested for supporting the banned group, Palestine Action, should be dropped

A council in Northern Ireland has gone against its own legal advice and voted to call for charges to be dropped against people arrested for supporting the newly-banned group, Palestine Action.

Derry City and Strabane District Council is understood to be one of the first local authorities in the UK to back such a motion.

The government proscribed Palestine Action earlier this month under the Terrorism Act following a break-in at an RAF base, with membership carrying a maximum jail term of 14 years.

Dozens of people have been arrested for carrying placards supporting the group, including an elderly female vicar and an 81-year-old former magistrate.

This woman was handcuffed and arrested during the protest near the Mahatma Gandhi statue in London's Parliament Square

More than 100 people protesting the decision to proscribe Palestine Action as a terror group have been held across the UK.

Demonstrations in support of the pro-Palestine activist group took place in London, Edinburgh, Manchester, Bristol and Truro, in Cornwall, on Saturday.

The Metropolitan Police said 55 people were arrested on suspicion of terrorism offences for displaying placards in support of Palestine Action, at the largest demonstration in Westminster.

Palestine Action lobbies against Israeli-linked businesses in the UK and accuses the British government of complicitity in genocide in Gaza.

A woman is carried away in handcuffs during the pro-Palestine Action demonstration in London at the weekend

'Reap the whirlwind'

The motion calling for charges against the arrested supporters of Palestine Action to be dropped was passed by Derry City and Strabane District Council on Wednesday.

That was despite the advice of the city solicitor, Philip Kingston, and chief executive John Kelpie, who told councillors that a section of the motion calling for the charges to be dropped "must come out".

The Sinn Féin Mayor Ruairí McHugh said he would allow the motion in its entirety and it was carried with support of his party, the SDLP, People Before Profit and some independents.

The Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) and Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) voted against.

The motion also calls for the ban to be lifted, but as this was enacted by the Westminster Parliament, it would have to be repealed by that body.

People Before Profit councillor Shaun Harkin, who proposed the motion, said tens of thousands of people had been "killed and slaughtered" in Gaza and Palestinian children were being "starved to death".

The government, he said, were "complicit in this" and would "reap the whirlwind".

He said the banning of Palestine Action was a "ridiculous use of legislation" which could end up in peaceful people being put in prison.

Independent councillor Gary Donnelly said the ban was an attempt to "scare the life out of people" and "scare them off the streets", while Catherine McDaid, of the SDLP, described the legislation as "the slippery slope".

"If you go out and oppose genocide, you are going to be done for supporting a terrorist organisation," she said.

But DUP councillor Niree McMorris said it was "absurd" for the council to go against their own legal advice.