LONDON — Richard Whitmore-Jones had never protested before reaching his 70s, but British police have arrested him three times this summer for holding a cardboard sign, leaving the retired executive facing three sets of terrorism charges.
Each time, the 74-year-old said he had been sitting silently outside the British Parliament holding a placard that read: “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.”
“We’re not talking to anybody, we’re not being interviewed, we’re simply sitting there with a sign,” Whitmore-Jones, who faces a court date in October, told NBC News.
Four words written on the sign triggered Whitmore-Jones' arrest: I support Palestine Action.
Alongside Al Qaeda and ISIS
The British government banned Palestine Action — which describes itself as a direct action movement that uses disruptive methods — as a terrorist organization in July, putting it alongside Al Qaeda and the Islamic State terrorist group, or ISIS. It made membership in or support of the group a criminal offense punishable by up to 14 years in prison under British law.
This extends to acts such as wearing clothing, carrying items or holding placards in public that could reasonably be seen as showing affiliation with the group.
Nearly 900 people were arrested at protests in central London on Saturday alone, many older than 60.
The government decided on the group's proscription after members damaged military planes at a Royal Air Force base in June to protest against the British military's support for Israel.
Palestine Action has also targeted defense firms in Britain with links to Israel, including shattering windows and splashing red paint on buildings, and occupying roofs. These actions were part of what the British government has called a “nationwide campaign of property damage” since the group was founded in 2020.
Britain has seen a sharp rise in pro-Palestinian protests since Israel began its military campaign in Gaza in October 2023, drawing tens of thousands onto the streets, alongside a surge in reported antisemitic incidents.
The proscription of Palestine Action “does not affect the freedom to protest on Palestinian rights,” according to the British Home Office, the government department in charge of keeping the country safe. “It is about tackling a specific group linked to criminal damage and intimidation which has resulted in serious harm to individuals.”
But critics argue the ban is disproportionate and has a chilling effect on legitimate political speech.
Whitmore-Jones said he would protest "a fourth time, because I feel it’s the least I can do."
His wife, Marji Mansfield, 69, a retired financial consultant and grandmother of seven, feels the same, despite being carried away in handcuffs by three police officers at the first demonstration in July.
It was “quite terrifying,” she said, but "to sit silent and do nothing is far worse.”
Police by law do not discuss the details of individual cases after suspects are arrested, and declined to provide information specifically about Whitmore-Jones’ or anyone else involed in protests.
'Unprecedented scale'
Defend Our Juries, a U.K. campaign defending the right of juries to reach verdicts according to their conscience, which organized the demonstrations, estimated that 1,500 people attended the Saturday rally near Parliament.
A total of 857 people were arrested under Britain's Terrorism Act for alleged offenses, according to police, along with 33 others for separate offenses, “including 17 for assaults on police officers.”
Footage from the protest and other demonstrations in recent weeks shows most of the activists sitting silently on the grass outside Parliament, many holding up signs with the same slogan for which Whitmore-Jones was arrested.
He joined hundreds of other Palestine Action supporters to have been arrested since July under anti-terrorism legislation at other demonstrations.
Among them were Sir Jonathon Porritt, 75, a former government official; Chris Romberg, 75, a former army colonel and son of a Holocaust survivor; Alice Oswald, 58, an award-winning poet; and the Rev. Sue Parfitt, an 83-year-old retired priest.
And on Monday, a new mural of elusive British street artist Banksy appeared on the side of London’s Royal Courts of Justice depicting a judge in a traditional wig hitting a protester lying on the ground, with blood splattered over a placard.
The artwork was quickly covered up by metal barriers and guarded by two security officers. Soon after, local government workers were spotted trying to remove the mural.
British police have made over 1,300 arrests using terrorism legislation at Palestine Action protests this summer — five times more than the total number of arrests for terrorism-related activity in the U.K. in all of 2024.
The scale of arrests at protests is “unprecedented,” said Mark Stephens, co-chair of the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute.
The wave of detentions — many of them of older, otherwise “law-abiding citizens” — was “straining the justice system beyond breaking point,” he told NBC News. “You’re not getting criminals. You’re getting knights of the realm, priests and ordinary middle-class folk who value their right to speak."
In Stephens' view, the government has offered no “satisfactory explanation” for why Palestine Action has been proscribed, and questioned the proportionality of enforcing terrorism charges against peaceful demonstrators.
“What is it that goes beyond that that makes them a danger to life and limb?” he asked.
United Nations Human Rights Chief Volker Türk said after the group was banned in July that the decision “appears disproportionate and unnecessary,” and “misuses the gravity and impact of terrorism.”
The proscription of Palestine Action "follows from an assessment from the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre through a robust evidence-based process, by a wide range of experts from across government, the police and the Security Services,” the British Home Office told NBC News.
Responding to growing opposition to the ban, then-British Home Secretary Yvette Cooper told the BBC in August that there were people objecting to the proscription “who don’t know the full nature of this organization,” citing court restrictions on reporting.
“But it’s really important that no one is in any doubt that this is not a nonviolent organization,” she added.
A High Court judge ruled in July that Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori can bring an unprecedented legal challenge to the decision to ban the organization under anti-terrorism laws.
The proscription order risked “considerable harm to the public interest” because of a potential “chilling effect” on legitimate political speech, Judge Martin Chamberlain said.
Despite the risk of prosecution, Whitmore-Jones and Mansfield say they will continue to attend any demonstrations in the future.
“Whatever happens to us is meaningless, compared with what the people of Palestine have had,” Mansfield said.
