The High Court in the United Kingdom has ruled that the government ban on the pro-Palestinian campaign group Palestine Action as a “terror group” was unlawful.

In a statement responding to the landmark ruling on Friday, Palestine Action’s co-founder Huda Ammori, who had challenged the government’s ban, said the ruling was a huge win for the group.

“This is a monumental victory both for our fundamental freedoms here in Britain and in the struggle for freedom for the Palestinian people, striking down a decision that will forever be remembered as one of the most extreme attacks on free speech in recent British history,” she said, labelling the ban “a Trumpian abuse of power”.

However, the British government immediately said it intended to appeal the court’s ruling.

“I am disappointed by ⁠the court’s decision ⁠and disagree with the notion that banning ⁠this terrorist organisation ⁠is disproportionate,” ⁠Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood ⁠said in a statement.

“I intend to fight this ‌judgment in the Court of ‌Appeal.”

The court, however, kept the ban in place pending another hearing while the government prepares its appeal. It remains a criminal offence to be a member of, or support, Palestine Action.

Al Jazeera’s Rory Challands, reporting from outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London, said the process that would begin swiftly, with a hearing set for February 20 in which the court would decide whether there were grounds for the government to appeal.

But the appeal process could drag on for months, if not years, he said.

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Ammori said in a statement that any move by the government to challenge the court’s ruling would be “profoundly unjust”, while the futures of thousands of protesters who had been arrested for their support of Palestine Action – “many of whom are elderly or disabled and facing up to 14 years’ imprisonment” – hung in the balance.

“Any such attempt by the government would prolong that injustice,” she said.

There has been a sharp split in the UK between government policy, not recognising Israel’s war as a genocide, and supporting Israel on the diplomatic stage, with public opinion. Hundreds of thousands across the country have protested for an end to the war and punitive action against Israel.

The United Kingdom said last June that it would ban Palestine Action under anti-terrorism laws. This put the organisation on par with armed groups like al-Qaeda and ISIL (ISIS) in the UK, making it a criminal offence to belong to the group.

The government’s announcement prompted legal battles, criticism from human rights organisations and triggered protests, amid concerns that the move was draconian overreach that criminalised legitimate political dissent.

Scenes of jubilation

Challands noted there had been scenes of jubilation as news of the judgment reached Palestine Action’s supporters gathered outside.

He said judge Victoria Sharp, in delivering the court’s decision, had said that although Palestine Action was a group engaging in and encouraging criminality, it did not mean the government was right in proscribing them as a “terrorist” organisation, and that it had acted unlawfully in doing so.

The court found that the government had acted disproportionately, saying that there were other means by which it could prosecute criminal acts without a blanket ban.

In proscribing the group, the court considered that the government had interfered with the right to freedom of speech and the right to freedom of assembly, he said.

“The big picture here though is that this is… for the beleaguered Labour government in the United Kingdom, yet another setback,” he said, saying the ban was seen by many as an example of the Starmer government’s political heavy-handedness and tendency for miscalculation.

Thousands arrested for silent protest

Among those arrested for supporting the group were some 2,787 people arrested made for terrorism offences for peacefully holding signs saying “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action” in silent vigils across the UK, a statement by the campaign group Defend Our Juries said.

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A spokesperson for the group said that “thousands of people of conscience” had seen that “branding protest as terrorism was a move straight out of the dictator’s playbook”.

“Together we took action at great personal risk – inspired by each other’s courage. We helped make this proscription unenforceable by saying ‘we do not comply’.”

The spokesperson added that most people in the UK had been “disgusted by both the government’s complicity in what most experts agree is an ongoing genocide in Gaza by Israel”.

An ‘absolute triumph’

Speaking outside the court, as supporters chanted pro-Palestinian slogans in the background, artist Nicola Moxham, who had been arrested herself for support of the group, described the ruling as a “vindication”.

The court’s decision, she said, was and “absolute triumph for direct action in support of Palestine Action and opposing, most importantly, the genocide of Palestinians and destruction of Gaza”.

“It’s kind of unbelievable really that the Labour Party is supposedly the party of ordinary people and here they are repressing ordinary people for standing for justice and against genocide,” she told Al Jazeera.

Her husband, retired professor of medicine John Moxham, said he was “absolutely delighted” by the outcome.

Moxham said he had marched over the issue, considering the ban on the group “a total travesty”.

“There ought to be a lot of resignations of government ministers,” he told Al Jazeera.

“The Prime Minister and (Justice Secretary) David Lammy have got a lot of blood on their hands.”

Campaign group CAGE International said in a statement that the ruling represented “a decisive rejection of attempts to shield corporations complicit in arming the genocide in Gaza”.

“While the infrastructure of terrorism laws remains in place, fundamental freedoms are conditional, dependent on political whim,” said the group’s head of public advocacy, Anas Mustapha. “Today’s decision is the correct legal outcome, though it was secured only through principled sacrifice and collective will.”

He said the ruling should lead to the withdrawal of charges against “all Palestine Action activists in prison and the thousands who acted on their conscience as part of the largest civil disobedience campaign this country has seen in recent years”.

Ammori said the group had been banned because its actions targeting the UK subsidiary of Israel’s largest arms manufacturer Elbit Systems had “cost the corporation millions of pounds in profits”.

“Banning Palestine Action was always about appeasing pro-Israel lobby groups and weapons manufacturers, and nothing to do with terrorism,” she said.

Elbit Systems describes its drones, which have been used extensively by Israel in Gaza to deadly effect, killing large numbers of Palestinians, as “the backbone” of Israel’s drone fleet.

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