What is Defend Our Juries – the organisation behind Saturday’s protest?

This Saturday, hundreds of people are expected to stage a demonstration in London that could lead to many arrests. The mass action comes after weeks of protests during, which police have arrested protesters for holding placards reading ​“I Oppose Genocide, I Support Palestine Action,” with more hoping to do the same this weekend.

The action, organised by Defend Our Juries, seeks to add increased pressure on the government to lift the proscription on Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation.

Recently, Palestine Action won the right to challenge the proscription at the High Court, after its co-founder Huda Ammori brought an unprecedented legal challenge to the home secretary’s decision. At the time of writing, Defend Our Juries’ website had been taken down but the organisation has since found a new host here.

So, what is Palestine Action?

A British pro-Palestinian protest network known for its campaigns against Israel’s actions in Gaza and the West Bank. Founded in 2020 by activists Huda Ammori and Richard Barnard, the group has, in recent years, launched direct actions against sites belonging to Israeli arms firm Elbit Systems, spray painted the Ministry of Defence in London, defaced a statue in the House of Commons and broken into RAF Brize Norton, allegedly causing damage to two military planes by spraying red paint into their engines. The cost of repairing the damage at RAF Brize Norton is reported to run to £7 million.

Why and how were they banned?

In the wake of the action at Brize Norton on the 26^th June, parliament voted to proscribe Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation, along with two white supremacist neo-Nazi groups, the Maniacs Murder Cult (MMC) and the Russian Imperial Movement (RIM).

What does the order mean, in effect?

That anyone being seen to support Palestine Action – for example, by wearing one of their T‑shirts, holding a sign that supports them or organising a meeting in support of them – can be lawfully arrested by police.

What’s been the result so far?

Widespread demonstrations at which dozens of protestors have been arrested for holding signs and voicing support for the group. As a result of the banning order, this is classed as a criminal offence, punishable by up to 14 years in prison.

Recently, a high court judge ruled that Huda Ammori (Palestine Action’s founder) could bring a legal challenge to the ban with her lawyers calling it an “​authoritarian and blatant abuse of power”.

And who is Defend Our Juries?

An organisation partly founded by former government lawyer Tim Crosland. In 2020, he was found in contempt of court for leaking a Supreme Court judgement ruling that a planned third runway at Heathrow was legal, despite environmental concerns around increased CO2 emissions and the 1.5˚C Paris Agreement temperature limit.

Ever since, Crosland and Defend Our Juries have voiced support for activists and groups such as Just Stop Oil – and, more recently, Palestine Action – often by holding placards outside courts that either show support for the groups or remind jurors of their rights.

What do they believe juries need reminding of?

Juries of 12 randomly selected individuals have the right to acquit a defendant if they believe it’s the morally right thing to do, irrespective of a judge’s direction or a government’s stance on an issue. This right to acquit as a matter of conscience is something that Defend Our Juries is committed to protecting, especially since juries tend to acquit activists who have taken direct action. This happened after the Edward Colston statue was toppled by a group later cleared of criminal damage in Bristol in 2020 and in 2023, and when Palestine Action activists were acquitted for dousing a statue of Arthur Balfour (a British politician who, in 1917, signed a declaration supporting ​“a national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine) in the House of Commons with ketchup.

What do Defend Our Juries say about their core purpose?

Lex Korte, one of the co-founders: “[We believe] that a group of ordinary, randomly selected people have more of a sense of justice than one elitist judge ever could, as long as the jury are given the right and full information and are allowed to deliberate in a safe space with the right support.”

In what way does the organisation believe the right to a jury trial is under threat?

Defend Our Juries is concerned by what it sees as moves to tighten restrictions on what can be said in front of juries. In 2023, two Insulate Britain activists were banned by a judge from explaining to the jury that the climate crisis was their motivation behind taking part in a roadblock protest in 2021. He had said it was for ​“history to judge, not the jury”. When they went ahead and mentioned it in their closing statements, they were found in contempt of court and jailed for seven weeks.

These kinds of restrictions are often referred to as a banning of a legal defence that might demonstrate how a defendant’s actions could be justified or excused.

How have Defend Our Juries and Palestine Action overlapped this summer?

On 5^th July, Crosland was arrested on for holding a sign that read ​“I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action” at a protest organised by Defend Our Juries. He was picked up, alongside 28 others that included an 83-year-old priest and Nobel Peace Prize nominee and activist Angie Zelter.

What other shared interests do they have?

In August 2024, 18 Palestine Action protestors allegedly broke into an Elbit Systems factory in Filton, Bristol. Arrested under counter-terrorism powers and imprisoned without trial since, they’re back in the spotlight as the question arises of whether they’ll be allowed to use legal defences to explain their motives to the jury in their upcoming trials.

What does Defend Our Juries think will happen?

Though there’s no clear ruling from the judge yet, Defend Our Juries believe it’s unlikely that the Filton 18 will have access to legal defences in court. ​“In any credible moral or legal system, it’s a defence to explain that the action you take was necessary and proportionate to prevent a far greater harm, but members of Palestine Action [could be] denied the opportunity to put such a case to the jury,” Lex says. ​“Effectively, jury trials are becoming show trials.”

What’s next?

On the 9^th August, Defend Our Juries is hoping to organise a mass action, calling for at least 500 people to sign up to holding signs in central London, risking arrest, in order to encourage the government to lift the ban.