Police Arrest Key Members of Protest Group Defying Palestine Action Ban After Dawn Raids

Police have arrested five key spokespeople from a campaign against the proscription of Palestine Action in dawn raids on Tuesday morning, just hours before the group was to hold a press conference about an upcoming protest.

The Defend Our Juries (DoJ) campaign announced that despite the arrests, the mass action will go ahead Parliament Square on Saturday 6 September, as 1,000 people have pledged to hold signs saying ‘I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action’.

Those arrested include Tim Crosland, a former government lawyer who co-founded DoJ.

A video seen by Novara Media also shows 25-year-old law student Paddy Friend being arrested on terror charges after speaking on a Zoom call about a protest against the ban.

As Friend stands in his living room, a plain-clothes police officer tells him: “You are alleged to have addressed an online meeting between 10 July 2025 and 21 August 2025 for the purpose of encouraging support [for] and furthering the activities of proscribed organisation Palestine Action.”

According to DoJ, the calls provide legal briefings for those planning to hold signs saying ‘I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action’. “No one has been arrested for joining the Zoom calls – only the hosts of Zoom calls,” the campaign said.

The video shows the officer handcuffing Friend, who says “This is what happens, Britain in 2025, for opposing genocide”, before being led away.

Friend recently told the BBC: “Palestine Action protest could ruin my career, but I felt I had to do it.”

The Met said those arrested also included a 61-year-old woman in East London, a 48-year-old woman in Kendal, Cumbria and a 39-year-old man in Barnsley, South Yorkshire.

The arrests were carried out by officers from the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command, and supported by officers from Counter Terrorism Policing North West and Counter Terrorism Policing North East.

Those arrested remain in custody at the time of writing.

DoJ was set to hold a press conference on Tuesday afternoon announcing that 1,000 people had pledged to hold signs reading “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action” – double the number of those arrested on 9 August, presenting a significant challenge for police resources.

A spokesperson for DoJ said: “This is scandalous. Locking up our key spokespeople just hours before they were due to hold a press conference announcing more peaceful ‘Lift the Ban’ protests constitutes an unprecedented assault on free speech in our country. This level of political repression is not what we expect in a democracy – it’s the kind of tactic typically associated with authoritarian regimes around the world.

“Despite this dystopian crackdown targeting perceived organisers of peaceful protests, the mass action will go ahead, with 1,000 people pledging to hold signs. The mass defiance of the unjust ban on Palestine Action is unstoppable.

“The Home Office and the Met would have known about our press conference today. The counter-terrorism police are clearly targeting people they perceive as organisers, and the key spokespeople arrested were told they were being arrested for hosting public Zoom calls.”

The arrests follow a summer-long campaign against the Palestine Action ban. DoJ has repeatedly organised hundreds of people to hold the placards and get arrested for terror offences – at times embarrassing police and making the ban difficult to enforce.

On Saturday 9 August, more people were arrested in one day than have ever previously been arrested under terror legislation in a whole year, as police arrested 522 people for “displaying an item (in this case a placard) in support of a proscribed organisation (in this case Palestine Action)” in Parliament Square in London. However, despite the huge number of arrests, many people who took part in the protest walked away free. The Met, which had initially claimed it was “confident” of arresting anyone breaking the law, was left complaining of the “entirely unrealistic” challenges it faced.

Attempts to enforce the ban have become increasingly farcical. One protester is taking legal action against after officers threatened her for holding signs saying “free Gaza”. Another was arrested for carrying a placard displaying a cartoon from satirical magazine Private Eye.

Last week, a man in Liverpool was told he would not be arrested for displaying a Palestine Action poster from his window because it was in a private space. By contrast, in July a man in Glasgow was charged under the Terrorism Act for displaying a Palestine Action poster out of his window.

The ban also has implications for the media. In July, Novara Media wrote to the attorney general with a list of questions asking how the ban would affect journalistic coverage of Palestine Action. The attorney general referred the letter to the Home Office, which replied with a long defence of the ban and left all but one of our questions unanswered.

Chief superintendent Helen Flanagan, head of operations for the Counter Terrorism Command, said: “These arrests have been made as part of an ongoing investigation into people we suspect have been involved in encouraging support for the proscribed group Palestine Action.

“We know there is a great strength of feeling towards the situation in Palestine and thousands have been able and continue to be able to express their views through protest and demonstrations, without breaking counter terrorism laws.

“But Palestine Action is clearly proscribed as a terrorist group, and those showing support for this particular group, or encouraging others to do so can expect to be arrested, investigated and prosecuted.

“There are serious consequences for those who are found guilty of an offence under the Terrorism Act, so I would urge anyone considering showing public support towards this proscribed group to reconsider.”