Skip to content

Unban Hamas in the UK Demands CAGE International

By Iqbal Jassat 

A British advocacy group, CAGE International, has applied to the UK government of Keith Starmer to unban Palestine’s liberation movement HAMAS.

The application that has been filed with the UK Home Secretary to remove HAMAS from Britain’s list of proscribed organisations, is a crucial intervention to restore fundamental human rights, and to overcome unfair suppression of free speech.

Following the event known as 9/11, America launched its highly immoral and illegal “War on Terror”, which turned out to be a punitive and disastrous global campaign targeting Muslim countries, groups and individuals.

Overnight who ever was perceived to be a threat to the West and to its settler colonial regime Israel, faced severe consequences ranging from bannings, illegal renditions, torture, detention without trial, and mass killings.

The rise of Islamophobia took the form of unrestrained vengeance, demolishing human rights and civil liberties in its wake.

Palestinians paid a huge price, given that the main instigators of the misguided “War on Terror” were neocons, likudniks and the Zionist regime.

Among the casualties were Palestine’s liberation movements, particularly HAMAS and Islamic Jihad, who faced the indignity of being outlawed as “terrorist” entities.

HAMAS became a proscribed terrorist organisation in the UK in its entirety, meaning that members of Hamas or those who invite support for the group could be jailed for up to 14 years.

It is thus hugely important that the case launched by CAGE challenges the necessity and proportionality of the proscription on the grounds that it violates freedom of expression (Article 10) ) of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and is being enforced in a discriminatory manner (Article 14).

The submission focuses on the systemic suppression of political speech, particularly within Britain’s Muslim communities.

It highlights the weaponisation of Section 12 of the Terrorism Act 2000, which criminalises expressions of support for proscribed organisations — including social media posts, public speech or attendance at meetings.

It demonstrates the alarming impact proscription of Hamas has through anonymised case studies, such as how school children, university students, teachers, health workers, academics and activists have been targeted and often sanctioned.

Indeed criminalising solidarity with Palestine especially in the current genocide in Gaza in which over 50 000 people have been killed by Israel since 2023, has had a chilling effect on open debate.

Muhammad Rabbani, Managing Director of CAGE International, said:

“The chilling effect on political speech in support of Palestine is stark. The systematic suppression of pro-Palestinian speech threatens not only those targetted, but also the principles of open debate and political freedom upon which a free society must be based.”

The current CAGE submission follows an earlier legal appeal by Mousa Abu Marzouk, the head of Hamas’ foreign relations office, who instructed lawyers to seek reversal of a controversial decision by former UK Home Secretary Priti Patel to proscribe the group in its entirety.

“A legal team from the London-based Riverway Law firm submitted a formal appeal to the UK Home Office on Wednesday, April 9 objecting to the continued designation of the movement as a terrorist organization,” HAMAS said in a statement.

Though HAMAS’s military wing, the Qassam Brigades, was banned more than two decades ago, the conservative pro-Zionist Patel extended the ban to the entire HAMAS, arguing there was “no longer a distinction between the political and military wings of the group”.

Fahad Ansari, the director of Riverway Law, which led the legal challenge; included Daniel Grutters, a barrister at One Pump Court Chambers and Franck Magennis, a barrister at Garden Court Chambers.

They submitted a 106-page application to Home Secretary Yvette Cooper which claimed the 2021 decision “pursued explicitly political objectives by a politically compromised Secretary of State”.

Coupled with the CAGE submission, a successful outcome will not only restore a
fundamental right and protection for HAMAS, but also for people the right to speak freely, without fear of criminalisation.

Rabbani is thus entirely correct that the continued proscription of Hamas violates long-established freedoms enshrined in British law.

“It is enabling the expansion of authoritarian powers, all at the service of, and to defend the Zionist entity’s livestreamed genocide in Gaza.

“Deproscription is about reckoning with a political and diplomatic reality in addition to remedying the discriminatory application and abuse of power.”

Iqbal Jassat

Executive Member

Media Review Network

Johannesburg

South Africa

Iqbal Jassat
Latest posts by Iqbal Jassat (see all)