The Palestinian Islamist group Hamas, known for launching the deadly attacks against Israel on October 7 that killed 1,200 Israelis and took hundreds of Israelis and foreigners hostage, sparking a brutal war that left more than 52,000 Gazans dead, filed a legal petition in the United Kingdom to be removed from its list of designated terrorist organizations.
Hamas, which had been designated as a terrorist group by then-Home Secretary Priti Patel in 2021, claimed that they are not a terrorist group but mainly “a Palestinian Islamic liberation and resistance movement whose goal is to liberate Palestine and confront the Zionist project.“
The assertion is contained in a witness statement by the group’s head of international relations, Mousa Abu Marzouk. He is also the indicated applicant for the claim to the British government’s current Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper. While the UK’s Home Office did not comment on matters related to proscribing Hamas as a terrorist group, Cooper has 90 days to decide on the group’s status.
Marzouk continued his statement by saying that “the British government’s decision to proscribe Hamas is an unjust one that is symptomatic of its unwavering support for Zionism, apartheid, occupation, and ethnic cleansing in Palestine for over a century. Hamas does not and never has posed a threat to Britain, despite the latter’s ongoing complicity in the genocide of our people.“
The British government only proscribed the group’s military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, in 2001. Twenty years later, Patel decided to expand the ban to cover the entire organization, arguing that there was no longer any distinction between Hamas's political and military wings. The British government also described Hamas as “a complex but single terrorist organisation.“
According to the UK’s Terrorism Act of 2000, it is punishable by law to be a member of a proscribed terrorist organization, show or express support for it, and wear clothing or carry or display articles in public that would arouse reasonable suspicion that the individual is a member or supporter of the proscribed group.
Riverway Law, a controversial London-based firm notorious for handling cases involving suspected Islamists, represented Hamas.
“Rather than allow freedom of speech, police have embarked on a campaign of political intimidation and persecution of journalists, academics, peace activists, and students over their perceived support for Hamas. People in Britain must be free to speak about Hamas and its struggle to restore to the Palestinian people the right to self-determination,“ the firm’s lawyer argued.
The law firm’s 106-page application called for the ban to be lifted by the European Convention of Human Rights (ECHR), arguing that Hamas poses no threat to the UK, which Marzouk called in his witness statement the “architect of our suffering through its collaboration with the Zionist project for over a century.“
The statement also attempted to reject accusations of antisemitism and targeting of Jews thrown against Hamas, arguing that its founding charter, which cites a hadith as a proof text for killing Jews and declaring that Islam will “obliterate“ Israel, was “drafted without consultation with the senior leadership“, who were in prison or exiled at the time.
Patel, who now serves as the Shadow Foreign Secretary, condemned Hamas’s application to be removed from the government’s list of designated terrorist groups, calling it an “evil Iranian-backed terrorist organisation, which kidnaps, tortures and murders people, including British nationals.“
“They pose an ongoing threat to our security and to the peace and stability of the Middle East, and they have weapons and training facilities that put lives at risk and threaten our interests. They show no respect for human rights, life, and dignity, and have oppressed people living in Gaza for too long.“ Patel added.
