More than 200 have been arrested for alleged support of Palestine Action – and hundreds more are expected to protest on Saturday
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t 81, Deborah Hinton, a former British magistrate who was honoured by the late Queen Elizabeth II for services to the community, seems an unlikely terrorist suspect. In the quiet town in south-west England where she lives, much of her retirement is spent walking along the cliffs, raising funds for the nearby cathedral choir, and supporting local charities.
But last month she was detained in a police cell for seven hours, fingerprinted and had a DNA swab taken from her mouth. It was the first time she had ever been arrested, and the experience left her “in a state of trauma” and “shaking uncontrollably”. She could face a jail sentence of six months under UK terrorism legislation.
Hinton is among more than 200 Britons who have been arrested in recent months for peacefully protesting about the war in Gaza and the designation by the British government of an activist group, Palestine Action, as a terrorist organisation. They say the ban is a draconian clampdown on freedom of expression, and runs counter to a proud tradition of protest and civil disobedience in the UK that includes the suffragettes’ campaign a century ago for women’s right to vote and marches against nuclear weapons in the 1950s.
