‘Anti-Palestinian repression’: Legal experts document hundreds of UK cases

Group says its new public database reveals extent of broad crackdown on solidarity movement.Police officers try to hold back a protester against UK arms exports and Israeli weapons firms, outside the Defense and Security Equipment International (DSEI) arms fair in London, on September 9, 2025 [Jack Taylor/Reuters]Published On 25 Feb 2026London, United Kingdom – Legal experts have documented almost 1,000 incidents in which pro-Palestine voices have been allegedly targeted in the United Kingdom, data that they say represents a “systematic effort” to repress the country’s solidarity movement.The European Legal Support Center (ELSC) said on Wednesday that it has verified 964 cases of “anti-Palestinian repression” from January 2019 until August 2025, including students being investigated over their solidarity, activists being arrested, employees facing disciplinary procedures and artists having their events cancelled.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemslist 1 of 4UK police arrest four people for pro-Palestine ‘Intifada’ callslist 2 of 4Pro-Palestine activists acquitted of burglary at Israeli arms site in UKlist 3 of 4BBC criticised for nixing ‘Free Palestine’ tribute from BAFTA coveragelist 4 of 4‘We asked UK gov’t to declare what’s happening in Gaza as a genocide’end of listThe findings of the study, carried out in collaboration with researchers at Forensic Architecture, are a “sample indicative of a far wider and deeper pattern”, said the group comprising lawyers and legal officers.The ELSC pitched the report as an Index of Repression, a database that is open to the public.“We’re launching this database to show that repression of the Palestine solidarity movement in Britain is pervasive,” Amira Abdelhamid, ELSC’s director of research and monitoring, told Al Jazeera.One documented case involves a University of Warwick student who was reported to police by their university for carrying a sign that drew parallels between Israel and Nazi Germany during a campus rally in November 2023.(Al Jazeera)The student was arrested for “racial aggravation against the Jewish community” and investigated by their university. But in January 2024, after the ELSC stepped in, the police dropped the student’s caution and deleted all associated records. The university confirmed in March that there would be no further disciplinary action.ELSC said “Zionist advocacy” groups, journalists and media outlets were involved in 138 incidents – including UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI), a pro-Israel organisation that it said played a part in 29 of the documented cases.“The goal of this analysis is to denaturalise this politically produced process,” the group said. “This strategic targeting across sectors represents a kind of division of repressive labour. It aims to dismantle solidarity at every stage, from the formation of political consciousness in universities and schools, to its expression in culture, to its organisation in public spaces.”Another incident involved a football club’s kit manager who was dismissed after posting his views about Israel’s conduct on social media.The case of Dana Abuqamar, a University of Manchester student, is also analysed in the database. The Home Office revoked her visa after she told Sky News that, after 16 years of Israel’s blockade of Gaza, “We are both in fear (of) how Israel will retaliate … but also we are full of pride.”She later clarified that her comments were not in support of the October 7 attacks into southern Israel, during which more than 1,000 people were killed. The UKLFI reported her to the police and her university, but in 2024, she won a human rights appeal.“The main immediate goal of this anti-Palestinian repression is to depoliticise the movement, to make it seem as though it’s not a legitimate political and ethical struggle, but rather a security problem, a problem of so-called anti-Semitism or a breach of compliance,” ELSC’s Abdelhamid said.“I don’t think that has succeeded … two years on we still see people resisting the repression happening in Britain [and] speaking up and acting for Palestine and against the genocide.”Since Israel’s onslaught on Gaza began in October 2023, tens of thousands of Britons have rallied in support of Palestine.According to YouGov, one in three Britons have “no sympathy at all for the Israeli side in the conflict” after Israel killed more than 70,000 people in two years and decimated the Gaza Strip.The government, led by Labour leader Keir Starmer, has long been accused of cracking down on pro-Palestine solidarity because of a wave of arrests during demonstrations and due to its proscription of Palestine Action as a “terror” organisation – a ruling recently deemed unlawful by the High Court.In January, Human Rights Watch said that its research found a “disproportionate targeting of certain groups, including climate change activists and Palestine protesters, undermining the right to protest freely and without fear of harassment”.