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terrorism
Exploiting Tragedy to Promote War, Hegseth Falsely Claims That Iran 'Cheered on 9/11'
"What haunts me," said one anti-war activist, "is how little accountability there has been for those who lied us into war—and how those same lies are now recycled to justify the attack on Iran."
Sep 11, 2026
Twenty-five years later, Republican politicians are still using 9/11 to justify war in the Middle East. And they're still lying shamelessly.
During remarks outside the Pentagon on Friday commemorating the 25th anniversary of the terrorist attack, President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth portrayed their deeply unpopular war in Iran as part of the lineage of the global War on Terror, which was marked by a pair of lengthy military engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan that cost well over $2 trillion and millions of lives.
Trump declared that he was prosecuting his new war with Iran to fulfill the "sacred oath" sworn in the names of the nearly 3,000 people whose lives were lost that day, that "we will never, ever forget."
Hegseth seems to have forgotten quite a lot. Attempting to draw a link between the ideology of the al-Qaeda hijackers who committed the attack and the current Iranian government, the defense secretary said, "Our warriors have fought an Islamic theocracy that has wished us death for nearly half a century, that cheered on 9/11."
However, the claim that Iran "cheered on 9/11" is at odds with the historical record of how the nation's government and people reacted.
On September 19, 2001, The Washington Post reported that:
Despite two decades of official hostility, the people and government of Iran have offered vivid messages of sympathy and condemnations of terrorism in the aftermath of last week's attacks on New York and Washington...
Hard-line conservative Iranians and moderate reformers, top government and religious officials, Friday prayer leaders, and citizens on the street have uniformly denounced the plane hijackings and suicide crashes of September 11. Some, including President Mohammad Khatami, have offered to join an international campaign against terrorism under certain circumstances, including United Nations sponsorship.
On the day of the attacks in 2001, Khatami issued a swift condemnation over Iranian state TV of what he called "the terrorist operations of hijacking and attacking public places in American cities, which have resulted in the death of a large number of defenseless American people."
Khatami later decried the attacks as “the ugliest form of terrorism ever seen." According to later congressional testimony by a State Department official, he also asked to visit ground zero to light a candle out of respect for the victims, a request that was denied by the administration of then-US President George W. Bush.
Days after the attacks, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei—who was killed this past February during the opening salvo of the joint US-Israeli war against Iran—agreed at the time that “mass murder of human beings is condemned," though he also suggested that "expansionist" US foreign policy had played a role in provoking the attacks.
The US-funded Radio Free Europe reported that, far from celebrating in the streets, around 2,000 Iranians had gathered in Tehran for a candlelight vigil a week after the attacks, at which participants "chanted against terrorism and expressed their sympathy with America." Days earlier, the Post reported that about 50,000 spectators at a World Cup qualifying match in Tehran observed a minute of silence in recognition of the attacks.
Iran's support for the US following the attack also went beyond words. While still describing Iran as the world's leading "state sponsor of terrorism," a May 2002 State Department report emphasized Iran's cooperation with US operations against al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
This included offering search-and-rescue assistance for downed US air crews, diplomatic cooperation at the 2001 Bonn Conference to build Afghanistan's post-Taliban government, and promising border controls to prevent fleeing Taliban and al-Qaeda members from escaping.
Though Trump promised at the outset that it would last only a matter of weeks, his war with Iran has now lumbered into its sixth month with no sign of stopping. It has spilled out into a wider Middle Eastern conflict that has taken the lives of about 8,000 people, displaced millions, and wreaked financial chaos.
The war has included US attacks on civilians that have had a similar resonance with Iranians that 9/11 has for Americans, most infamously the bombing of an elementary school that killed at least 150 people, most of them children.
According to one economist's recent estimate, the war has conservatively cost the average American household about $1,200 over six months, combining the direct cost to taxpayers with the knock-on effects of spiking oil prices and broader inflation.
Though around two-thirds of Americans say they oppose the war and Congress has ordered Trump to bring it to an end, recent reports indicate that the administration is considering expanding it following this November's midterm elections.
Trump described the war as a grim necessity on Friday, in part to honor those who perished on September 11, 25 years earlier.
“That’s why we fight today," Trump said. "We don’t have a choice. There can only be victory. We fight hard. We fight to win.”
Medea Benjamin, the co-founder of the anti-war group CodePink, reflected earlier this week on how the tragedy is still being used to this day to justify endless wars overseas.
"What haunts me today is not only the devastation of the invasion, but how little accountability there has been for those who lied us into war—and how those same lies are now recycled to justify the attack on Iran," Benjamin said. "The War on Terror did not end."
"The same impunity that has shielded the architects of the global War on Terror," she added, "now emboldens the war criminals behind the genocide in Gaza and the Minab school massacre in Iran."
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'Collective Punishment': Mother of Jailed Palestine Action Activist in UK Was Denied Mortgage Over Daughter's Case
Emma Kamio's daughter, Ellie, was also "debanked" by Lloyds Bank before she was criminally convicted for her sabotage of Israeli military equipment.
Sep 09, 2026
One of the UK's largest financial institutions, Lloyds Bank, reportedly targeted a jailed Palestine Action protester and her family for financial punishment before she was ever convicted of a crime, according to a report out Wednesday from Novara Media.
The outlet reported that activist Leona "Ellie" Kamio had her account shuttered by Lloyds, a process known as "debanking," while she was being held on remand for her role in destroying Israeli military equipment at a factory owned by the technology firm Elbit Systems.
Ellie and four other activists were convicted of criminal damage earlier this year. But although a jury never convicted them of terrorism, they were sentenced as terrorists after a judge made an unprecedented ruling that their actions had a “terrorist connection," due to their political motivation. She and other members of the so-called "Filton Four" have appealed their sentences.
Ellie was held in prison on "remand" for more than 18 months before her first trial concluded in February 2026 although she was never charged with terrorism.
In February 2025, a year before her trial for criminal damage, Novara reports that Kamio was sent a letter by Lloyds informing her that it was closing her bank account because it was “unable to maintain a banking relationship." It did not give an explanation for the decision.
In June 2026, after Ellie had been convicted of criminal damage but before she was slapped with a terrorism sentence, her mother, Emma Kamio, learned that Lloyds had denied her request for a new mortgage on the commercial properties for her small business.
Lloyds made it clear that it was because of her daughter's case.
"We’ve now assessed the deal and consulted with our credit sanction team," a business development manager for the bank told Emma's mortgage broker. "Unfortunately, due to the adverse media, it’s not something they’re comfortable supporting at this time.”
When the broker offered an alternative plan to transfer the properties into her sister's ownership, Lloyds also rejected it.
Emma told Novara that she lost her properties as a result of Lloyds' decision. Her businesses, she said, "had to slip down the list of priorities as for the past two years, she's "spent every waking moment dealing with the trauma of my wrongful arrest or fighting for my daughter’s campaign and her release."
Emma was herself arrested in July 2025 after she locked herself to a suitcase outside Parliament to protest as members voted to enact the ban on Palestine Action. She was acquitted in April 2026.
"Thankfully, my drive for justice is more important to me than money," Emma said.
In the UK, banks are not allowed to cancel customers' accounts based on religion or belief. But they can be closed if the bank suspects a user is engaged in money laundering, terrorism financing, fraud, or other criminal activities that could pose a risk to the financial institution.
Emma contends that Lloyds "debanked my daughter Ellie with no reason at all, and while she was on remand and therefore innocent until proven guilty."
A spokesperson for Lloyds told Novara that the bank does not "close customer accounts or make lending decisions based on political or personal beliefs."
"Our decisions are based on relevant laws, regulations, account conditions, or lending requirements," the spokesperson said. "We’re unable to comment on individual cases.”
Anas Mustapha, the head of public advocacy at CAGE International, a UK-based organization focused on state abuses under terrorism laws, described the actions committed against Emma as “collective punishment."
"Emma Kamio has nothing to appeal against—just a bank’s discriminatory risk assessment, applied because her daughter took action to stop the supply chain of deadly weapons used in a genocide," Mustapha told Novara.
The highly controversial sentencing of Ellie and the rest of the "Filton Four" as terrorists was widely condemned by civil liberties and human rights activists, who described it as a dramatic escalation of the British government's effort to punish pro-Palestinian speech.
Last July, the Labour government of then-Prime Minister Keir Starmer used the Terrorism Act to ban Palestine Action, which has engaged in "direct action," including property destruction against entities activists believe are complicit in Israel's genocide in Gaza.
Not only is membership in the group now considered a terrorist offense, but nonviolent expressions of support for the group have also been criminalized.
Since the ban came into effect, 3,500 arrests of peaceful protesters have taken place across the country, according to Amnesty International, including more than 1,200 who've been charged with terrorism-related offenses.
Separately, official Home Office figures show that as of March, 92% of terrorism-related arrests in the UK over the previous year were linked to suspected support for Palestine Action.
Ellie and the other members of the Filton Four have defended their acts of sabotage against Israeli military equipment—including dozens of drones—as a justifiable response to Israel's destructive military campaign in Gaza.
That campaign, which many human rights organizations have described as a "genocide," has killed more than 73,000 Palestinians, including over 20,000 children, according to official tallies from the Gaza Ministry of Health, while independent analysts have argued the true death toll since October 2023 is much higher.
Elbit is one of the companies that provides much of Israel's drone fleet, which has been involved in attacks that have killed Palestinian civilians.
"Ellie was sentenced as a terrorist after she was convicted of criminal damage for destroying 40 Israeli weapons, including quadcopter drones," said Huda Ammori, one of the co-founders of Palestine Action, in a post on X. "For saving lives, she was deemed a terrorist, and her family is also being targeted."
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'Should Never Have Been an Option': Palestine Action Activists Won’t Be Sentenced as Terrorists
"It’s a victory for us, it’s a victory for Palestine, it’s a victory for protesting," said the mother of one Palestine Action activist.
Aug 21, 2026
Five Palestine Action activists who were convicted in June of vandalizing a Barclays bank in the UK will not be sentenced as terrorists.
As reported by Al Jazeera on Friday, Judge Robert Altham determined that the five defendants—Brendon O’Hagan, 28; Amanda Kelly, 31; Hmeera Atiqnisar, 31; Mohammed Malik, 28; and Alma Yaniv, 70—did not commit crimes that rose to the level of terrorism.
Instead, the judge said, they will be sentenced in September for criminal damage to the bank, which will carry significantly shorter prison sentences compared to a terrorism sentencing.
According to The Guardian, attorneys representing the defendants argued that their clients' Palestine Action membership should not influence a decision to sentence them on terrorism because the group wasn't proscribed as a terrorist organization until long after the vandalism took place.
The five activists were found guilty two months ago of causing damage exceeding £200,000 to the Barclays bank in Burnley, Lancashire in August 2024. Palestine Action activists across the UK targeted Barclays branches due to its investments in Elbit Systems, and Israeli defense technology firm.
The activists issued a joint statement after the ruling saying they were "extremely relieved" by the outcome, while emphasizing that a terrorism sentence should never have been under consideration.
"This should never have been an option,” they said. "We were on trial for charges of criminal damage, for damaging some windows and spraying red paint on a Barclays branch. At no point during the trial were we, or the jury, informed that, if convicted, we could face being sentenced as terrorists."
Supporters of the activists erupted in cheers outside the court after hearing the news. Dove Malik, mother of defendant Mohammed Malik, expressed relief in an interview with Al Jazeera.
"It’s a victory for us," said Malik, "it’s a victory for Palestine, it’s a victory for protesting."
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House Democrats Probe Use of Trump's NSPM-7 to Target 'Left-Leaning Political Groups'
"We are deeply troubled by public commitments to deploy the full force of the State and Treasury departments against loosely defined 'far-left networks' and their alleged 'enablers.'"
Aug 19, 2026
Dozens of Democrats in the US House of Representatives this week announced a congressional inquiry into the use of a widely decried memo from President Donald Trump to persecute "political dissent" and target "left-leaning political groups."
Democratic Reps. Jim McGovern (Mass.), Ayanna Pressley (Mass.), and Delia Ramirez (Ill.) revealed Tuesday that they, along with over 20 others, wrote to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent earlier this month to demand answers about the recent "Ministerial on the Resurgence of Political Terrorism" and directives under National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 (NSPM-7).
"Specifically, we are alarmed by the Department of State's new ideologically driven visa restriction policy and the Department of Treasury's pledged financial enforcement mechanisms directed against civil society," they wrote. "These policies dramatically escalate the administration's deliberate and targeted attempts to silence any person, organization, or institution critical of its policies and abuses of power on a global scale."
"We are deeply troubled by public commitments to deploy the full force of the State and Treasury departments against loosely defined 'far-left networks' and their alleged 'enablers' and urge you to immediately reverse course," the lawmakers continued. "Rather than relying on law enforcement data—which consistently identifies right-wing violent extremists and white supremacist organizations as the predominant domestic terrorism threat—this administration has instead taken actions that manufacture an ideological enemy."
The visa policy "bars foreign nationals from entry who 'finance, recruit, incite, or otherwise enable terrorist, violent, and criminal far-left terrorist networks' and defines 'far-left terrorist networks' as those with explicit aims to 'undermine the political foundations of free and self-governing societies,'" the letter details. "This rhetoric and policy embody the core characteristics of fascist statecraft—using the security apparatus of the state to repress and criminalize political opponents and dissenters rather than specific violent acts."
The letter notes the impacts of the administration's policies beyond the United States, warning that "seeking to export an ideological mandate to more than 65 countries creates a dangerous precedent that authoritarian governments will eagerly exploit to delegitimize and criminalize political dissent and justify their own crackdowns on peaceful opposition."
"Foreign nationals fleeing political persecution abroad—including persecution by governments that label peaceful dissidents 'leftist terrorists' to discredit them—may find themselves barred from the United States under the very same vague and subjective standard," the lawmakers wrote. "Expanding transnational intelligence-sharing under this ill-defined and hyper-politicized definition of violent extremism opens the door to transnational repression—including cross-border monitoring and harassment—of international activists, researchers, and political dissidents, as well as potentially any individual within their networks."
"We also risk fracturing critical alliances with governments whose own laws strictly protect political speech, civil liberties, and human rights—protections that these very policies are undermining here at home," the Democrats stressed.
The letter also calls out White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller's description of leftists as "the enemies of civilization" and a "cancer" that can "destroy a society," as well as Bessent's comparison of leftists to the Islamic State and al-Qaeda—when he said that "the unified front between international Marxism and the radical Islamic movement need not share the same ultimate vision to share the same immediate enemy of free and self-governing societies."
Rubio has similarly called leftists "the enemies of civilization" and recently faced criticism for a "McCarthyite" State Department report claiming that the Cuban government has, for decades, "infiltrated the highest reaches of the US government, recruited and cultivated generations of American activists, backed an unprecedented wave of left-wing terrorism on American soil, and carried out one of the most durable and damaging foreign intelligence penetrations in American history." The document is seen as a signal that Trump may deliver on his threat to try to take over the island nation by force.
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God No Longer Blesses War: Ask the Children
What if I were under the rubble right now? What if I had I just learned that my daughter is 12 years old again and the girls’ school she attended in Iran—in Minab—had just been bombed by an American plane?
Jul 06, 2026
Writing a column is like sitting atop a large hill, looking down lovingly—and angrily—at the surrounding world, embracing it in a moral perspective and sharing your analysis of what you see. Primarily, this means telling people what’s wrong.
Today, as I climbed up the hill—this is called research—something felt different, troubling. Where I used to feel enthusiasm, I felt hollow: bereft of self-confidence and certainty. I’ve been writing a weekly column for nearly half of my life, first at a local paper in Chicago for 10 years, then the current column, syndicated until recently by the Chicago Tribune, for the last 27 years. What’s going on here?
I was no longer atop that hill. Suddenly I had nothing to say. The doubt I was feeling—that I had anything relevant and valuable to add to our collective grasp of the world—overwhelmed me.
I had decided to write about what I almost always write about... war. Both current and eternal. Indeed, I had begun scrolling the internet, looking for provocative points of view. I googled the words “terrorism vs. waging war,” seeking to learn what I already knew: that the “official” world has declared a distinction between the two terms as definite as the distinction between “evil” and “good.”
Perhaps the flow of pain I felt was the realization that opposing war in relative safety is too easy. It’s not enough.
My first pop-up response was an AI Overview: “Terrorism and waging war differ fundamentally in their targets, legal frameworks, and combatants. Terrorism targets civilians to induce fear for political or ideological goals. Waging war is typically an armed conflict between states or organized groups, where lawful combatants target military objectives.”
Of course, of course. Terrorists represent evil, plain and simple. They kill real people, always for selfish reasons. But war is official. It’s state-sponsored and legal. It’s registered with God, for God’s sake. And while there’s always an evil side—the enemy—the winners, the good guys, are simply doing what they must. Civilization couldn’t have evolved without it. And that’s how we organize history: from one war to the next. This is the official understanding, which we’re spoon-fed as we grow up.
I see beyond this official certainty and have devoted my life to dismantling it. But the AI Overview explanation, seemingly such an easy target for my ruthless analysis, had an unexpected effect. I felt stabbed with a sense of depression so sharp I could hardly move, let alone write. All I could do was go back to bed, cover my head with my pillow, I wanted to hide.
But the emotional pain didn’t stop. It continued piercing me. I got back up. I saw no relief. I was terrified that old age had set in. Oh my God, am I too old to write anymore (a month and a half away from age 80)? I was ready to give up, blow the column off... spend the rest of the day secretly crying.
Instead, I started writing—cluelessly. I had no idea where my words might go. I was no longer atop a hill. I didn’t know where I was. But an awareness started clutching me. What if I were under the rubble right now? What if I had I just learned that my daughter is 12 years old again and the girls’ school she attended in Iran—in Minab—had just been bombed by an American plane?
A hole had suddenly opened in my life. No, those imaginings aren’t real—not for me—but they are for some of us. Perhaps the flow of pain I felt was the realization that opposing war in relative safety is too easy. It’s not enough. And beyond the realization is simply a dark emptiness. I had nowhere to go. I couldn’t even cry.
All I can do, right now, is reach deeper into my soul, to bless every human I encounter, and to publicly share the largest cry I can make for change. The cry tears loose from a poem I wrote a decade ago, which I also shared in a column I sent out last December. It’s called “The Gods Get in Touch with Their Feminine Side:”
I stroke the unknown,
the dark silence, the
soul of a mother. I
pray, if that’s what
prayer is: to stir the certainties of
pride and flag and brittle
God, to stir
the hollow lost.
I pray open
the big craters
and trenches of
obedience and manhood.
Now is the time
to cherish the apple,
to touch the wound and love even
the turned cheeks and bullet tips,
to swaddle anew
the helpless future
and know
and not know
what happens next.
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'Travesty of Justice': UK Appeals Court Slammed for Upholding Ban on Palestine Action
"Classifying protest through direct action as terrorism brings Parliament and our judicial system into disrepute," said one Labour MP.
Jun 15, 2026
A UK appeals court is being accused of flouting the law to allow the government to suppress free speech after it upheld a ban on the direct action group Palestine Action.
Just days after four young activists with the group were hit with unprecedented “terrorism” sentences over their 2024 vandalism of an Israeli-owned weapons facility that was being used to supply the genocidal assault on Gaza, the Court of Appeal in London on Monday upheld the Labour government’s proscription of Palestine Action under the Terrorism Act of 2000.
The ban was approved in Parliament in July 2025 and outlawed expressions of support for the group. According to Amnesty International, more than 3,300 people have been arrested across Britain since last July "simply for their engagement in acts of peaceful protest opposing the proscription"—including more than 2,000 who have been arrested simply for holding signs that read "I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action.”
Outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London, where the decision was handed down, hundreds more Britons rallied in opposition.
“We acknowledge the Court of Appeal’s judgment that the home secretary’s decision to proscribe Palestine Action was lawful,” the Metropolitan Police said in a statement shortly after. “This means that expressing support for the organization remains a criminal offense, and officers will arrest those who break the law.”
“Officers are policing a protest outside the Royal Courts of Justice today where a number of people are displaying placards in support of Palestine Action," it continued. "Arrests are underway.”
Protesters were carried away, while onlookers shouted, “Shame” and “You’re complicit” at officers.
Arrests continue outside the Royal Courts of Justice after Court of Appeal find proscription of Palestine Action to be lawful.
We will continue to protest this Government’s embarrassing attempts to cover up its crimes with intimidation tactics.
Join us: https://t.co/XhFvPsZC3U pic.twitter.com/9okcFkVVtf
— Defend Our Juries (@DefendOurJuries) June 15, 2026
As The New York Times pointed out:
Palestine Action, which no longer exists in its original form, did not promote violence against individuals. But its members damaged sites linked to Elbit Systems, an Israeli weapons manufacturer, and last June broke into [Royal Air Force] Brize Norton, Britain’s largest air force base, in Oxfordshire, vandalizing two aircraft.
The activists who were given hefty sentences on Friday have argued that “innocent lives were saved” by their destruction of military equipment in the Elbit facility. Drones manufactured by the company have been documented in use during attacks on civilians, including the April 2024 strike on a World Central Kitchen convoy that killed seven aid workers.
But although members of the group have never been accused of any premeditated act of violence against other human beings, the British government’s terror designation puts it on the same level, legally speaking, as al-Qaeda, the Taliban, or the neo-Nazi Atomwaffen Division, and expressions of support can carry maximum sentences of 14 years in prison.
In February, the High Court sided with Palestine Action, ruling that the ban on support breached the rights to free expression and assembly under Articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights.
However, a five-judge appeals court panel overruled this decision on Monday, with Chief Justice Sue Carr writing that while the ban was “highly controversial,” and that the group “was supported by many otherwise law-abiding citizens,” it was a “fundamental mistake to overlook the fact that Palestine Action overtly promoted unlawful violence amounting to terrorism.”
Pointing to its sabotage of Elbit, she said the group's actions were “intended to close down lawful businesses” and said that "future threats and risks posed to third-party individuals and property by Palestine Action were perhaps the most important factors to weigh in the balance.”
Carr said that the ban would "not prevent public expressions of support for the Palestinian cause or opposition to Israel and to the Israel Defense Forces, or demonstrations targeted at Elbit."
But in the process, even she acknowledged that such a severe restriction on peaceful assembly in support of Palestine Action could indeed have a "chilling effect" on otherwise law-abiding citizens and cause them to be "deterred from assembling lawfully or making their strongly held anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian views public for fear of their actions being construed as support for Palestine Action."
Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori, who challenged the ban in court, said her group would "fight this all the way" and planned to appeal to the UK Supreme Court and potentially even the European Court of Human Rights.
"We will not stop fighting to overturn one of the most extreme attacks on free speech and the right to protest in modern British history," she said. "This unprecedented abuse of power has devastated the lives of thousands of people while silencing dissent over Israel’s slaughter of the Palestinian people during the genocide, when that dissent could not be more urgent.”
Today's ruling by the Court of Appeal is deeply disappointing.
This case remains about much more than one group.
What’s important for all of us to understand is that proscription is one of the strongest powers the government has.
Treating protest as terrorism leaves the… pic.twitter.com/WI3O05LYEn
— Amnesty UK (@AmnestyUK) June 15, 2026
The ruling was met with outrage from supporters of Palestinian rights and human rights groups.
Ammar Kazmi, the senior legal coordinator for the Derby-based Left Legal Fighting Fund, said that with this ruling, the judges allowed the political objective of criminalizing pro-Palestine speech to take precedence over the law.
"The judges allowed policy reasons to override strictly legal arguments, and they showed deference to ‘national security’ questions," he wrote on social media. "They also said that proscription is a ‘proportionate’ interference with free speech rights. In other words, they allowed the government to ride roughshod over the law."
Amnesty UK called the ruling "deeply disappointing," adding that the case "remains about much more than one group."
"What’s important for all of us to understand is that proscribing a group as a terrorist organization is one of the strongest powers the government has," the human rights group said. "The banning of Palestine Action as a terrorist organization is a grave misuse of counterterrorism powers with serious consequences for human rights."
Former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn—whose successor, Prime Minister Keir Starmer—enacted the ban, said, "Today’s ruling to uphold the UK government's proscription of Palestine Action is a travesty of justice."
"One by one, the very foundations of our democracy are being destroyed—all to oil the wheels of British complicity in genocide," said Corbyn, who is leading an unofficial "tribunal" that presented evidence of UK participation in Israel's assault on Gaza to the International Criminal Court in March.
Noting the large number of pensioners who have been hauled off by police for holding protest signs opposing the ban—including dozens arrested on Friday for opposing the sentencing of those involved in the Elbit raid—Labour MP John McDonnell said, "Parliament should reverse the decision to proscribe Palestine Action urgently before we see large numbers of elderly people in particular being dragged before our courts."
He added that "classifying protest through direct action as terrorism brings Parliament and our judicial system into disrepute."
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UK Palestine Action Activists Hit With ‘Completely Disproportionate’ Terrorism Sentences for Israeli Weapons Sabotage
Amnesty UK said the defendants "were sentenced as terrorists because prosecutors want to make an example of them."
Jun 12, 2026
In a decision that Amnesty International described as "completely disproportionate," four demonstrators with the outlawed group Palestine Action were sentenced as terrorists in the UK on Friday after being convicted for causing damage at an Israeli weapons factory in 2024 to protest the genocide in Gaza.
Supporters of the so-called "Filton 4" were filmed crying and embracing outside Woolwich Crown Court in London as the judge, Mr Justice Jeremy Johnson, handed down sentences ranging from four years and eight months to seven years and eight months to the four young defendants.
Charlotte Head, 30; Leona Kamio, 30; and Fatema Rajwani, 21, were convicted of criminal damage last month after a break-in at a factory in Bristol owned by the Israeli company Elbit Systems, where they smashed up over a dozen drones and other military equipment, causing around £1.2 million, or $1.6 million, of damage.
A fourth defendant, 23-year-old Samuel Corner, was also convicted for the damage, as well as grievous bodily harm without intent for striking a policewoman on the scene with a sledgehammer, fracturing her spine.
🇬🇧 🇵🇸 Four Palestine Action Activists Sentenced as ‘Terrorists’ in UK Legal First
Four activists who raided an Elbit Systems arms factory near Bristol in 2024 were sentenced as “terrorists” Friday at Woolwich Crown Court, in what supporters said is the first time UK protesters… pic.twitter.com/gC4MvAXfz4
— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) June 12, 2026
In what has been described as a legal first for Britain, Johnson sentenced the four defendants as terrorists, although three had only been convicted of property damage. He did so under the Sentencing Act of 2020, which allows nonterrorism crimes to be treated as terrorism if they meet certain criteria.
Elbit's drones have been documented in use during attacks on civilians, including the April 2024 strike on a World Central Kitchen convoy that killed seven aid workers.
Last month, 22-year-old Zoe Rogers, another activist who took part in the Elbit raid but was acquitted, said she believed that because of their sabotage of the drones, "innocent lives were saved" in Gaza.
However, Johnson did not allow the defendants to explain the reason for their actions as part of the trial, nor were jurors informed that the defendants could later receive sentences for terrorism.
Because the protesters had caused “serious damage to property” for the purpose of “advancing a political or ideological cause,” Johnson determined that the protesters could be sentenced as terrorists using the broad definition from the Terrorism Act 2000.
The terrorism designation means that defendants will have to serve a minimum of two-thirds of their sentences in prison and will be required to register as terrorists with the police for the next 15 years.
Attorneys for the defendants said they were not informed that their clients were at risk of being sentenced for terrorism and accused the prosecution of submitting key evidence, including a report on the cost of damage to the factory, “at the 59th minute of the eleventh hour," giving them little time to form a rebuttal.
The defendants’ attorneys described the precedent that someone could be sentenced for terrorism after being convicted of a nonviolent offense as unprecedented and dangerous to speech.
“It’s wrong for someone to be sentenced for a more serious offense of which they have not been convicted,” said Corner's attorney, Tom Wainwright, who noted that similar measures could have been used to sentence earlier protest movements, like the suffragettes or other anti-war demonstrators who sabotaged military equipment, for terrorism simply because their actions had a political motivation.
Head's attorney, Rajiv Menon, described the attempt to sentence his client as unprecedented, and warned that it was “an invitation to chilling, creeping authoritarianism that undermines the very fabric of our society."
After their conviction, Wainwright hailed the protesters as people of conscience: "[The drones] may have been involved in taking the lives of men, women, and children in Gaza. That is why they acted. That’s something that—in a sane world—would be commended.”
In a post to social media following news of the conviction, Amnesty UK condemned the use of terrorism powers in this case.
"It is completely disproportionate to punish protesters for criminal damage as if they were terrorists, a sentence which stays with you for life," the human rights group said.
More than 70 people were arrested for supporting the proscribed group Palestine Action outside Woolwich Crown Court.
The arrests happened as four members of Palestine Action were sentenced over a separate incident. pic.twitter.com/kRkXEjbPFm
— Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) June 12, 2026
The sentencing comes amid a broader crackdown in the UK against pro-Palestine speech and protest that has ramped up even under a Labour government, which has sought to label even peaceful demonstrations as terrorism.
Following another case in which Palestine Action protesters vandalized military equipment—this time on a UK Royal Air Force base—the government of Prime Minister Keir Starmer in 2025 used the same terrorism law cited by Johnson to label the group as proscribed, effectively making it illegal to belong to it or publicly support it.
Police have arrested numerous peaceful protesters for no other crime than holding signs that read: "I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action."
Amnesty said in May that more than 3,300 people had been arrested across the UK since the proscription took effect and that more than 1,200 protesters had been charged with terrorism-related offenses.
Eight other Palestine Action activists, including four others who have been accused of involvement with the Elbit break-in, went on a lengthy hunger strike this past winter to protest their confinement in prison for more than a year without trial, during which time they alleged that they were denied needed medical care and had their communication with the outside world censored.
Amnesty said the Filton 4 "were sentenced as terrorists because prosecutors want to make an example of them."
On Friday, as hundreds rallied outside the court against the terrorism sentence, more than 100 peaceful protesters were also arrested for allegedly supporting Palestine Action.
Video of one of the arrests, published by Channel 4 News, shows police officers lifting an elderly woman by her arms and legs and dragging her away from a larger group of people holding signs.
"You're under arrest under Section 13 of the Terrorism Act," one officer is heard saying.
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Report Details How Post-9/11 Legal Policies Laid Groundwork for Trump 'Terrorizing Migrants'
A legal expert explores how the administration is "weaponizing the law... to effectuate a widespread harassment and mass deportation campaign that is more akin to ethnic cleansing than routine immigration enforcement."
May 05, 2026
President Donald Trump's taxpayer-funded mass deportation campaign has tormented communities across the country with militarized federal agents, killed immigrants and US citizens alike, abused demonstrators and detainees of all ages, and sparked fears of an expansive effort to strip citizenship from Americans.
The "Terrorizing Migrants" report released Tuesday by the Costs of War Project at Brown University's Watson School of International and Public Affairs details how Trump's xenophobic campaign reflects "specific law and policy options created and strengthened among all three branches of the US government, on a bipartisan basis, since 9/11."
"These law and policy options place heightened unchecked discretionary authority within the administration, and are particularly ripe for abuse against noncitizen persons of color by immigration authorities, law enforcement agents, and other executive branch officials," wrote Widener University Delaware Law School assistant professor Elizabeth Beavers, author of the report.
The publication focuses on five key post-9/11 precedents borrowed from the "War on Terror," though it acknowledges that "the Trump administration is relying on laws and policies far beyond those described in this paper to effectuate its broader anti-immigrant agenda, and justifying much of it in national security language."
The first of the five precedents is "conflation of immigration enforcement and counterterrorism." The report recalls that after the 2001 terrorist attacks, the Federal Bureau of Investigation "orchestrated a mass investigation" that "exclusively targeted Arab, Muslim, and South Asian immigrants in a dragnet roundup, subjecting them to secretive detention at locations inside the US," and holding many of them "for weeks or even months without any charges at all."
Beavers also pointed to the George W. Bush administration's launch of the National Security Entry and Exit Registration System, as well as the creation of the US Department of Homeland Security and the placement of Immigration and Customs Enforcement within DHS. ICE and Customs and Border Protection agents have been key to Trump's campaign.
The Muslim ban from Trump's first term "built upon the structures that came before it, but greatly expanded legal presumptions that people of particular races, religions, and nationalities carry inherent danger," Beavers wrote. His second term policies have "extended this precedent to its logical conclusion by framing migration itself as terrorism. And nearly 25 years after its post-9/11 creation, ICE has been unleashed and empowered to roam American streets, snatching and disappearing people they perceive as unlawfully present, often based solely on race, and often without verifying their immigration status."
The second precedent Beavers explored is "expanded and politicized 'terrorist' designation lists." She noted Trump's invasion of Venezuela and abduction of its president, Nicolás Maduro, as well as his boat-bombing spree allegedly targeting drug traffickers in international waters.
The expert also dove into "deporting people as 'terrorists' without proving actual violent conduct," flagging Trump's "reverse migration" pledge after an Afghan man allegedly shot two National Guard members in Washington, DC, along with the administration's decision to "hold and review" asylum applications for people from "high-risk" countries.
That review, she warned, "could result in mass removal from the country of 'terrorist' noncitizens who involuntarily paid money to cartels at some point in their lives, whose family remittances have crossed hands with cartel-controlled actors, who have family members or other connections to a designated cartel but no involvement themselves, or who have unwillingly been pressed into service of a cartel at some point."
Much gratitude to @costsofwar.bsky.social for publishing my newest paper, highlighting how legal tools that started as post-9/11 counterterrorism abuses are now being weaponized further for Trump's anti-immigrant agenda:
[image or embed]
— Elizabeth Beavers (@elizabethrb.bsky.social) May 5, 2026 at 10:49 AM
The fourth precedent examined in the analysis is "indefinite detention, torture, and rendition of noncitizens." Beavers began the section with the detention camp at US Naval Station Guantánamo Bay in Cuba, which she called "perhaps one of the most notorious features of the US government's post-9/11 'War on Terror.'"
"It is both a place where every post-9/11 president has detained Muslim men in connection with the post-9/11 counterterrorism wars, but it is also a place where unauthorized migrants are sometimes held," she wrote. "More than 700 migrants have been sent to and from Guantánamo in President Trump's second term, detained there by ICE with support from the military."
The expert also highlighted Trump's deportation of hundreds of men to El Salvador's infamous Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT)—based on often dubious claims that they belonged to the gang Tren de Aragua, which the president designated as a terrorist organization—as well as the "practice of disappearing people into secretive immigration detention" within the United States, and reports indicating that "abusive treatment in those facilities may amount to unlawful torture."
The final precedent Beavers explored is the "anti-democratic concentration of executive national security powers." She wrote that "the second Trump administration has made prompt use of this latitude" from federal courts since 9/11.
"This has included: manipulating the 'terrorist' designation lists in novel ways to include drug cartels without needing court approval, which has expanded the scope of people who can be deported as 'terrorists'; claiming a maximalist version of its immigration powers, daring courts to intervene; invoking the state secrets privilege to avoid accountability in cases challenging its deportation orders; and indefinitely detaining and torturing migrants," Beavers continued. "They have taken each of these actions without fear they will be meaningfully held accountable in court."
Based on her review, the professor concluded that "indisputably, administration officials are weaponizing the law in new and particularly indefensible ways to effectuate a widespread harassment and mass deportation campaign that is more akin to ethnic cleansing than routine immigration enforcement."
"Neither Congress nor the courts have meaningfully checked presidents or held them accountable for their expansive and spurious claims of war authorities, national security powers, and counterterrorism mechanisms to justify harmful and discriminatory practices against noncitizens and especially against people of color," she stressed. "In these and many other ways, US policymakers on a bipartisan basis built and sharpened the legal weapons that President Trump is now utilizing against immigrants."
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Cuba Says Men on Florida Boat 'Intended to Carry Out an Infiltration for Terrorist Purposes'
The Cuban Interior Ministry said it detained seven people involved in the plot, including one who "had allegedly been sent from the United States to facilitate the landing and reception of the armed group."
Feb 26, 2026
The Cuban government said Wednesday that the men on a Florida-registered boat who opened fire on Cuban soldiers in the island's territorial waters were bent on carrying out "an infiltration for terrorist purposes."
In a statement following news that Cuban forces had killed four people on the boat, the besieged Caribbean nation's Interior Ministry said the vessel was carrying 10 men, all "Cuban nationals residing in the United States."
The ministry said it seized assault rifles, explosives, body armor, and other items from the boat and identified seven of its passengers, six of whom were detained. Four men on the boat—which, according to reports, was last purchased in 2022—were killed in the gunfight with Cuban soldiers, who had reportedly "approached the vessel for identification."
Cuban authorities also said another individual, Duniel Hernández Santos, was arrested "within national territory." The Interior Ministry said Santos "had allegedly been sent from the United States to facilitate the landing and reception of the armed group and has confessed to his role."
"The investigation remains ongoing until all facts have been fully established," the ministry said.
Participants in Foiled Armed Infiltration in Villa Clara Identified
As part of the ongoing investigation into the armed attack against a patrol vessel of the Border Guard Troops of the Ministry of the Interior, in the northeastern area of the El Pino channel, at Cayo Falcones,… pic.twitter.com/s9IFmUkqvk
— Cuban Embassy in US (@EmbaCubaUS) February 26, 2026
The deadly incident came as Cuba continued to reel from the Trump administration's recent intensification of decades-long economic warfare against the island. The administration is "actively seeking regime change in Cuba," according to Wall Street Journal reporting from last month.
Wednesday's incident called to the minds of observers past efforts, backed by the US, to topple the Cuban government, from the failed Bay of Pigs invasion to Operation Mongoose.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants, denied that any American government personnel were involved in the incident and said it was under investigation.
"We're going to find out exactly what happened here, and then we'll respond accordingly," said Rubio, a longtime supporter of regime change in Cuba. "It is highly unusual to see shootouts in open sea like that. It's not something that happens every day. It's something, frankly, that hasn't happened with Cuba in a very long time."
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Nonviolent Climate Activist Group Says It's Been Targeted by FBI 'Terrorism' Task Force
"This is an escalation against the climate movement as a whole, and the next phase of this administration's crackdown on dissent," said Extinction Rebellion.
Feb 18, 2026
As the Trump administration broadens its efforts to criminalize dissent, a nonviolent climate advocacy group says the FBI is targeting it with a terrorism investigation.
Using a dubious legal designation of "domestic terrorism," the US Department of Justice (DOJ) has ramped up its efforts to surveil those it considers to be domestic enemies—including members of left-wing groups with no history of violence.
The New York City chapter of the group Extinction Rebellion said one of its former members came into the crosshairs earlier this month.
In a statement on Wednesday, the group said that a former member was visited by two special agents, one of whom was from the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Forces, at their residence 200 miles outside New York City.
They said the agents asked about their involvement with Extinction Rebellion. The member declined to respond, referring the questions to their attorney.
The former member, who has chosen to remain anonymous, told the Intercept that they hadn't been involved with the group in two years and hadn't participated in any actions they thought would warrant FBI involvement.
“I believe this to be a significant escalation of the criminal legal system against Extinction Rebellion and find it very troubling,” Ron Kuby, an attorney for Extinction Rebellion, said. “This is usually the way we find out an actual investigation is underway and is often followed by other visits and other actions.”
He said he found it strange that Extinction Rebellion would become the target of a terrorism investigation. Members of the group take part in acts of what they call "nonviolent civil disobedience" such as blocking roads, sit-ins at public buildings, and occasional vandalism.
The group has sought to use these tactics to draw attention to leaders' inaction in fighting the climate crisis. Increasingly, they have launched protests against the Trump administration's policies more broadly, including its deployment of federal immigration agents in cities across the country.
While its actions can be disruptive, Extinction Rebellion has always been nonviolent, Kuby said, and its tactics are at worst misdemeanor offenses, which typically wouldn't interest federal law enforcement.
"[Extinction Rebellion NYC] is a nonviolent, decentralized group of artists, small business owners, parents, retired teachers, and everyday New Yorkers. We are not terrorists!" said a statement from Extinction Rebellion Global posted to social media on Tuesday. "We use artistic nonviolent organized protests, community outreach, and strategic advocacy to empower everyday citizens and drive meaningful environmental change."
"This is an escalation against the climate movement as a whole, and the next phase of this administration's crackdown on dissent that many of us have been expecting," the group continued.
The New York City chapter of Extinction Rebellion is not the first to receive FBI visits during the second Trump administration.
Last year, six members of its sister group in Boston said the feds came to their doors, all on the same day in March, and questioned them without providing any business cards or explanation for their visit.
According to WBUR reporting at the time, none of the activists questioned had a history of participating in violent protests or of facing felony charges in federal or Massachusetts courts.
Jeff Feuer, a lawyer in Cambridge who has represented climate activists for more than three decades, told the outlet, “Until this year, I have never heard about the FBI or any other federal law enforcement officer visiting or questioning any of the hundreds of climate activists that I have personally represented."
After months of denial, US Attorney General Pam Bondi acknowledged during a contentious House Judiciary Committee hearing earlier this month that the department does, in fact, have a list of "domestic terrorist organizations" being compiled under President Donald Trump’s National Security Presidential Memorandum 7, which was described as a national directive to use the Joint Terrorism Task Forces to focus on “leftist” political violence in America.
That memo, commonly referred to as NSPM-7, was first obtained by independent journalist Ken Klippenstein in September. It laid out a national strategy to “disrupt” individuals or groups that "foment political violence" before it takes place.
NSPM-7 described many vaguely defined political viewpoints as potential "indicators" that one is a possible domestic terorrist, including: "anti-Americanism," "anti-capitalism," and "Anti-Christianity"; "extremism" on "migration," "race," and "gender"; and "hostility to those who hold traditional views" on "family," "religion," and "morality."
In another memo that leaked in December, Bondi—who just months before pledged under oath there would “never be an enemies list” compiled by the DOJ—directed the department to compile a list of potential “domestic terrorism” organizations that espouse “extreme viewpoints on immigration, radical gender ideology, and anti-American sentiment.”
It directs federal law enforcement agencies to refer "suspected" domestic terrorism cases to the Joint Terrorism Task Forces, which will then undertake an “exhaustive investigation contemplated by NSPM-7” that will incorporate “a focused strategy to root out all culpable participants—including organizers and funders—in all domestic terrorism activities.”
During the hearing, Bondi refused to say which groups and entities were on the list of so-called "domestic terrorists," though she acknowledged it existed, saying, "I know antifa is part of that."
Trump designated "antifa," referring to a loose confederation of antifascist groups, as a "domestic terrorist organization" in October, even though there is no formal "domestic terrorism" statute in US law.
It is unclear whether a formal federal investigation into Extinction Rebellion is underway or if it is part of NSPM-7.
An internal document shared with the Guardian in November revealed that the FBI had launched “criminal and domestic terrorism investigations” into “threats against immigration enforcement activity” in at least 23 regions across the US—including New York. It acknowledged that some of the investigations were related to the "countering domestic terrorism" memo.
"'Domestic terrorism' may not yet be a criminal charge, but the Trump administration is gearing up to create it," Extinction Rebellion NYC said on Wednesday. "NSPM-7... will be the broadest criminalization of free speech since McCarthyism or the height of the Civil Rights Movement. And while this fossil-fueled administration has already failed in some attempts to silence critics, we understand the broader context within which our specific activities sit."
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