The UK “maintains our view” that Hamas is a terror organisation after a shock legal challenge under human rights laws. The Palestinian militant group has instructed British lawyers to challenge its proscription as a terror organisation, arguing it was a “political” decision by former Home Secretary Dame Priti Patel. They are using the European Convention on Human Rights to challenge the designation, claiming the ban breaches Hamas supporters’ human rights under the ECHR by “unlawfully restricting” their freedom of speech and rights to protest.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said: “Hamas is a terrorist organisation. It was a barbaric terrorist attack on October the seventh in Israel, and Hamas has long been a terrorist organisation and banned in the UK.
“We maintain our view about the barbaric nature of this organisation.”
Riverway Law said on Wednesday: “Today, Fahad Ansari of Riverway Law launches an important legal application to Yvette Cooper MP to end the ban on the organisation Harakat al-Muqawwamah al-Islamiyyah (Hamas).”
But Shadow Foreign Secretary Dame Priti Patel said: “Hamas is 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.
“Those campaigning to end the proscription of Hamas fail to understand the seriousness of the threats and danger this terrorist organisation poses.
“Eighteen months ago, Hamas carried out the worst terror attack in Israel’s history and the most murderous pogrom against the Jewish people since the Holocaust.
“It continues to hold 59 innocent hostages in cruel captivity. Nobody should be in any doubt about the true nature and intentions of Hamas.”
Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp blasted: “Hamas is a despicable terrorist organisation who deliberately organised and carried out mass murder, rape and kidnap of innocent children, women and men on October 7, 2023.
“They are responsible for many terrorist atrocities and brutally oppressing the people of Gaza. They should be proscribed, and this legal claim should be dismissed.
“The fact that lawyers are seriously arguing our weak human rights laws could be twisted to protect murderous terrorists shows why these laws are no longer fit for purpose.
“Human rights laws should protect our citizens – not foreign criminals and possibly even terrorists.”
Announcing the action, Riverway Law claimed: “The right to resist occupation, apartheid and genocide is firmly entrenched in international law.
“Like them or loathe them, Hamas is the manifestation of the Palestinian resistance.
“By banning it, Britain is effectively denying Palestinians the right to defend themselves against extermination.”
It also claims it is disproportionate as it claims Hamas poses “no threat to the UK people” and that banning it breaches Britain’s obligations under international law to be “not complicit in a genocide”.
Ms Cooper has 90 days to respond to Hamas’s application.
Under section 4 of the Terrorism Act, any group proscribed as a terrorist organisation can appeal to remove its name from the government’s list of banned organisations.
