UK counter terror police said Friday they had made a string of arrests after activists from the soon-to-be banned campaign group Palestine Action broke into an air force base and damaged two planes.
Activists broke into RAF Brize Norton in southern England last week. A video released by the group showed two of them spraying a plane with red paint while roaming the base on scooters.
The incident prompted the government to announce on Monday that it would lay a draft order before parliament next week to ban the group under Britain's Terrorism Act 2000.
A woman aged 29 and two men aged 36 and 24 had been arrested "on suspicion of the commission, preparation or instigation of acts of terrorism", Counter Terrorism Policing South East said in a statement
A 41-year-old woman had also been held "on suspicion of assisting an offender", it added.
Police said the arrests were in connection with the incident in the early hours of last Friday in which damage was caused to two aircraft at RAF Brize Norton.
The proposed ban will make it a criminal offence to belong to or support Palestine Action, punishable by up to 14 years in prison.
The group has condemned the move as an attack on free speech and an "unhinged reaction".
Announcing the clamp-down, interior minister Yvette Cooper listed other attacks by Palestine Action at the Thales defence factory in Glasgow in 2022, and two last year against Instro Precision in Kent, southeast England, and Israel-based Elbit Systems in Bristol, in the country's southwest.
"Such incidents do not represent legitimate or peaceful protest," Cooper said.
Palestine Action condemned the arrests accusing the government of being "in the pocket of the weapons companies arming Israel's war crimes".
"Proscribing Palestine Action is a political gesture to satisfy pro-Israel groups and arms companies who have been lobbying for us to be banned because we're hitting their profits and having a real impact on Israel's war machine," a spokesperson said on X.
har/aks/phz
THALES
Elbit Systems
