Speak up

A voice is missing in the debate on whether Palestine Action should be banned as a terrorist group – a voice that speaks for freedom of expression. Yvette Cooper, who as home secretary proscribed the group, said proscription would not interfere with free speech, but it has. It is designed to. The lawyers who appealed on PA’s behalf to the supreme court last week said they did so on behalf of free speech, but their priority is the Palestinian cause.

Democracies can thread their way through complex questions that bear on the way voters live only if all but the most inflammatory voices get a hearing. Last month we said the Green Party should be green with shame for approving a motion to the effect that Zionism is racism. It isn’t. You can support Israel and the idea of Israel without supporting its government. But you can also support freedom of information and a calibrated judgment on the balance between that and public safety without being labelled a terrorist or terrorist sympathiser.

In publishing an interview with Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori , we seek to draw attention to the test case on free expression that she has brought to the supreme court. We’re publishing a new poem by Ben Okri on “informal censorship” for the same reason. Cooper struck the wrong balance between rights and safety. If the courts cannot redress that balance, her fellow politicians should. A question of responsibility Five years ago, Philip Mawer was working on a construction project for the French company TotalEnergies in Mozambique when the hotel where he was staying was surrounded by Islamist insurgents.

The company made little effort to rescue him or others trapped in the hotel compound. He tried to break out in a convoy but was killed by a rocket-propelled grenade. In September, Mawer’s two brothers hoped for a verdict of corporate manslaughter at an inquest in Winchester. They were disappointed. TotalEnergies barely engaged in the process, the coroner recorded a bland verdict of unlawful killing and the company produced a press release claiming to have been cleared of any responsibility for Mawer’s death.

How wide should a coroner cast the net of truth? If corporate accountability means anything, much wider. Photograph by Toby Shepheard / AFP / Getty Images Related articles: Palestine Action ready to go to European court of human rights if UK government upholds ban Huda Ammori: ‘It was beyond our comprehension that Palestine Action could become a terrorist organisation’ Human rights Leaders Terrorism Yvette Cooper Palestine Action