THE High Court will rule on whether the legal challenge to Home Secretary Yvette Cooper’s ban on Palestine Action should proceed to a full hearing today.

Ms Cooper proscribed the direct action group after members broke into RAF Brize Norton and sprayed paint on two refuelling planes in protest against Britain’s complicity in the Gaza genocide.

The ban makes membership of, or support for, the group punishable by up to 14 years in prison.

Since it came into force on July 5, over 200 people have been arrested under the Terrorism Act, mostly for holding signs reading “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.”

On Friday, UN Human Rights chief Volker Turk stated that the ban “appears to constitute an impermissible restriction on rights [to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association] that is at odds with the UK’s obligations under international human rights law.”

Police forces’ response to the protests has varied, with units in Scotland, Derry and Devon opting not to arrest sign-holders.

In June, ahead of the proscription, the Times published an article that began: “Iran could be funding Palestine Action, Home Office officials claimed.”

But the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (JTAC), operated under MI5, had already written in a report in March that the group “is primarily funded by donations, which can be made directly through their website or via crowdfunding,” Declassified UK revealed.

A Defend Our Juries spokesperson said: “Yvette Cooper has no-one to blame for this crisis but herself.

“She was warned by her advisers that the ban would be ‘novel and unprecedented,’ which is Whitehall-speak for ‘mad.’

“If it wasn’t the intelligence agencies pushing for the ban, who was it, and whose interests were they serving? The Home Office attempted to mislead Parliament with false insinuations that Palestine Action was funded by Iran, which it knew to be groundless.”

Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori launched the challenge against the proscription earlier this month.

Appearing on her behalf in High Court on July 21, Raza Husain KC argued that the decision to ban the group had the hallmarks of a “blatant abuse of power.”