SENIOR law professors signed an open letter in support of Palestine Action as the Court of Appeal began hearing a government bid to keep the direct action group banned under terror laws today.

More than 1,700 people, including legal scholars at Britain’s most prestigious universities, signed the letter, stating: “We oppose genocide, we support Palestine Action” before it was handed to judges.

More than 3,300 people have been arrested under the Terrorism Act for displaying the same message in cardboard signs in demonstrations organised by Defend Our Juries since the Home Office proscribed the group last July.

The High Court ruled the ban was unlawful in February, finding it “disproportionate” and had a “very significant” impact on human rights, but allowed it to remain in place until the conclusion of a Home Office appeal.

Penny Green, professor of law and globalisation at Queen Mary University of London, was among those who signed the letter.

She said: “It is both indefensible and revealing that peaceful protesters opposing genocide are being branded as terrorists while the Labour government, itself complicit in Israel’s state terror, avoids all accountability.”

Neve Gordon, professor of international law at Queen Mary University of London, who also signed it, said: “Instead of meeting its legal obligations as set by the Genocide Convention and international humanitarian law, Keir Starmer’s government has been providing military and diplomatic support to Israel as it perpetrates atrocity crimes while simultaneously silencing the messenger by proscribing Palestine Action as a terrorist group. 

“The decision to appeal the ruling rendering the proscription unlawful is yet another sign of the government’s moral bankruptcy.”

Lady Chief Justice Baroness Carr said today that she had been sent a letter during the hearing’s lunch break, but added: “We propose to ignore the document completely for the purposes of this hearing but felt it right to draw attention to events that have happened.”

In written submissions, Sir James Eadie KC, for the government, said that the High Court’s findings as to the interference of the ban on human rights were “overstated and wrong.”

Palestine Action’s co-founder Huda Ammori, who challenged the ban and is opposing the appeal, urged the Court of Appeal to “bring this dystopian abuse of power to an end.”

The hearing is due to conclude on Thursday.