A British law firm has launched a legal application on behalf of Hamas appealing against the UK government’s decision to designate it as a terror group claiming the ruling breaches the European Convention on Human Rights.
Riverway Law, a legal firm based in London, has been instructed to launch legal action in a bid to remove it from a Home Office list of terrorist organisations, under the Terrorism Act 2000.
The legal action claims that proscription is contrary to the “duties of the British state” to “end genocide”, and that it unlawfully restricts freedom of speech and is disproportionate as Hamas “does not pose any threat to Britain or British citizens”.
The challenge is being led by Fahad Ansari, the director of Riverway Law. He is being assisted by Daniel Grütters, a barrister at One Pump Court Chambers and Franck Magennis, a barrister at Garden Court Chambers.
The 106-page application claims the group’s proscription is “disproportionate” and calls on the UK to reverse “its morally and legally indefensible policy of siding with the Zionist oppressor against the oppressed people of Palestine”.
The application was signed by Mousa Abu Marzouk, the head of Hamas’s foreign relations office. He provided a witness statement and an account of the October 7 attacks in which he claimed that “allegations of beheading babies, systematic rape, and other unbelievably exaggerated crimes … hold no basis”.
Reports revealed two of the lawyers have previously made controversial comments in relation to Hamas. On the day of the October 7 attacks, which resulted in the death of over 1,100 Israelis, Magennis tweeted: “Victory to the intifada”.
He previously used a photo of Hamas gunmen storming into southern Israel on October 7 as his X banner. On the day of the massacre, he said: “For almost two decades ‘Israel’ has trapped more than two million people in an open air prison for the ‘crime’ of being insufficiently Jewish. We owe Palestinians our solidarity in their struggle against this naked racial domination. Victory to the intifada.”
In December 2020, he tweeted: “Zionism is a kind of racism. It is essentially colonial. It has manifested in an apartheid regime calling itself ‘the Jewish state’ that dominates non-Jews, and particularly Palestinian”.
While last year Ansari paid tribute to the leader of Hamas, following his death in Tehran last July. He tweeted: “Ismail Haniyeh has been martyred. May Allah forgive him and accept his lifelong struggle for the liberation of his people”.
Riverway Law said on X on Wednesday: “Nothing in these posts invites any individual to support, or express support for any proscribed organisation listed by the British Home Secretary under the Terrorism Act 2000. These posts are only to provide a summary of the legal application to summarise its significance.”
The Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing, have been proscribed since 2001, and in 2021, Dame Priti Patel, then home secretary, extended the ban to the whole organisation, after arguing that there was no difference between its military and political wings.
Responding to the legal move to overturn the ban, 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.
“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.”
