Palestine Action: Our right to protest is on the line

In August 2024, my friends Fatema Zainab Rajwani and Charlotte (Lottie) Head vanished. They were arrested by the police, plunging them into a brutal legal system that I did not yet understand.

While they awaited trial, prison visits quickly became my new normal. Through them, I learned the silent rules of survival in these spaces – like hiding my keffiyeh in my bag before entering. The olive leaves and fishnets woven into the fabric make it contraband, enough for a visit to be denied.

Twenty one months later, as part of the Filton 25, Fatema Zainab and Lottie were found guilty of criminal damage after dismantling 40 weapons components produced by the Israeli arms firm Elbit Systems – weapons used in the ongoing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.

This technology opens a terrifying window into the future of industrialised violence, where AI and drone warfare have redefined mass killing. And it isn’t confined to a distant battlefield – it’s deeply rooted here in the UK. Surveillance tech platforms like Palantir are embedded in the NHS, the police and the Ministry of Defence, while their AI models power devastating military operations abroad.

During the trial, legal rulings prevented my friends from telling the jury why they targeted Elbit Systems, or naming the 20,000 children slaughtered by the supply chain they disrupted, or explaining that they had disabled equipment implicated in mass slaughter.

On 12 June 2026, Fatema Zainab and Lottie, along with their co-defendants Samuel Corner and Leona Kamio, became the first protesters in Britain to be sentenced as terrorists without ever being convicted of a terror offence. The judge treated their motivation to stop the killing in Gaza not as a reason for leniency, but as an aggravating factor. And just a few days later, the Court of Appeal overturned the High Court ruling on Palestine Action, deeming its proscription lawful.

Fatema Zainab wants to be a filmmaker. I often imagine the sharp, insightful takes on liberation, gender, and cinema would produce; dreams currently buried under the weight of the justice system. During the brief period between her time on remand and her second trial, Lottie’s brilliance has seen her accepted on to a prestigious course to study Politics and Arabic, setting her on the way to becoming an interpreter.

Instead, these young activists will spend the next few years behind bars, and their connection to what the government has judged to be terrorism will follow them long after their release.

The state has shown exactly how far it will go to silence those who exercise their right to protest against Israel’s genocide in Gaza. But Fatema and Lottie’s sentencing should concern all of us. After this, what freedom are we truly left with?

Those currently sitting inside prison walls have borne the brunt of a terrifying legal shift so that we might see it clearly. I can only hope that, in the days and months ahead, we do not fail to defend our right to speak out.