Glorify Hamas and you break the law, says UK terror watchdog

Speeches that support Hamas at pro-Palestinian rallies in the UK might have glorified terrorism, the government’s independent reviewer of terrorism Jonathan Hall said when he was shown footage by BBC Verify.

The BBC spoke to many people at a rally in Bradford who said they did not support what Hamas did in Israel. Instead, they were worried about what would happen to the Palestinian people.

Hassan, a teenager whose family is from the West Bank, said: “I condemn the attacks on civilians. I don’t stand for terrorist attacks, but the fact that babies and civilians have been killed on both sides, really shows you the true nature of the war.”

But at a pro-Palestinian rally in Manchester on 8 October, a day after Hamas attacked Israeli civilians, a man told the crowd: “We have all seen the scenes and it is the most inspiring act of resistance.”

The man then praises a UK group called Palestine Action, whose co-founder, Richard Barnard said at the same rally: “When we hear the resistance, the Al-Aqsa flood, we must turn that flood into a tsunami of the whole world”. The “Al-Aqsa flood” is how Hamas refers to its attack on Israel. Mr Hall said Britain’s terrorism laws were not designed “to stop people making political speeches… but what they are designed to do is to stop mass murder, massacres, terrorist tactics”.

Read more on the BBC.