What are proscribed organisations?

Earlier this month a member of the band Kneecap has been arrested for supporting a proscribed organisation.¹ In addition, the government put legislation before parliament on the third July 2025 to proscribe Palestine Action, a direct group as a terrorist organisation.².

So what is a proscribed organisation.

A proscribed organisation is commonly known as a Terrorist organisation, is an organisation that meets a particular legal definition, explained below and as a result, the government can effectively make it impossible for them to function within the UK.

This may sound like a good thing, as a way of protecting the public from ISIL and their activities for example. The issue is the broad number of circumstances that can lead to proscription can lead to groups whose activities are entirely non violent or acts of protest being proscribed such as Palestine Action or Hizb ut-Tahrir.

Definition of a proscribed organisation:

A proscribed organisation is an organisation “concerned with terrorism” which is defined in S.3 of the Terrorism Act 2000 as: a organisation that:³

‘commits or participates in acts of terrorism, prepares for terrorism, promotes or encourages terrorism, or is otherwise concerned in terrorism’.

Promoting or encouraging terrorism includes activities such as the unlawful glorification of the commission or preparation of terrorism (these can be specific past or future acts of terrorism or general glorification of terrorism).⁴ It also includes situation where the organisation is associated with statements containing glorification of the aforementioned nature.⁴.

If a person could reasonably infer that what is being glorified should be emulated or is illustrative of a type of conduct that should be emulated, that is also considered to be glorification of terrorism.⁵ This can include any form of praise of celebration including sounds and images as well as words.⁶

Where the Secretary of State believes an organisation is “concerned with terrorism”, they may add them to the list of prescribed organisations in Schedule 2.⁷ They also have he power to add any alternative names.⁸

In what circumstances does the Home Secretary use this power?

The home secretary consider other factors alongside the legal definition explained above. These include:⁹

• the nature/ scale of an organisations activities.
• threat posed to the UK and British nationals overseas.
• their presence in the UK.
• the ’need to support other members of the international community in the global fight against terrorism'.

What happens when an organisation is proscribed?

There are 4 main consequence of proscription:

1- Persons who support the organisation can be convicted of supporting a proscribed organsation, which are defined in section 11 and 13A of the Terrorism Act.¹⁰ 2- Immigration powers such the power to exclude persons who support these organisations can also be used to manage the risk of Terrorism.¹⁰ 3- Online material that supports these groups can also be removed.¹⁰ 4- Powers to freeze assets can also be used and the resources of a proscribed organisation are terrorist property and are, therefore, liable to be seized by the UK government.¹⁰

So effectively, the government has the power to prevent these groups from operating in the UK and can impose heavy criminal penalties to those who support them.

Effect of the breadth of the term “concerned with terrorism”:

Generally, the broader a term in law, the more activities it can capture. Therefore the breadth of the term “concerned with terrorism” could include everything from actually committing terrorism, such as ISIL, but also groups that have never committed acts of violence such as Hizb ut-Tahrir who wish to establish a global Islamic state and encourage terrorism.⁷

Example: Hizb ut-Tahrir

The government’s website states Hizb ut-Tahrir was proscribed because:⁷

‘Hizb ut-Tahrir is an international Sunni Islamist political organisation which was founded in Jerusalem in 1953 by Sheikh Taquiddin an-Nabhani. Hizb ut-Tahrir has a footprint in at least 32 countries, with its headquarters and Central Media Office (CMO) based in Beirut, Lebanon. The CMO runs Hizb ut-Tahrir’s central propaganda website hizb-ut-tahrir.info’.

‘Hizb ut-Tahrir’s stated long-term goal is to unify Muslims worldwide and establish a Caliphate ruled under Islamic (Shari’a) law. Hizb ut-Tahrir Britain is the official branch of Hizb ut-Tahrir in the UK and was established in the UK in the 1980s. The UK government assess that Hizb ut-Tahrir Britain is a component branch of Hizb ut-Tahrir but is afforded autonomy to interpret and approach Hizb ut-Tahrir’s global strategy according to its local environment’.

‘The UK government assess that Hizb ut-Tahrir, including its national branches, is currently concerned in terrorism, and meets the ‘promotes and encourages’ limb of the statutory test. A number of articles were posted online on Hizb ut-Tahrir’s central media website (and third party websites), attributed to several of Hizb ut-Tahrir’s branches, which celebrated and praised the 7 October 2023 attack by Hamas and associated events. The content of these articles, many of which refer to Hamas as ‘heroes’ and encourage further terrorist activity, constitute the promotion and encouragement of terrorism’.

The ‘promotes and encourages’ limb is the part of the test that refers to glorifying terrorism directly or being associated with statements that do so. The celebration of October 7 is glorification of a past act of terrorism. Hamas is a proscribed organisation, therefore viewing them as hero’s glorifies their actions thereby also meeting the statutory test.

However, the groups activities do not meet the UK’s definition of Terrorism because their acts are not any of the acts included in that definition:

• serious violence against a person
• endangering life aside from their own
• serious property damage, creating a serious risk to the health or safety of the public or a section of the public
• seriously to interfere with or seriously to disrupt an electronic system.

Therefore, their acts have never been considered terrorism under this definition. In addition, the government generally did not proscribe non violent organisations before Hizb ut-Tahrir because the security incentive to do so was lower as compared with violent groups.

At the time of Hizb ut-Tahrir’s proscription, a number of academics who specialise in Terrorism law criticised the decision by the government. One example is Dr Richard McNeil-Willson who wrote in LSE’s blog:

‘The ban is highly problematic. It is predicated on labelling a non-violent group ‘terrorist’. It is grounded in wider racialised counterterror legislation that has targeted Islamic activism and framed Muslim politics as uniquely dangerous to British society.’¹¹

He highlights that both the government and Bar Council found the group was not a gateway to terrorism in 2005 and proscription would just push the group, who were unlikely to achieve their aims, underground.¹¹ In 2011, a second attempt to ban them led to a investigation by Lord Carlile who stated that ‘I think the general view is that Hizb ut-Tahrir are best dealt with in public debate rather than by proscription’.¹¹ This led to Home Office to monitor and ignore them, which in Dr McNeil-Willson’s view led them to moderate their activism.¹¹.

He states that interviews with the groups members prove they are non violent and have remained so. Their vision of an Islamic state is completely different from that of ISIL’s. ‘Many authorities have agreed that Hizb ut-Tahrir represent a useful “safety valve” for discouraging individuals from engagement with violent groups’.¹¹

He makes his argument against the proscription of Hizb ut-Tahrir more eloquently than I can. The LSE piece is a smaller part of a larger article published by the International Centre of Counter Terrorism. If you wish to know more, I encourage you to read it: https://icct.nl/publication/problems-banning-hizb-ut-tahrir-britain.

This appears to suggest there may have been an additional political reason behind their proscription at that time: it is likely that the government by proscribing the group was attempting to support its ally Israel, despite that not being explicitly mentioned in the information on the governments website.

This is explicitly allowed by the legislation, there is nothing nefarious about it. But in realising their wish to support Israel, the government has harmed civil liberties and ignored all the reasons outlined by Dr McNeil-Willson’s as to why their prescription is both unnecessary and may do more harm than good.

The issues dicussed above leads to a obvious question: should the law deal with groups who merely support terrorism abroad and have views which are contrary to most in the UK, like Hizb ut-Tahrir in the same way as ISIL who clearly pose a direct violent threat to the UK.

Should we deal with a direct action group like Palestine Action in the same way as ISIL? Both will be subject to same legal regime if the government goes ahead and proscribes Palestine Action as they have promised.

They clearly pose different threat levels to the UK and her citizens. So why deal with them the same way?

Discretion, Just because the Home Secretary can proscribe an organisation doesn’t mean they have to.

Discretion is a key feature of counter terrorism law, its also the mechanism by which political judgment enters the counter terrorism legal space.

And sometimes it is the cause of questionable legal decisions such as those highlighted above because ultimately the penalties for supporting ISIL, a group who committed genocide,[^13] should not the the same as spraying red paint at a Barclays bank branches. Such a decision appears completely disproportionate.

Ultimately, the proscription of the groups mentioned above is the product of the breadth of S.3 and the role of discretion in these decisions. Both of those factors allow politics to dictate the way the law operates, which is a typical feature of counter terrorism law.

Questions about whether we are satisfied with the breadth of S.3 or the discretion available to the Home Secretary, remain unasked and unanswered. But the power of proscription keeps being used and people keep being prosecuted for supporting proscribed organisations, even where there are serious questions about whether the group they are accused of supporting should be proscribed or whether the law on proscription should exist as it does in its current form.

Regards

IMI

PS: This post, if it wasn’t apparent already is likely to be the start of a series. This post by comparison to upcoming posts is quite general but necessary as an introduction.