No court can erase the genocidal evil of Hamas
This is not a legal challenge, at least not at this stage: there is no application before the courts. Instead, lawyers representing what the government describes as a militant Islamist group have simply asked the Home Secretary to de-proscribe – un-ban – Hamas.
Under regulations made in 2006, Yvette Cooper has 90 days in which to reach a decision. If, as expected, she refuses the application, Hamas can appeal to a special tribunal called the Proscribed Organisations Appeal Commission. The commission will allow an appeal only if it considers, applying judicial review principles, that the decision to refuse de-proscription was flawed.
Hamas is represented by Fahad Mustafa Ansari, a solicitor who practises as Riverway Law from Streatham, south London. His submission to the Home Office, published on Tuesday, claims that banning Hamas is incompatible with article 10 of the Human Rights Convention, which protects freedom of expression, as well as article 11, which supports peaceful assembly and association.
Ansari's submission is not only offensive to those who have had to fight for these fundamental rights. It glosses over the fact that states are allowed to restrict freedom of expression and assembly if those restrictions 'are necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security or public safety'. And the submission explicitly admits that Hamas is a 'threat' to any British nationals 'taking part in genocide, apartheid and illegal belligerent occupation' – as defined, of course, by Hamas.
The UK's ban on Hamas goes back to March 2001. At that time, the government maintained that only the movement's military wing was involved in terrorism. In November 2021, ministers accepted that distinguishing between the military and official wings was artificial. 'Hamas is a complex but single terrorist organisation,' the Home Office said when it extended the ban.
That was nearly two years before Hamas terrorists and their supporters in Gaza launched a horrifying attack on southern Israel, raping women, killing babies and murdering some 1,200 Israelis or foreign nationals. More than 250 people were taken hostage, some of whom still remain in captivity 18 months later. Such inhumanity is inimical to the concept of human rights.
According to the warped logic expressed in this submission, Israelis are not entitled to human rights – or even human life – because they have been in 'illegal belligerent occupation' of their homeland since 1948. How, then, do Hamas leaders justify intimidating, torturing and murdering any Gazans who stand up against them? Do they not have human rights either?
And why has Hamas waited 24 years to challenge its ban? Nobody could possibly believe that its chances are better now than they were before it invaded Israel on October 7 2023. The group knows it has no support from the Arab world and that other Palestinian groups are turning against it. It must also know that two defendants awaiting trial on charges of recklessly expressing support for Hamas lost legal challenges in the Court of Appeal just before Christmas.
If Hamas was not trying to win over a gullible public, why did it go public with its submission? If this was nothing more than a publicity stunt, there would have been no need for a professionally produced social media video, showing Ansari flanked by the two barristers acting with him.
These lawyers are well aware of the risks they face. To read their submission online, you must first 'acknowledge that none of the contents can be understood as supporting or expressing support for proscribed terrorist organisations'. That's because anyone who expresses support for Hamas while being reckless as to whether their audience will be encouraged to support the terrorist organisation faces a prison sentence of up to 14 years.
But is this disclaimer really enough to protect the lawyers from facing charges themselves? Their public submission is devoted to exonerating a terrorist organisation that asserts its own human rights while denying the most important human right of all – the right to life. Or do Hamas leaders think the publicity they may gain by losing in the courts will make up for the deaths they caused by starting a war that they could never win?
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