Local Pensioners Face 14-Year Prison Sentences
FERDUSARA ALI
Two local pensioners, Nina Heaton from Hastings and Mary Law from Rother were arrested outside Westminster Magistrates Court on Thursday (30 July), under Section 12 of the Terrorism Act, for publicly saying the words: “I support Palestine Action and I encourage everyone to do the same. Saving lives is not terrorism.” If charged and convicted, they may face fourteen-years in prison.
Mary Law and Nina Heaton outside Westminster Magistrates’ Court just before their arrest
Palestine Action was set up as a nonviolent protest group that campaigned against UK arms sales to Israel. MPs voted to proscribe it under the Terrorism Act at the beginning of July 2025, a decision that made it a criminal offence to express support for the group, to wear clothing that might suggest support, or to publish images of its logo.
The ban received overwhelming support from MPs, including the votes of Hastings and Rye MP Helena Dollimore and Bexhill and Battle MP Kieran Mullan. Since then, thousands of people have been arrested for peacefully defying it.
Ms Heaton and Ms Law were among 152 people arrested at the protest outside Westminster Magistrates Court on 30 July. According to Defend Our Juries, which organised the demonstration, more than 1,500 people had received letters informing them that hearings related to their previous prosecutions would take place at the court that same day. However, rather than being allowed into their listed hearings, the group says: “152 people were arrested outside – some for speaking to the crowd, some for helping put up a small platform for speakers, and some, they say, simply for clapping.”
The arrests took place on the same day that Huda Ammori, a co-founder of Palestine Action, won permission to challenge the ban in the UK Supreme Court. The case is set to be heard in the final quarter of this year and means the more than 3,500 people arrested since the ban was introduced will remain in legal limbo until the legality of the law is definitively resolved.
Nina Heaton says: “The UK government is desperate to silence any who dare to expose the UK’s complicity and active participation in Israel’s genocide in Gaza. It is desperate to conceal its highly lucrative arms trade with multiple Israeli weapons factories here in the UK. It is desperate to hide the truth from the British public. Sabotaging Israel’s machinery of death, weapons that maim, mutilate and murder is not terrorism. Decent people, people with a conscience will carry on protesting because we are right. Genocide is wrong.”
Tom Southerden, Amnesty International UK’s Law and Human Rights Director, says: “We have long said that the banning of Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation was a grave misuse of sweeping counter-terrorism powers, with serious consequences for human rights. It is a shameful attack on our freedom of speech that those arrested today, for instance, could face very long prison sentences simply for peacefully opposing the government over the ban. We welcome the decision of the Supreme Court to grant permission to appeal, but the Government should end this sorry saga now by withdrawing the proscription.”
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Excellent news, but why do some people think pensioners are somehow above the law? Extremist groups cynically exploit them, along with disabled people and children, but they are adults and should know that actions have consequences. Either they’re not very bright or, if they seriously think their age mitigates the risk of punishment, their protest is made with little conviction.
Best advice is to avoid supporting terrorists.