Huda Ammori

Huda Ammori (born 17 March 1994) is a British activist known for co-founding the group Palestine Action. The UK government proscribed the group a terrorist organisation in 2025; by October, over 2000 people had been arrested on terrorism charges. She has challenged the lawfulness of the proscription in the High Court of Justice, which in February 2026 ruled that the proscription was unlawful. The government said it would appeal. The Court of Appeal ruled that the proscription was lawful on 15 June 2026.

Biography Early life Ammori was born in Bradford, West Yorkshire to a Palestinian father, Basil Ammori, and an Iraqi mother, Almira Al-Abadi, a surgeon and a doctor respectively, and grew up in Bolton, Greater Manchester. In an interview, Ammori described her family history, stating that her paternal family had been displaced during the 1967 Naksa when her father was a child, that the family home was attacked, forcing him to flee to Iraq, and that her great-grandfather was shot by British soldiers following a 1936 uprising, after which the family home was destroyed.

Education and early work In 2015, Ammori volunteered at a refugee camp in Lesbos. Upon returning to the UK, she studied international business, finance and economics at the University of Manchester. Later, after learning of her university's investment in the trade and manufacturing of weapons for Israel, she founded the Manchester University chapter of the international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movement. The group led a number of successful boycott campaigns.

In 2017, Ammori organised a talk at the University of Manchester by Marika Sherwood, as part of Israeli Apartheid Week, titled "A Holocaust survivor's story and the Balfour declaration". Sherwood's talk was subtitled "You're doing to the Palestinians what the Nazis did to me", and recounted her time in the Budapest Ghetto. After meeting with the Israeli Ambassador to the United Kingdom, Mark Regev, the University of Manchester requested that the subtitle be removed and imposed additional conditions on the event. The university also replaced the event chairs with their own appointees. In response to these events coming to light, Ammori said, "In educational institutions there shouldn't be any sort of lobbying from foreign governments." Ammori graduated from the University of Manchester in 2018.

Palestine Action Woolwich April 2024 Activists from Palestine Action and Youth Demand. In 2020, Ammori co-founded the direct action group Palestine Action with Richard Barnard, modelled on Extinction Rebellion. She organised several protests against the manufacturers of arms for the Israeli military, especially company Elbit Systems.

On 23 June 2025, following an attack that damaged two RAF aircraft at RAF Brize Norton, Home Secretary Yvette Cooper said she intended to declare Palestine Action a proscribed terrorist organisation, saying the protests at defence sites threatened national security.

On 5 July, the proscription came into effect. In response to the ban, Ammori said the government was "hugely overreaching", with penalties for carrying a placard starting from 14 days' imprisonment without charge.

In August, the Home Secretary Yvette Cooper accused Palestine Action of being a violent organisation. In response, Ammori said the government's claims were defamatory and untrue. She quoted the government's own analysis, conducted by the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (JTAC), which said it believed that "Palestine Action does not advocate for violence against persons". She said the organisation had been banned for "serious property damage for a political cause" rather than violence, as the Home Office had claimed.

In September 2025, the Home Office's appeal against the judgment was heard. Judgment was expected in October. , over 2,100 people have been arrested for supporting Palestine Action and hundreds have been charged. Amnesty International has said mass arrests conducted after the ban were "deeply concerning".

Baroness Sue Carr in the Court of Appeal sided with Ammori in mid October. By this time over 2,100 people had been arrested. Carr blocked an application by the government to prevent Ammori from appealing the decision using normal procedures rather than the government's recommended (slower) route. She said it was a "quicker means of challenging the order proscribing Palestine Action, than applying to deproscribe". Moreover she claimed the case has "backfired spectacularly" as the court allowed Ammori to add additional grounds to appeal the Home Office's ban.

A judicial review took place in late November

In February 2026, the High Court ruled that the proscription was unlawful and contravened the Human Rights Act. However, the government intended to appeal.

In June 2026, the Court of Appeal ruled that the government's proscription of Palestine Action as a terror organisation is lawful.