Hamas asks UK to lift its designation as ‘banned organization’

ISTANBUL

The Palestinian resistance group Hamas announced Thursday that it has submitted a legal filing to the UK Home Office requesting the cancellation of its designation as a “banned organization.”

It said that Mousa Abu Marzouk, the head of Hamas’s foreign relations office, assigned a British legal team to file the appeal with UK authorities against including it on the government’s list of proscribed terrorist groups.

“A legal team from the London-based Riverway Law firm submitted a formal appeal to the UK Home Office on Wednesday, April 9 objecting to the continued designation of the movement as a terrorist organization,” it said in a statement.

Hamas’s military wing, the Al-Qassam Brigades, was proscribed by the UK in 2001. In 2021, its political wing which runs Gaza was also proscribed.

Hamas described this as “unjust” and claimed that it “reflects blatant bias toward the Zionist (Israeli) occupation, which continues to commit crimes against the Palestinian people.”

The group added that the decision “denies human rights and democratic principles, as well as the provisions of international law and even British laws themselves, which guarantee peoples’ right to resist occupation, the right to self-defense, and freedom of opinion and expression.”

It called on the British government to review its “unjust” policies, “to correct its historical wrongs, support our people and their rights, respect their choice to resist occupation, and revoke the classification of Hamas and other resistance movements as terrorist organizations.”

It also demanded that the UK halt all political and military support for Israel.

The Balfour Declaration is a document dated Nov. 2, 1917 that laid the groundwork for Israel's creation. Then British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour agreed to establish a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine.

In its statement, Hamas said “the British government’s policy of criminalizing solidarity with our people and suppressing freedom of expression, political support, humanitarian aid and relief efforts constitutes clear and unacceptable legal violations.”

Hamas concluded its statement by praising “the noble humanitarian stances of the British public, who stand in solidarity with our people and their legitimate rights to freedom, independence and a dignified life and who reject the government’s official alignment with Zionist crimes.”

More than 50,800 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza in a brutal Israeli onslaught since October 2023, most of them women and children.

The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants last November for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the enclave.