The costs stem from seven Palestine Motion activists paint-spraying the Scottish resort to protest towards the US president’s stance on Gaza.
Revealed On 28 Aug 2026
Palestine Motion activists accused of vandalising a Scottish golf course owned by United States President Donald Trump have been accused of “terrorism” offences, in line with experiences.
The potential use of “terror-scale” sentencing was reported by The Guardian and The New York Occasions on Friday. The seven activists, who spray-painted messages in assist of Gaza and dug up turf at Trump’s Turnberry golf resort in Ayrshire final yr, have been charged with malicious injury “having a terrorist connection,” the newspapers reported.
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An preliminary listening to on the instances is because of open on the Excessive Courtroom in Glasgow on Monday, August 31.
The costs stem from a March 8, 2025 protest concentrating on the resort over Trump’s stance on Gaza. Activists from the British group sprayed purple paint throughout the clubhouse, broken turf and sprinklers, utilized weedkiller to the greens, and painted “Gaza shouldn’t be 4 sale” throughout the property.
All seven defendants have been charged underneath bizarre felony regulation for malicious property injury. Nonetheless, the prosecution’s 16-page indictment asserts the acts have been “aggravated by motive of getting a terrorist connection”.
Palestine Motion has been locked in a authorized battle with the UK because the British authorities proscribed it as a “terrorist” group final yr.
Cofounder Huda Ammori mentioned that the fees towards these concerned within the protest at Turnberry made it clear that prosecutors have been making an attempt to appease Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“We used direct motion protests to save lots of lives – the other of terrorism – by disrupting the circulation of arms getting used to homicide Palestinians,” she mentioned in a press release.
“By hitting the income of arms corporations and by daring to spray paint on the golf course owned by the demagogue who has enabled Netanyahu’s crimes, we made highly effective enemies. The British authorities selected to appease them by criminalising us as ‘terrorists’,” she added.
Earlier this week, the United States imposed sanctions on Palestine Motion and the pro-Palestine worldwide motion Masar Badil, because the administration of President Donald Trump intensifies a world crackdown on critics of Israel.
The US Division of the Treasury additionally imposed monetary penalties on Wednesday towards Autistici Inventati, an Italian group that gives digital companies to left-wing organisations, together with pro-Palestine teams.
John McDonnell, a Labour member of the British parliament and former shadow chancellor of the exchequer, criticised the potential “terror” hyperlink within the prices.
“The information that the protesters who allegedly sprayed purple paint on Trump’s golf course might face terrorist sentencing, coupled with Trump himself now saying that he’s following Britain’s lead by proscribing Palestine Motion as a ‘terrorist’ group, is profoundly embarrassing for Britain,” he mentioned.
“Andy Burnham has inherited this mess from the earlier authorities. This should be the wake-up name to drop this absurdly authoritarian ban, earlier than Starmer’s blueprint is adopted by repressive governments all over the world to criminalise protest and suppress political dissent.”
