UK Lawyer Challenging Hamas Terror Designation: “They Made It Illegal to Talk About Hamas”

Barrister Franck Magennis, part of the legal team representing Hamas, breaks down the challenge to the UK’s designation of the group—including both its political and military wings—as a terror organization. In this conversation with Jeremy Scahill, Magennis explains how Britain’s proscription system is being used to criminalize Palestinian political life and suppress legitimate resistance to Israeli occupation.

He outlines the legal case submitted to the British Home Secretary and details how the Terrorism Act 2000—originally developed to target Irish republican movements—is now being weaponized to silence Palestinians and those who support their struggle for liberation.

“The British government is currently engaged alongside Israel in the mass murder of Palestinians,” Magennis says, “because they’re viewed as a racial threat to the racial purity of Israel’s ethnostate.”

He calls the designation “ridiculous” and rooted in “nakedly racist” logic, warning that it criminalizes Palestinian political life while allowing British citizens to serve in a foreign army accused of committing war crimes.