Four Palestine Action activists imprisoned on Friday for causing criminal damage to industrial premises in August 2024 “were sentenced as terrorists because prosecutors want to make an example of them”, Amnesty International claimed at the weekend. “Criminal damage has never been treated as terrorism within the UK justice system before and it is dangerous to treat them as the same thing,” the campaign group added.

Anyone reading this might think that the activists were convicted of terrorism offences or, at the very least, that their sentences were substantially increased because Palestine Action was subsequently banned as a terrorist organisation. Neither is true.