Criminalising Conscience: How Young Women Protesters Are Being Punished for Standing Up to the Arms Trade

The ongoing trials of Palestinian Action campaigners raise serious concerns about the treatment of peaceful protesters, the narrowing of the right to protest, and the unequal power dynamics between the state and young women who dare to dissent.

Many of those facing prosecution are young women with no previous conviction; students training to become lawyers, journalists, and human rights advocates. Their “crime” is taking part in non-violent direct action against Elbit Systems, an Israeli defence manufacturer with facilities in the UK. Elbit has long been criticised by international human rights organisations for supplying weapons used in conflicts where civilians, including children, have been killed.

In court, these women are being portrayed as dangerous criminals rather than conscientious protesters. Defence teams have raised concerns that the seriousness of charges has been inflated, including claims that a police officer’s injuries were overstated in evidence, a matter now contested in court. Whether or not those claims are upheld, the effect has been clear: allegations framed in the most severe terms possible have been used to justify harsh charges and punitive bail conditions against defendants with no history of violence.

This pattern fits an increasingly familiar picture. Peaceful protest, especially when it challenges powerful commercial or geopolitical interest, is being met with aggressive policing and prosecutorial overreach. Meanwhile, the broader context is often ignored. The UK government has well-documented commercial and political ties to arms manufacturers, including Elbit Systems, through defence contracts and procurement relationships. Protesters argue that these relationships create a chilling conflict of interest when campaigners seek to disrupt arms production linked to civilian harm abroad.

What is striking is who is paying the price. These defendants are not career activists or hardened offenders. They are young women whose futures now hang in the balance; women who believed in the rule of law, who studied it, reported on it, and trusted that peaceful protest was a protected democratic right. Instead, they find themselves criminalised, surveilled, and subjected to court processes that appear designed to deter protest rather than deliver justice.

The right to protest is a cornerstone of any democratic society. When courts appear to side reflexively with the state, when police evidence goes insufficiently scrutinised, and when young women are punished for acts of conscience, that right is hollowed out.

These trials are not just about individual defendants. They are a test of whether dissent is still tolerated in Britain, especially dissent led by women, against war, against weapons, and against political hypocrisy. If peaceful protest can be reframed as serious criminality whenever it challenges powerful interests, then the danger is not posed by the protesters, but by the system responding to them.

Image source: LBC