Nearly 100 high-profile cultural, political and activist figures from across the globe have signed an open letter calling on a UK senior judge to abandon plans to apply a special terrorism designation to four climate and pro-Palestine activists ahead of their sentencing next week. The activists, already convicted of non-terrorism criminal damage charges for their action against an Israeli arms manufacturer’s UK facility, face drastically harsHER sentences if the terrorism connection is officially added to their charges.
The four defendants – Charlotte Head, Samuel Corner, Leona Kamio and Fatema Zainab Rajwani – are part of the grassroots activist collective known as the Filton 25. Their protest action dates back to August 2024, when they entered the Bristol-based UK branch of Elbit Systems, an Israeli defense contractor that produces military technology for the Israeli military. Following their entry to the site, the group was charged with a series of offenses, including criminal damage; two additional co-defendants, Jordan Devlin and Zoe Rogers, were ultimately cleared of all charges in court proceedings.
Last month, independent regional outlet Middle East Eye revealed a pivotal detail that had been kept hidden from the jury during the trial: prosecutors intend to request that Judge Jeremy Johnson, the presiding justice in the case, formally attach a “terrorism connection” to the activists’ convictions during the sentencing hearing scheduled for June 12. In a preliminary ruling issued in March 2025, Johnson already indicated he saw a plausible basis for the designation, arguing that the activists carried out their action to influence Israeli government policy by limiting its access to weaponry.
Crucially, the four activists were never formally charged with terrorism offenses, nor were they tried under UK counterterrorism legislation. The jury that convicted them of criminal damage was never informed of the prosecution’s plan to seek a terrorism connection, and never delivered any guilty verdict related to terror activity. This procedural irregularity is at the heart of the signatories’ criticism.
Prominent signatories to the letter span multiple creative and public fields: best-selling novelist Sally Rooney, climate activist Greta Thunberg, veteran actor Brian Cox, comedian Steve Coogan, actors Miriam Margolyes, Zoe Wanamaker and Zawe Ashton, musicians Charlotte Church and Kate Nash, and award-winning film directors Yorgos Lanthimos, Terry Gilliam and Ken Loach are among the high-profile backers of the plea.
The open letter argues that adding the terrorism designation at the sentencing stage, after the jury has already ruled on the actual charges brought against the activists, amounts to a deliberate bypass of the jury system that would constitute a severe miscarriage of justice with long-reaching ripple effects across UK law. It notes that this would be the first time a terrorism link has ever been applied in a UK criminal damage case, and that the risks to basic civil liberties and the right to peaceful protest in the country cannot be overstated.
The letter also contextualizes the activists’ action, explaining that the group exhausted all standard advocacy channels to push for an end to UK arms exports to Israel before taking direct action to disable equipment at the Elbit facility. “The Filton activists acted to uphold international law and defend human life,” the letter reads. “To sentence them on the basis of a ‘terrorism connection’ would not only be unjust and cruel: it would gravely undermine the right to protest and the impartiality of the judicial system itself.”
Most of the four defendants have already spent 18 months in pre-sentencing remand. In an independent comment released alongside the letter, Sally Rooney expanded on the gravity of the case, noting that “Protest that poses no threat to the public simply is not terrorism. These activists may have knowingly risked their freedom in taking action, but they now face the prospect of punishment for crimes they were never convicted of and did not commit. This is an obvious effort to undermine solidarity with Palestine, but what it really undermines is UK law.”
The case comes after a series of prior legal proceedings: the four activists are facing retrial after the original jury threw out aggravated burglary charges, and the previous jury delivered not guilty verdicts for violent disorder against Rajwani, Devlin and Rogers, while failing to reach a verdict on the same charge for the other three defendants. All eyes now turn to the June 12 sentencing hearing, as the public figures’ intervention has drawn broad attention to what campaigners call a landmark test for UK protest rights.