‘Tool of oppression’: Rising number of UK pro-Palestine voices debanked

The mother of a Palestine Action prisoner, the politician George Galloway and a leftist news outlet are among those speaking up.

Lloyds Bank refused a loan for Emma Kamio, an activist with the banned group Palestine Action who was convicted of criminal damage, due to "adverse media" [File: Peter Nicholls/Getty Images]

The mother of a Palestine Action prisoner has said she was refused a mortgage due to “adverse media”, as more pro-Palestine voices in the United Kingdom are opening up about their experiences of “debanking”.

Emma Kamio, a small business owner in south Wales, was denied a remortgage with Lloyds on her commercial properties in April due to “adverse media.”

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The decision “devastated” her, she told Al Jazeera. “It has put me in a difficult position, one where I have relinquished my responsibilities [in the family business] and let my sister pick up the slack.”

Despite the setback, she said business was no longer central in her life.

“I’ve got one goal and that’s to get my girl out of prison,” she said.

Her daughter Leona “Ellie” Kamio has also been affected. In February 2025, while the 30-year-old nursery teacher was held on remand awaiting trial, Kamio was debanked by Lloyds Bank – meaning the financial institution suddenly closed her bank accounts without explanation.

George Galloway, the Scotland-born politician and broadcaster, said last week that Bank of Scotland, owned by the Lloyds Banking Group, closed his personal account without explanation or notice after 39 years.

“My parliamentary and old age pensions are paid into these accounts,” he wrote on X. “The mortgage on our family home is paid out of them. The mortgage is with them.”

In late June, when Lloyds debanked The Canary, the left-wing news outlet wrote that the bank “has not explained why it has taken this action … despite multiple communications from us”.

More recently, the Pakistani-British writer Tariq Ali on Wednesday said a bank, which he did not name, refused to receive a transfer from his account due to his “opinions”.

“My opinions can only mean those on one subject: Palestine,” he wrote on X.

In the case of Kamio, her account was closed before the UK proscribed Palestine Action as a “terrorist” organisation. It was also before she was convicted of criminal damage in connection with a raid on a factory operated by Israeli defence firm Elbit in Filton, Bristol, in August 2024 – and sentenced as a “terrorist”. Four of six Palestine Action activists convicted of criminal damage, including Kamio, are seeking to appeal their unprecedented sentencing.

Their appeal submission argues that the judge was wrong in law to find that the non-terrorism offence of criminal damage in their case had a terror connection.

Since Palestine Action was outlawed, more than 2,700 people have been arrested under the Terrorism Act at rallies and demonstrations in support of the group.

At the time of publishing, Lloyds had not responded to Al Jazeera’s request for comment.

“We have reached a point where debanking pro-Palestine voices has become systemic,” Anas Mustapha, at the campaign group Cage which advocates against legal abuses from UK counter-terrorism strategies, told Al Jazeera.

He said Cage was debanked more than a decade ago, “with no explanation ever given”.

“Since then we’ve watched the same pattern extend further, with activists being penalised for their politics, and now the families of people jailed for opposing a genocide.”

‘Tool of oppression’

The issue last made the headlines in late 2023, when Muslims in the UK found a rare common link with Reform leader Nigel Farage.

Anas Altikriti, head of the London-based Cordoba Foundation think-tank, was among those affected by debanking, which he said was being used as a “tool of oppression.”

“This is happening on an industrial scale, to thousands upon thousands of people,” the British entrepreneur, who has also been debanked several times, told Al Jazeera on Friday.

More than 450,000 bank accounts were closed each year, according to The Telegraph.

Altikriti argued that the attack on the World Trade Center in New York on September 11, 2001, marked the beginning of the “commercialisation of the term terrorism”.

Twenty-five years on, the term “slides off the tongue so easily for any kind of adverse opinion,” he said. “The problem is that once that term is on record, it’s always on record. It’s fixed. It’s always there and it impacts your entire life.”

Altikriti was himself labelled a “terrorist” in a banking database following a claim from the United Arab Emirates that was never independently verified by UK authorities. The British citizen said the term has not made his country safer because it is being used “in order to satisfy certain political agendas”.

“If this can happen to me, it can happen to anyone,” he added.

巴勒斯坦行动组织一名囚犯的母亲、政治家乔治·加洛韦和一家左翼新闻媒体都站出来发声。

劳埃德银行拒绝向艾玛·卡米奥（Emma Kamio）发放贷款，卡米奥是已被取缔的巴勒斯坦行动组织（Palestine Action）的活动人士，曾因刑事毁坏罪被定罪，原因是“媒体的负面报道”。[图片：Peter Nicholls/Getty Images]

一名巴勒斯坦行动组织囚犯的母亲表示，由于“负面媒体报道”，她被拒绝发放抵押贷款。与此同时，英国越来越多支持巴勒斯坦的人士开始公开谈论他们“失去银行账户”的经历。

南威尔士的小企业主艾玛·卡米奥 (Emma Kamio) 在 4 月份因“负面媒体报道”而被劳埃德银行拒绝为其商业地产进行再抵押贷款。

列表 1/3：从妇女参政论者到巴勒斯坦行动：英国直接行动抗议的历史

在英国，抵抗种族灭绝现在被视为恐怖主义行为（列表 2/3）。

3名亲巴勒斯坦抗议者在英国法院集会声援“菲尔顿25人”活动人士（名单3/3）

她告诉半岛电视台，这个决定让她“深受打击”。“这让我陷入了进退两难的境地，我不得不放弃（家族企业中的）责任，让我的妹妹来承担剩余的工作。”

尽管遭遇挫折，她表示商业不再是她生活的重心。

“我只有一​​个目标，那就是把我女儿从监狱里救出来，”她说。

她的女儿莉奥娜·“艾莉”·卡米奥也受到了影响。2025年2月，这位30岁的幼儿园教师在被羁押候审期间，劳埃德银行突然关闭了她的银行账户，且未给出任何解释。

出生于苏格兰的政治家兼广播员乔治·加洛韦上周表示，劳埃德银行集团旗下的苏格兰银行在39年后，没有任何解释或通知就关闭了他的个人账户。

“我的议员养老金和退休金都存入这些账户，”他在X上写道。“我们家的房贷也是从这些账户里还的。房贷账户就在他们的账户里。”

6 月下旬，当劳埃德银行取消《金丝雀报》的银行资格时，这家左翼新闻媒体写道，尽管我们多次与该银行沟通，但该银行“仍未解释为何采取这一行动”。

最近，巴基斯坦裔英国作家塔里克·阿里（Tariq Ali）周三表示，一家他未透露名称的银行因其“观点”而拒绝接收从他账户转账的款项。

“我的观点只能是关于一个主题的：巴勒斯坦，”他在 X 上写道。

卡米奥的账户在英国将“巴勒斯坦行动”组织列为“恐怖组织”之前就被关闭了。此外，在她因参与2024年8月在布里斯托尔菲尔顿袭击以色列国防公司埃尔比特的一家工厂而被判犯有刑事毁坏罪并被认定为“恐怖分子”之前，她的账户也已被关闭。包括卡米奥在内的六名被判犯有刑事毁坏罪的“巴勒斯坦行动”组织成员中，有四人正在寻求对这一史无前例的判决提出上诉。

他们的上诉理由是，法官在法律上错误地认定他们案件中的非恐怖主义罪行——刑事毁坏罪——与恐怖主义有关。

自巴勒斯坦行动组织被取缔以来，已有超过 2700 人在支持该组织的集会和示威活动中，根据《反恐法》被捕。

截至发稿时，劳埃德银行尚未回应半岛电视台的置评请求。

“我们已经到了这样一个地步：剥夺支持巴勒斯坦的声音已经成为一种系统性的做法，”反对英国反恐战略中法律滥用行为的运动组织 Cage 的 Anas Mustapha 告诉半岛电视台。

他说，凯奇十多年前就被银行取消了存款资格，“从未给出任何解释”。

“从那时起，我们看到同样的模式进一步蔓延，活动人士因其政治立场而受到惩罚，现在，那些因反对种族灭绝而被监禁的人的家属也受到了惩罚。”

“压迫的工具”

这个问题上一次成为新闻头条是在 2023 年末，当时英国的穆斯林发现他们与改革派领袖奈杰尔·法拉奇有着罕见的共同联系。

总部位于伦敦的科尔多瓦基金会智库负责人阿纳斯·阿尔蒂克里蒂是受去银行化影响的人之一，他表示去银行化被用作“压迫的工具”。

“这种情况正在大规模发生，影响着成千上万的人，”这位曾多次失去银行账户的英国企业家周五告诉半岛电视台。

据《每日电讯报》报道，每年有超过 45 万个银行账户被关闭。

阿尔蒂克里蒂认为，2001 年 9 月 11 日纽约世界贸易中心遭受的袭击标志着“恐怖主义一词商业化”的开始。

他说，二十五年过去了，“这个词现在很容易被用来表达任何负面意见”。“问题是，一旦这个词被记录下来，它就永远存在了。它无法改变。它永远都在那里，并且会影响你的一生。”

阿尔蒂克里蒂本人也被一家银行数据库贴上了“恐怖分子”的标签，此前阿联酋方面声称他与英国有关联，但英国当局从未对此进行独立核实。这位英国公民表示，这个标签并没有让他的国家更安全，因为它被用来“满足某些政治目的”。

“如果这种事会发生在我身上，那么它也可能发生在任何人身上，”他补充道。