Report Summary
Issued 23 September 2025, this FOI response relates to governance of Police Scotland’s approach to policing protests where there is support for a proscribed group such as Palestine Action. Partial disclosure, some information was refused or not held.
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Request
We refer to your correspondence, dated 25 August 2025, which was sent to Police Scotland and copied to the Scottish Police Authority. Within your correspondence was a request for information which is copied below.
Accordingly, I request specific answers to the following:
Governance & accountability
- What SPA decisions, minutes or directions exist regarding the policing posture towards “support for” Palestine Action since June 2025? Please provide references.
- What risk assessment and Equality/Human Rights Impact Assessment (EqHRIA) has been completed for these operations? Who signed them off, and when?
- How are Articles 10 and 11 ECHR tests (legality, necessity, proportionality) evidenced for arrests based solely on “inviting support” or “expressing supportive opinions”, as opposed to involvement in criminal damage?
Legal basis and policy
- What operational guidance have officers been given to distinguish between (a) peaceful political expression about Palestine/arms exports and (b) offences under sections 11–13 of the Terrorism Act 2000 relating to proscribed organisations? Please disclose any standard-operating procedures, aide-memoires or briefings.
- How have officers been trained to avoid unlawful interference with lawful protest, consistent with Scottish and UK guidance on marches, parades and static demonstrations?
Resource allocation & opportunity cost
- How many officer hours and what budget have been spent in Scotland on operations relating to suspected “support for” Palestine Action since 1 July 2025?
- Over the same period, how many reports of rape/attempted rape and domestic abuse progressed to charge and to court, and how many resulted in conviction in Scotland? Please break down by division.
- What is the current detection rate for rape and domestic-abuse-related sexual violence in each division, and how has it changed since 2023/24?
Safeguarding the public and VAWG priorities
- In light of rising sexual-offence volumes and persistently low rape conviction rates, why is the enforcement of “support for a proscribed organisation” receiving comparable or greater resourcing than specialist rape investigation, survivor support and domestic-abuse safeguarding?
- What steps are you taking to ensure that high-harm offences against women and children are not being de-prioritised due to protest-policing workloads?
Data and transparency
- Please provide monthly Scottish arrest data connected to the Palestine Action proscription (by alleged offence, outcome and division), and any mutual-aid deployments requested or provided. (Note: Counter Terrorism Policing has published UK-wide arrest totals; Scotland-specific data is required for accountability.)
- Please provide copies of any communications with the Home Office, Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) and SPA concerning enforcement strategy and thresholds for arrest in Scotland.
Compliance with international-law obligations
- What consideration has Police Scotland given to the UK’s duty to prevent genocide and avoid complicity, as articulated by the ICJ’s provisional-measures orders, when policing protest speech calling for an end to alleged atrocity crimes? International Court of Justice+1
