Of course, they didn’t know Hamas was banned. How could they?

In the UK recently, the Court of Appeal was asked to overturn terror convictions because people convicted of showing support for Hamas didn’t realise it was a proscribed organisation.

The appeal did not succeed, but maybe they should have. How can you be guilty of something when you don’t know it’s a crime?

Nonsense, the senior judges ruled; “It is very easy for anyone to find out whether an organisation is proscribed before becoming a member, inviting support for it or wearing its distinctive badges and symbols”.

Judges are sometimes criticised for being out of touch; this time it is a fair criticism. The reality of living in the UK is that it is incredibly easy not to have the slightest idea Hamas is a proscribed terrorist organisation.

Just to explain, the UK government has a list of organisations it deems ‘terrorist’. These are banned organisations and it is illegal to belong to them, assist them, or show support for them. Hamas is one of them.

That view of the British government, backed by criminal law, is not shared by much of the UK’s most influential media.

Hamas health ministry communiques are treated as fact, Hamas spokesmen and apologists are sought and listened to on the media, their justifications accepted. The BBC recently aired a ‘documentary’ which featured a boy presenting the British public with the reality of life in Gaza. Except he was the son of a Hamas minister, it was a Hamas reality.

Then the disgraceful scenes with the repatriation of the bodies of Israeli children and an elderly man. The BBC treats the ‘ceremony’ itself with dignity, taking away any at all from the victims.

But there’s a wider point; many of the dozens of organisations on the list are unknown to even the most studious follower of international politics. There is an information gap. Without searching for, and then studying, the list how would I know that the International Sikh Youth Federation is a banned terrorist organisation, or Ansar Al Sunna, or the Saved Sect?

It makes the law unfair and unjust; imposes unreasonable expectations. There is a simple, reasonable, proportionate, and appropriate, way of solving that.

Any time broadcast, or regulated print or online, media mention a proscribed organisation they should be required to state that they are proscribed, and why. This would bring media coverage in line with national law and policy without restricting the rights of the media or limiting speech.

So, for example, today you would hear a report that “Gaza health ministry reports that 40,000 people have been killed in the current conflict”, you would in future hear that “Gaza health ministry, which is controlled by Hamas which is banned in the UK for committing and participating in acts of terrorism, reports that 40,000 people have been killed in the current conflict.”

Then next time demonstrators are brought before courts they cannot claim they did not realise.