Vandalism suspects protesting 'Gaza Riviera' plan prosecuted as terrorists
by Paul Godfrey · UPIAug. 28 (UPI) -- British authorities alleged seven protesters due in court on charges of damaging U.S. President Donald Trump's Turnberry golf course had "a terrorist connection."
Kieran Robson, 35, Uzma Bashir, 56, Ricky Southall, 34, Autumn Taylor Ward, 22, Rebecca Sian Davies, 29, John Moxley, 58, and Dylan Chiaramello, 24, are scheduled to appear in court Monday in Glasgow to face malicious damage charges in relation to an incident in March 2025 in which graffiti was allegedly daubed on the clubhouse and elsewhere and the course was dug up.
One of the slogans allegedly read "Gaza is not 4 sale."
The indictment states that the defendants "did maliciously damage property there in that you did maliciously dig up turf on the golf course, spray glyphosate [weed killer] or similar substance on the fairways and greens, spray a building and signpost with paint, paint political and offensive slogans on the grass, score a political slogan into the turf, paint political and offensive slogans on a building, walls and pillars, damage a sprinkler system causing flooding, and damage a light."
The offenses were "aggravated by reason of having a terrorist connection," reads the 16-page indictment.
If convicted, the terrorism element could land the defendants a much tougher criminal sanction, despite the fact none of them has been charged with any terrorism offenses.
Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori, crticized the effort to make a connection to terrorism.
He said that by seeking to treat protestors as terrorists, prosecutors were doing the bidding of Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
"By hitting the profits of arms companies and by daring to spray paint on the golf course owned by the demagogue who has enabled Netanyahu's crimes, we made powerful enemies. The British government chose to appease them by criminalizing us as 'terrorists.'"
The British government has since banned Palestine Action, proscribing it as a terrorist group on July 5, 2025. Following a series of court challenges the Court of Appeal ruled in June that the ban was lawful.
Historic August moments through the years
Martin Luther King Jr. delivers his famed "I Have a Dream" speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington on August 28, 1963. The speech galvanized the nation's civil rights movements and led to the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the 1965 Voting Rights Act and the 1968 Fair Housing Act. File photo by UPI | License Photo