DIRECT action is not terrorism, the mother of an anti-war activist told Saturday’s International Conference Against War in central London.

Fatema Zainab Rajwani was handed five years and eight months in prison for terrorist-linked charges earlier this month alongside three others for taking direct action at an Elbit Systems factory in Filton near Bristol in 2024.

The activists had spent up to 21 months in custody awaiting sentence. At the time of their arrest, Palestine Action was not a proscribed organisation.

Sukaina Rajwani said her daughter and the other activists were engaged in legitimate protests at the site.

She told the conference: “We are at a point in British history where pro-Palestine [solidarity] is criminalised, and direct action and saving lives has become terrorism.”

Ms Rajwani closed her contribution with a quote from US writer and civil rights activist James Baldwin, saying: “If we know, then we must fight for your life as though it were our own — which it is — and render impassable with our bodies the corridor to the gas chamber.

“For if they take you in the morning, they will be coming for us that night.”

“Direct action is not terrorism. Free Palestine,” she added.