Irish novelist Sally Rooney skipped an awards ceremony in London, saying that she risked being arrested underneath terror legal guidelines as a consequence of her help for the banned activist group Palestine Action.
Rooney’s editor Alex Bowler learn her assertion on the Sky Arts Awards on Tuesday, the place the writer’s fourth ebook “Intermezzo” won the award for literature.
“I wish I could be here with you this evening to accept the honor in person,” her assertion learn, “but, because of my support for non-violent anti-war protest, I’m advised I can no longer safely enter the UK without potentially facing arrest.”
Rooney reiterated her “belief in the dignity and beauty of all human life, and my solidarity with the people of Palestine,” within the assertion.
London’s Metropolitan Police advised NCS in an announcement Thursday it “wouldn’t comment on an individual at the point of arrest or prior to this.”
NCS has reached out to Rooney and Bowler for remark by Faber, her writer.
Palestine Action is a UK-based group that goals to disrupt the operations of weapons producers related to the Israeli authorities.
British authorities have had their eyes on the group since 2020, however its June 2025 motion – when activists broke into Britain’s largest airbase, RAF Brize Norton, vandalizing two Airbus Voyager refueling planes – led to its proscription.
Palestine Action is believed to be the primary direct-action group to be designated a terrorist group within the UK. The ban signifies that displaying help for the group carries a most sentence of as much as 14 years in jail.
Civil liberties campaigners throughout the UK and past have condemned the designation, saying that making use of terrorism legal guidelines to such a group danger chilling free speech and meeting and units a harmful precedent for protest rights.
Since its terror designation, greater than 1,500 people have been arrested at solidarity protests throughout the UK, many for holding indicators that learn: “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.”
In August, Rooney additionally denounced the ban, writing an Irish Times column titled: “I too support Palestine Action. If this makes me a ‘supporter of terror’ under UK law, so be it.”
She wrote that “an increasing number of artists and writers can no longer safely travel to Britain to speak in public” and that she meant to take the residual charges from BBC variations of her first two novels to donate them towards “supporting Palestine Action and direct action against genocide in whatever way I can.”
Israel has been dealing with rising worldwide condemnation. A United Nations fee concluded this week that Israel was committing genocide in Gaza. Israel denies any accusations of genocide.
“If the British state considers this ‘terrorism,’” Rooney wrote, “then perhaps it should investigate the shady organizations that continue to promote my work and fund my activities, such as WH Smith and the BBC.”
NCS has reached out to the retailer WH Smith. A spokesperson for the BBC advised NCS in an announcement that Rooney doesn’t presently obtain fee straight from the BBC, “and she is not contracted by us.”
Longstanding critic
Rooney, finest identified for her novel “Normal People” and its subsequent adaptation for TV, has lengthy criticized Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and its pre-war blockade of Gaza.
In 2021, she refused to sell the Hebrew-language rights for her third novel “Beautiful World, Where Are You” to an Israeli writer out of her help for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) motion, a Palestinian-led world marketing campaign selling boycotts, divestments, and financial sanctions in opposition to Israel.
The author’s stance underlines Ireland’s longstanding help of the Palestinian trigger.
Ireland is likely one of the most pro-Palestinian nations in Europe, a position born out of a shared expertise of subjugation by an occupying state.
In January, the Irish authorities joined South Africa’s case on the International Court of Justice (ICJ) accusing Israel of genocide, and the nation appears close to passing a invoice that may ban commerce with unlawful Israeli settlements within the occupied West Bank.
Nonetheless, Rooney has criticized Ireland’s authorities for not talking out extra forcefully in favor of protesters just lately arrested within the UK.
“If the Government in Dublin truly believes that Israel is committing genocide,” Rooney mentioned, “how can it look elsewhere while its nearest neighbor funds and supports that genocide and its own citizens are arrested simply for speaking out?”
NCS has reached out to Ireland’s Foreign Ministry for remark.