Jewish human rights barrister, 94, arrested for supporting Palestine Action

Margaret Owen, a 94-year-old Jewish human rights barrister, has been trying to get arrested for months.

She has attended about a dozen protests wearing a sign reading “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action” in London and has had a placard with those words attached to a window at her home since the group was proscribed under the Terrorism Act in the UK in July 2025.
But unlike thousands of others who have been detained for showing support for Palestine Action, officers had not – until Sunday – hauled her into a police van.

“I’ve been trying to get arrested for quite some time,” she told Al Jazeera. “I’m rather proud and glad to have finally joined the club.”

In her pursuit, Owen had also written to the Metropolitan Police, sharing photos and confessing, but “they’ve never done anything about it”.

“I think they never wanted to arrest me because that would be quite a story for the media, this ancient veteran human rights lawyer, aged 94, you know, it’s too much of a story.”

In Liverpool, during a rally held outside the Labour conference, she was finally detained.

“I was the oldest there … Maybe they’d never heard of me, the police up in Liverpool,” said Owen, who in 2013 received an OBE for her contribution to advancing women’s human rights, especially widows’.

Merseyside Police said 82 people were arrested in the same protest “on suspicion of wearing/carrying an article supporting a proscribed organisation” and have since been released on bail.

The Metropolitan Police did not comment on Owen specifically, but told Al Jazeera that, in London, “officers may not have witnessed an offence being committed, or the circumstances may not have met the necessary legal threshold for an arrest at that time”.