Second councillor in PSNI T-shirt probe

A second Derry councillor is facing a PSNI probe into the T-shirt he wore at July’s full Derry City and Strabane District Council meeting.

People Before Profit councillor Shaun Harkin received a letter from PSNI’s Public Order Enquiry Team on Thursday, October 30 via his solicitor Desmond Doherty.

Members of the PSNI delivered a similar letter to the home of Cllr Gary Donnelly the previous week.

Cllr Harkin’s letter stated the PSNI was investigating his T-Shirt under the Terrorism Act 2000.

It added: “The grounds for Police’s [sic] suspicion of this offence arises from your client being identified wearing a ‘Palestine Action’ T-shirt during the meeting which was also livestreamed via YouTube.”

A spokesperson for Derry City and Strabane District Council told The Derry News “the enforcement of the law in relation to proscribed organisations is a matter for the police.

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The spokesperson added: “With regards to Palestine Action, the following motion was carried at the July meeting of Full Council which took place on Wednesday, July 23, at the Guildhall:

“'Council rejects the rationale provided by the British government and Security Minister Dan Jarvis for the proscription of Palestine Action and calls for its immediate overturning.

“'Council supports the legal challenge to Palestine Action’s proscription and will write the High Court to call for the ban to be removed immediately.

“'Council supports all those who have protested the ban on Palestine Action and calls for charges against them to be immediately dropped.

“'Council commends the opposition of the Irish Congress of Trades Unions at its July Delegate Conference in Belfast to the British government’s authoritarian proscription of Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation and the curtailing of human rights, and its demand for all Palestine solidarity campaigners to be protected from intimidation, discrimination, and victimisation.

“'Council commends and supports veteran Civil Rights campaigners who have protested in Derry in solidarity with Palestine Action and in defence of the right to protest and on the basis that protesting genocide is not a crime.

“'Furthermore, Council will write to the British government to express our anger, dismay, and disgust at its continuing and complicity with Israel’s genocide of the people of Gaza and the setting up of a concentration camp on the ruins of Rafah. Council condemns Israel’s murder of more than 1,000 desperate and hungry Palestinians at food distribution sites.

“'Council agrees the Israeli state and its allies are responsible for terrorism and the crime of genocide and urges action to end it as soon as possible. This includes action by the British government, the Irish government, and the Stormont Executive to fully condemn, fully impose military and economic sanctions on Israel and to demand the borders of Gaza are immediately opened to allow full access to food and humanitarian aid'.

“The motion was carried with all members supporting it, except the DUP and UUP who voted against.”

Cllr Harkin’s letter also said PSNI had grounds to suspect he “may have committed an offence under Section 12 (1a) of the Terrorism Act 2000 in that he expressed an opinion or belief that is supportive of a proscribed organisation, in this case Palestine Action, and that in doing so was reckless as to whether a person would be encouraged to support the organisation”.

Palestine Action is a British pro-Palestinian direct action network founded in 2020. It was proscribed by British Home Secretary Yvette Cooper in July 2025.

Palestine Action is challenging its proscription and on October 16, 2025, the Court of Appeal upheld permission for the organisation’s judicial review to proceed against the Home Office.

A spokesperson for the NI Policing Board told The Derry News, the decision to issue the letter was an operational matter for the Chief Constable.