Irish author promises to give earnings from BBC book adaptions to proscribed terror group Palestine Action

LONDON — Irish author Sally Rooney has vowed to give fees generated by two BBC adaptations of her books to the Palestine Action group, which was recently proscribed as a terrorist organization in the UK.

The writer, whose second novel “Normal People” (2018) and its 2020 BBC television adaptation won her international acclaim, announces her plans in the Irish Times.

Rooney says she had chosen the Dublin-based newspaper to publicize her intention rather than a UK one as doing so “would now be illegal” after the government banned Palestine Action as a terrorist group in early July.

“The UK’s state broadcaster… regularly pays me residual fees. I want to be clear that I intend to use these proceeds of my work, as well as my public platform generally, to go on supporting Palestine Action and direct action against genocide in whatever way I can,” she writes.

More than 700 people have been arrested, mostly at demonstrations, since the group was outlawed under the Terrorism Act 2000.

“I feel obliged to state once more that like the hundreds of protesters arrested last weekend, I too support Palestine Action. If this makes me a ‘supporter of terror’ under UK law, so be it,'” Rooney says.

The government ban on Palestine Action came into force on July 5, days after the group took responsibility for a break-in at an air force base in southern England that caused an estimated £7 million ($9.3 million) of damage to two aircraft.

The group said its activists were responding to Britain’s indirect military support for Israel during the war in Gaza.