UK Law Firm Investigated for Petition to Declassify Hamas as Terrorist Group

Riverway Law, a London-based immigration firm, found itself under scrutiny from the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) for representing Hamas, a terrorist organization responsible for heinous atrocities. In April 2025, the firm submitted a 106-page appeal to Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, demanding the removal of Hamas from the UK’s list of proscribed terrorist groups. Hamas’s military wing was banned in 2001, but former Home Secretary Priti Patel extended the prohibition to the entire group in 2021, recognizing its unified terrorist agenda. Riverway’s filing outrageously claims Hamas poses “no threat to the UK people” and argues the ban stifles political solutions, academic discourse, and criminalizes Gaza’s Arab residents. This assertion is grotesque, given Hamas’s October 7, 2023, massacre, which killed 1,200 people, including 18 British citizens, marking one of the deadliest terrorist attacks on Britons abroad as well as Hamas executing Gazans who protest their control of the strip.

The SRA confirmed it is “looking into the information we have before deciding on next steps” after Shadow Justice Secretary Robert Jenrick lodged a complaint, citing potential breaches of UK sanctions rules and the conduct of Fahad Ansari, Riverway’s director. Jenrick stated, “Fahad Ansari is a practicing solicitor who has been reported to counter-terrorism policing on six occasions. For two decades he has displayed public sympathy for terrorists, from Hamas to the Taliban.” Disturbing posts uncovered by the Campaign Against Antisemitism reveal Ansari’s vile rhetoric, calling the beheading of Israeli babies during the October 7 attacks “imaginary” and claiming hostage Mia Schem was “safer with Hamas.” He has also described Hamas as “a legitimate resistance movement” shielding Arabs from “UK-sponsored Israeli genocide,” exposing his anti-Israel bias and disregard for Hamas’s oppression of Palestinians.

Conservative MPs, led by Jenrick, demand Ansari’s disbarment, arguing the “legal profession is being damaged by ideologues exploiting their status to platform extremism.” Despite this, 18 UK student groups and over 80 South African legal professionals, including ANC figures, shamefully backed Riverway, decrying a supposed “campaign of vilification” and alleging a “chilling effect” on free speech. Cooper has 90 days to respond to the application, which, if rejected, could lead to an appeal at the Proscribed Organisations Appeal Commission. Riverway’s defense of Hamas, a group that brutalizes both Israelis and Palestinians under its Gaza tyranny, underscores a dangerous refusal to confront terrorism’s reality.