Derry Activists Targeted and Convicted For Peaceful Palestine Protest
Four pro-Palestine activists from Derry have been fined a combined £375 for their participation in a "peaceful and brief" 2024 march of four hundred people organised by Derry IPSC. Their Socialist Republican barrister is finding grounds for appeal.
Four Derry Pro-Palestine activists – namely senior lecturer Goretti Horgan, artist Nina Pulis, Robert Paul Maxwell and Jude Coffey – were found guilty of “taking part in an unnotified parade” by the Derry Magistrate's Court on Wednesday 16 September.
The ‘unnotified parade’ in question was a peaceful pro-Palestine march along the 260-metre stretch between Derry’s War Memorial and Guildhall on Valentine’s Day 2024. About four hundred people participated in the march, but only the aforementioned four have been convicted by the Court.
Two of the convicted, Horgan and Pulis, are members of the Derry Ireland–Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the ten-year-old civic group that organised the 2024 march, which was described by the Court itself as “peaceful and brief” and “a minor act of civil disobedience”.
In a reel posted to the group’s Facebook page, Horgan informed supporters that the total £375 fine would be payable to Derry IPSC if the defendants’ barrister, British socialist republican Michael Mansfield, cannot find a path to appeal.
Belfast assemblyman Gerry Carroll of People Before Profit has expressed solidarity with the defendants.
Councillor Shaun Harkin of People Before Profit and MP Colum Eastwood of the Social Democratic and Labour Party were initially also charged, but had the cases against them dismissed in May 2026 and November 2025 respectively.
