A Cambridge University academic has been photographed expressing solidarity with proscribed organisation Palestine Action.

Dr Belinda Bell, a member of the Land Economy faculty, wore a black t-shirt emblazoned with the message “We are all Palestine Action” at a Pro-Palestine Rally on October 10.

Around 150 people took part in a rally in Cambridge city centre, bringing traffic to a standstill. The ‘Shut it Down’ protest was organised by the Cambridge Palestine Solidarity Campaign to mark 2 years of the war in Gaza.

Bell is a co-director of Finance for Systemic Change, a group which aims to “enact rapid and meaningful change within the existing financial system”. She is also a Visiting Fellow at the Judge Business School, and received the vice chancellor’s award for public engagement with research.

Palestine Action was proscribed as a terrorist organisation in July this year, after a group of activists broke into RAF Brize Norton and caused £7 million worth of damage. As a designated terrorist organisation, expressing support for the group is punishable by up to 14 years in prison.

More than 2100 people have been arrested at demonstrations since the proscription was introduced.

This is not the first time Bell has expressed support for Palestine. In May last year she was one of 400 University staff members and fellows to sign an open letter in support of pro-Palestine protestors setting up encampments on college grounds.

The letter called on the University to “disclose the University of Cambridge’s financial ties with institutions and companies complicit in Israel’s violations of international law,” and to divest from those organisations.

Bell is a former chair of trustees of the trans charity Mermaids, which was set up to provide care and support to transgender, non-binary and gender-diverse children and young people. Mermaids was investigated by the Charity Commission in 2024 after 62 complaints.

While the report did conclude the charity had been “mismanaged,” there was no evidence of misconduct.

Dr Bell is not the first Cambridge academic to risk arrest. In 2023, English professor Jason Scott-Warren was arrested at a Just Stop Oil protest in London. At the time, he criticised the government’s “draconian anti-protest legislation”.

The University of Cambridge and Dr Belinda Bell were contacted for comment.