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Soon we'll all be terrorists

Politics
#1

At least if the government has its way, according to a policy paper

" # Proscribed terrorist groups or organisations".

Dated September 2023
O their Prophetic Souls.

Maybe Sir Kid Bomber will save us.
Except that it’s all based on Tony Blair’s Terrorism Bill of 2000. Tony B. Liar is probably still advising on how to make the most of it.

I took this from the latest draft which is Sep. 2023, but I don’t know what parts are actually new or may exist already.

Proscription criteria

Proscription offences

Proscription makes it a criminal offence to:

belong, or profess to belong, to a proscribed organisation in the UK or overseas (section 11 of the act)
invite support for a proscribed organisation (the support invited need not be material support, such as the provision of money or other property, and can also include moral support or approval) (section 12(1))

express an opinion or belief that is supportive of a proscribed organisation, reckless as to whether a person to whom the expression is directed will be encouraged to support a proscribed organisation (section 12(1A))

(And …Other stuff about belonging, meeting, clothing etc)

So what does the govt want to do to you?

Depends on the ‘offense’. Though not really…“whatever they want to” is allowed by the wording.

The three categories of the Terrorism bill referred to here are .

Offences
11. Membership
12. Support
13. Uniform

What are the penalties for a proscription offence?

The penalties for proscription offences under sections 11 and 12 are a maximum of 14 years in prison and/or a fine. The maximum penalty for a section 13 offence is 6 months in prison and/or a fine not exceeding £5,000.

So a ‘uniform’ offense is the same, the same six month job. Unless it somes under ‘support’.

But if you look at the bolded bits, the ‘invite support’ and ‘express a view’ parts relate to section 12 and the whopping “14 years in prison”
Or you might get off lightly with an unlimited fine.

I haven’t seen any reactions on this, so I don’t know how real this prospect is.

Saying for example Hamas aren’t terrorists, or calling for a ceasefire would count as expressing suppport for Hamas.
Not because of any terrorist activity, which you might argue in court, but because they are proscribed by the government - which you can’t argue with as it’s a fact.

But the idea clealry seems to be to suppress dissenting commentary by designating it support for terrorism.
And for there to be fewer freedom to vocie disagreement here than you might have in Myanmar.

ED

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#2

I’d read that as meaning that were I to start a Twitter hashtag #IbackH4M45 and gather many likes and retweets I would have committed a crime.

If OTOH I joined the dogpile with #Iback15r43L (masked this time because I effing well do not) that would be not just fine and dandy but cause for praise by the likes of Keef and his Bought-And-Paid-For stooges.

Well: I guess we know where we stand

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#3

Jeez. South Africa, 1950’s. One is ‘banned’ by simple proclamation of the government, restricted to a municipal district, probably required to physically report daily to the local police station. It is an offence to quote banned person or publish anything written by them.

We are not sleep walking into a police state. We are running like mad! Good headline @Evvy_dense

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#4

Yes, exactly that Pat. It was still going strong in the 1980s, as I’m sure you know.

When I was a student at Wits, the Student Union president Sammy Adelman was a banned person. (It pretty much went with the job for a few years.) I think he reported to Braamfontein SAP every weekday. He could still take part in his course (Law student) but could not meet with more than one other person at a time, and all the usual pathetic infantile spiteful crap that Suella Braverman would love to enact here. People rummaged through the bin conspicuously in case any letters received had somehow eluded the interception of post. But really just to ram home the message: watch yourself.

A queue of people would wait a few metres away when he was having a cup of coffee in the Senate House. Meantime Craig Williamson or one of his lot would be observing.

But let’s not forget how a voiceover would quote Gerry Adams et al in case his actual voice triggered a revolution… How long ago was that? Thirty years? Forty even? Things in the UK feel much much darker than they did then.

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#5

After nearly a year to mull over its own political interest, the UK state has moved on its somewhat meagre collection from last October of tenous possible connections to possibly supporting possible terrorists - as defined of course by itself.

In the interim we have seen vast amounts of Israeli terrorism inflicted on the Palestinians. Even criticizing that could be construed as supporting Hamas, and thereby a ‘terrorist activity’ as independent thinking robocops love to say nowadays.

The year of Israeli terror and the fallout might have given the UK government time to reflect. Not on its moral position, but what it can do to clamp down on criticism.

So it seems to have moved

Sarah Wilkinson: arrested by counter-terror cops

Sarah Wilkinson is a Twitter user who flags up Israeli atrocities.
https://x.com/swilkinsonbc?ref_src=twsrc^tfw

I couldn’t even see anything about Hamas here but even if there was the context would clearly indcate her mood of outrage rather than ‘support’.

I might have had more to say on this but I couldn’t improve on this bloke, who didn’t choose his words and thereby properly nailed it::
https://x.com/i/status/1829411902633459943

The next target was Palestine Action’s co-founder Richard Barnard.

Now a Palestine Action activist has been charged under the Terrorism Act

His main crime seems to have been his actions and vocal encouragement to obstructing UK weapon factories producing for Israel. This has been rather effective.

That this plan has been long in the making is clear from this BBC report from soon after October 7.

The UK’s independent (lol) terrorism reviewer is seen citing massacres of Israeli babies that never happened, and, together with the BBC, blatantly deceiving by pretending Barnard’s call to action over UK-produced Israel weaponry is a call to acts of ‘terrorism’ - real ones, that is.

Glorify Hamas and you break law, says UK terror watchdog

And this was last October. Only now is the scheme being put into operation - using the framework assembled last year between the government and its slavish helpers - to create and exploit the potential for confusion.
The logically mindless terrorist laws, and the hyprocritical government (red or blue stripe) need this confusion, and the devotion of the shameless BBC (and the legal profession too of course), to pull this off.

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#6

As one of the subheads put it:

Protecting ‘the interests of a foreign genocidal entity’ = good.

Speaking up for one of the world’s most atrociously oppressed populations = glorifying Hamas.

Absolutely chilling.

My settee will be under arrest next

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#7

The details of this supposed anti-terror operation are more chilling than appears at first sight.

Partial written summary here; (H/T TLN)

Half of the police seemed to be wearing balaclavas. Several actions of these supposed officers read more like thuggery. This woman was terrorised by them, and abused. Sitting in a car going on a jaunt while she is cuffed and not seat-belted? They went out of their way to show deliberate cruelty in other ways too.

The bail conditions are something else. 5-year stretch if you break them, without a court?

I couldn’t find a reference to this in the Terrorism Act. If true - and its what she was told - it means the bail aspects stiffens the powers under the Act far beyond those arising from the original alleged offence. Under threat of being disappeared, the victim has to allow their life to be damaged and their ability to function in any professional or - in this day and age, human - capacity to be stubbed out at one unaccountable stroke.
And this can happen on the basis of one tweet, or allegation of a tweet.

The bail conditions were presumably originally discussed and sold under the presumption that in a situation of extreme threat to the public, a suspected “terrorist supporter” might run off and “help terrorists”.

The nature of this alleged “support” here (a tweet by someone in a journalistic capacity) shows the letter of the Act is being deliberately abused; but also reveals that this significant, unaccountable bonus power from the shameful bail conditions - unnecessary outwith a genuine, dire emergency - was built-in in 2000 by design. It confers brutal powers to the state to inflict serious harm on harmless critics, all under a false pretence.

Loads of people have accidentally referenced Hamas as Sarah W did. The difference is, she was reaching many people with her harrowing accounts and pictures of Israeli atrocities. That’s presumably why she was singled out for cruel and degrading punishment. And b-all to do with Hamas!

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#8

“Thuggery?” That’s a very polite euphemism @Evvy_dense This is the Stasi. Of course finding a good lawyer and barrister who will work pro bono is impossible in a Stasi state. Every person living in the UK should see this.

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#9

Thanks Pat. I agree urgent high powered legal attention is badly needed. I don’t know what the options are about supposedly legal bail ‘disappearances’ (a term aptly coined by councilestatemedia in the link above I should say); initially I thought these rights-trashing, terror-related legal evasions should be challengeable in a straightforward way - but there may be no legal process.
If this is even possible then it needs dragged out into the open and challenged legally and politically. For me it is not legal and the defence of ‘self defence’ may arise if it turns ugly for somebody. Why should an upright citizen ‘come alonga me if you please’, if there is not to be a legal process? Without a process the officer is arguably then assaulting them.
But finding a way in from the outside for a barrister may be an additional challenge.

Yeah, it’s stasi for sure but that’s a bit like fascist - it’s a term blunted by being in use already! For some people (I read a copy of ‘the Spectator’ yesterday and can give you a reference!) Stasiness is sometimes required! No one would admit to ‘thuggery’ as it’s criminal - and there must be criminality in there somewhere. The whole thing looks as if it is teeming with it - from the politicians’ and lawyers’ bureaux, to the officer’s handcuffs - and the rest.
It’s like the skirmishing is over and the war on the people has started proper.

Cheers

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#10

Is there a List-D notice on this arrest? Nothing in the Guartdian or BBC, presume all mainstream.

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#11

Thanks for these Evvy. Here’s another one:

More at Craig’s blog:

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#12

Excellent info; I liked the point about the Girl Guides!

Thanks Rich.

#13

School teacher arrested after not endorsing transgenderism